The Law of Work
  • Home
  • About
  • Professor David Doorey
  • Osgoode Hall LLM
  • Books
  • Guest Contributors
  • Useful Links
    • Archive
  • Home
  • About
  • Professor David Doorey
  • Osgoode Hall LLM
  • Books
  • Guest Contributors
  • Useful Links
    • Archive
The Law of Work
Law of Work Archive

Labour Law Exam Question: Could Unionizing Help Zellers Employees Who Will be Turfed at Behest of Target?

by David Doorey May 3, 2012
written by David Doorey May 3, 2012

I’ve discussed the impending entry of Target into Canada and the employment and labour law implications before:

Did Target Purchase Collective Agreements as Well as Leases from Zellers? (Sept. 2011)
Will Target Canada Buy the Unionized Zellers Stores? (April 2011)
Target’s Anti-Union Video, with My Commentary for Future Canadian Target Employees (June 2011)

 
The Huffington Post ran a story this week discussing how Zellers has announced the termination of thousands of employees employed in the stores that will be transferred to Target.  This can’t be considered a surprise, even though the employees quoted in the story exclaim that they were stunned and shocked by the announcement.  Zellers employees, with the UFCW, have launched a campaign to shame Target into treating the Zellers employees with respect by allowing them to keep their jobs when the Zellers stores become Targets next summer.  Here is the Target Fairness website.
The story notes, as did I last year, that there is  good argument that the collective agreements at the unionized Zellers stores being transferred to Target will flow to Target as a successor employer.  That would put Target in a different situation than Walmart when it first arrived in Canada, requiring it to deal with the UFCW in those stores.  Walmart did not take over any of the unionized Woolco stores. The Supreme Court of Canada in a case called Town of Ajax found that the transfer of employees from company A to company B created the necessary nexus on which to base a finding of a sale of business.  While the workers won that case, it did create an incentive for businesses to avoid retaining existing employees when there is a business transfer of some sort.  I presume Target received an opinion that the successor provisions would not bind them to the Zellers’ collective agreements, but the labour boards will have to decide that.
Or, maybe Target will take the high road and simply agree to assume the collective agreements and not fire the unionized Zellers workers.  HA! “Sometimes, I just think funny things” (Dudley Moore, Arthur).
Here’s a nice advanced Labour Law exam question:
Assume that nonunion Zellers employees have been told they will be terminated next spring, but they remain Zellers employees until then.  Now assume that a majority of employees in each of the Zellers stores choose to join a union, and a union gets certified as their representative under the applicable provincial labour laws.  Let’s use Ontario as an example.  Now that the union is certified, it will serve Zellers with a ‘notice to bargain’ a first collective agreement.  Before a collective agreement is reached, however, the store lease transfers to Target and the employees are all fired by Zellers.
Now read Section 69(3) of the Act:

(3) Where an employer on behalf of whose employees a trade union … has been certified … sells .. its business, the trade union continues… until the Board otherwise declares, to be the bargaining agent for the employees of the person to whom the business was sold…and the trade union… is entitled to give to the person to whom the business was sold a written notice of its desire to bargain with a view to making a collective agreement …  and such notice has the same effect as a notice under section 16

“Sell”  includes “leases, transfers and any other manner of disposition” (section 69(1).  Section 16 is the section that allows a newly certified union the right to serve a notice to commence collective bargaining on the employer.
Exam Questions:

Does the Labour Relations Act require Target to rehire the recently unionized, but dismissed Zellers employees, and continue collective bargaining with the union?
If there has been a “sale of business” from Zellers to Target, then would it be in the interests of nonunion Zellers employees to quickly unionize and serve notice to bargain on Zellers, before the ‘sale” takes place?
Do you think that the Labour Board should have the discretion to refuse to allow the employees to do this?

0 comment
0
FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail
David Doorey

Professor Doorey is an Associate Professor of Work Law and Industrial Relations at York University. He is Academic Director of Osgoode Hall Law School’s executive LLM Program in Labour and Employment Law and a Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program. Professor Doorey is a graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School (LL.B., Ph.D), London School of Economics (LLM Labour Law), and the University of Toronto (B.A., M.I.R.).

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

previous post
Osgoode Hall Law School's LLM in Labour & Employment Law Set to Begin Again
next post
Privacy Commissioner Joins Chorus in Condemning Employers Who Seek Passwords to Social Media Accounts

You may also like

This Blog Entry is About the Lunacy of...

July 21, 2019

A Cross Country Update on the Card-Check versus...

October 3, 2018

The Folly of Not Voting to Strike in...

September 16, 2018

Unifor Posts Photos of Replacement Workers as Gander...

September 10, 2018

A Wrongful Dismissal Case and the Absence of...

August 29, 2018

China Said to Quickly Withdraw Approval for New...

August 27, 2018

The Latest Hot E-Commerce Idea in China: The...

August 27, 2018

The Trump Administration Just Did Something Unambiguously Good...

August 27, 2018

Unstable Situations Require Police In Riot Gear Face...

August 27, 2018

Trump’s War on the Justice System Threatens to...

August 27, 2018

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 337 other subscribers

Follow Us On Social Media

Twitter

Latest Tweets

David J. Doorey🇨🇦Follow

Law Prof. Talking #labor & #employment #law #Gig to the masses. Alpaca ❤️ @YorkUniversity @OsgoodeNews @LSELaw @LWPHarvard @Jacobin @OnLaborBlog https://t.co/5V9r8VPHsh

David J. Doorey🇨🇦
TheLawofWorkDavid J. Doorey🇨🇦@TheLawofWork·
8h

If one these dimwits was a Sacha Baron Cohen-like comedian playing the role of a Republican would any one notice?

PatriotTakes 🇺🇸@patriottakes

Marjorie Taylor Greene believes generating electricity from “wind turbines and solar panels” will result in the loss of air conditioning and home appliances.

Greene: “I like the lights on. I want to stay up later at night. I don’t want to have to go to bed when the sun sets.”

Reply on Twitter 1558630572783722497Retweet on Twitter 15586305727837224972Like on Twitter 15586305727837224974Twitter 1558630572783722497
TheLawofWorkDavid J. Doorey🇨🇦@TheLawofWork·
10h

A student told me she is translating chapters of my book into Korean because she learned a lot and wants it as a reference but English is her second language.

Any Korean speakers out there? What does this say?

일의 법칙

Reply on Twitter 1558595466182393858Retweet on Twitter 1558595466182393858Like on Twitter 1558595466182393858Twitter 1558595466182393858
TheLawofWorkDavid J. Doorey🇨🇦@TheLawofWork·
10h

I have no idea who this person is or what is going on in Peterborough.

There’s a world of crazy around me that I’m missing.

Caryma Sa'd - Lawyer + Political Satirist@CarymaRules

Romana Didulo provides entertainment for the thinned out crowd in the form of her favourite song, Rasputin.

#cdnpoli #Peterborough #QAnon

Reply on Twitter 1558592062097956865Retweet on Twitter 1558592062097956865Like on Twitter 15585920620979568653Twitter 1558592062097956865
Load More...

Categories

  • Alberta
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Australia
  • British Columbia
  • Charter of Rights and Freedoms
  • Childcare
  • Class Action
  • Climate and Just Transition
  • Collective Bargaining
  • Common Law of Employment
  • Comparative Work Law
  • competition law
  • construction
  • COVID-19
  • Diversity
  • Employee Classification
  • Employment Insurance
  • Employment Regulation
  • Europe
  • Financial Industry
  • Fissured Work
  • Freedom of Association
  • frustration of contract
  • Gig Work
  • Health and Safety
  • Health Care
  • Human Rights
  • Immigration
  • Interest Arbitration
  • International Law
  • Labour Arbitration
  • Labour Economics
  • Law of Work Archive
  • Legal Profession
  • Manitoba
  • Migrant Workers
  • Minimum Wage
  • Nova Scotia
  • OLRB
  • Ontario
  • Pension Bankruptcy
  • Privacy
  • Public Sector
  • Quebec
  • Real Life Pleadings
  • Saskatchewan
  • Scholarship
  • Sports Labour
  • Strikes and Lockouts
  • Student Post
  • Supreme Court of Canada
  • technology
  • Transnational Law
  • Uncategorized
  • Unions and Collective Bargaining
  • United States
  • Videos
  • Women and Work
  • Wrongful Dismissal
  • Home
  • About
  • Guest Contributors
Menu
  • Home
  • About
  • Guest Contributors
  • Legal Scholarship
  • Useful Links
  • Archive
Menu
  • Legal Scholarship
  • Useful Links
  • Archive

2020. Canadian Law of Work Forum. All Rights Reserved.