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The Law of Work
Law of Work Archive

York Transit Strike, and the Mandatory Ratification Vote

by David Doorey February 17, 2011
written by David Doorey February 17, 2011

One of the changes introduced to Ontario labour law by the Mike Harris Conservative government in 1995 was mandatory ratification votes. Since part of the Harris government’s spin was that unions are untrusthworthy and corrupt, it made sense for the government to pass a law that said no collective agreement is valid unless and until successful ratification vote is held of the employees covered by the proposed collective agreement.  This law does not always help employers.  The new law now appears in Section 44 of the Labour Relations Act.  It says this:

A proposed collective agreement that is entered into or memorandum of settlement that is concluded on or after the day on which this section comes into force has no effect until it is ratified

This means that even if an employer and the union’s bargaining team reach a deal on a new collective agreement, the employees can turn around and reject it.  That is what happened this week in York Region, as the employees of Veolia Transit, which provides the transit system for parts of York Region, rejected the tentative collective agreement entered into by the union and the employer a few days earlier.
The employees must also “vote” to strike, since we also have mandatory strike votes.  So the law now tests the wishes of the employees in the certification process, the strike process, and the collective bargaining stage.  All of this legal intervention is supposed to ensure that the collective bargaining process is “democratic”.
I actually like the mandatory collective agreement ratification and strike vote requirements. To me, it removes the need for certification ballots, which are more troublesome given the tendency for employers to try to interfere in those votes by intimidating workers.  In my mind, a fairer process for governing access to collective bargaining is the one used in the Federal sector and sought by President Obama, in which workers express their desire to be represented by a union by signing union membership cards (Card-Check).  Concerns expressed by anti card-check groups about card-check being undemocratic fall apart once it is pointed out that all certification gets the union is a chance to bargain a collective agreement that a majority of workers will accept in a ratification vote.  If you think that only ballots are democratic, fear not, the law still requires ratification and strike ballots.  I made this argument a while back in the National Post. This is not a popular argument with employers and anti-union politicians though, because unions have more success organizing workers under a card-check system than a mandatory vote system, and workers might actually like what the union bargains.
Assuming that the Veolia workers have held their strike vote, a strike could now happen at any moment.  The union will try to go back and bargain “more” before a strike starts.  Is transit service in Vaughn and York Region “essential”, or is it just Toronto transit that is essential?  If the workers strike, the Liberal government will be asked to explain that distinction.
Note, by the way, that Veolia is a private company that provides transit services across North America.  The York Region government decided not to provide transit services itself, but to contract out this service, just as the City of Toronto is planning to contract out garbage collection.  The point is that contracting out public services do not guarantee no strikes, notwithstanding Mayor Ford’s assurances otherwise

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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.).

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thelawofwork David J. Doorey🇨🇦 @TheLawofWork@mas.to @thelawofwork ·
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I can’t believe that Almost Famous came out 23 years ago.

Time is flying by.

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I had an LLM student who had a part-time job phantom writing labor arbitration decisions based on arbitrator’s notes and instructions.

Like law clerks do for judges (except parties don’t know about the phantom arb writer).

Is using a machine different? Interesting debate.

Valerio De Stefano @valeriodeste

The crucial part starts on p. 5, where the Court reports the answers to the legal questions they posed to ChatGPT. Then, at the end of p. 6, the Court adopts the arguments given in these answers as grounds for its decision.

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Quebec passed anti-scab legislation in 1977, BC in 1993, & Ontario 1993-95.

Hysterical claims that these laws cause job losses & loss of investment aren't supported by evidence. Businesses just don't like them.

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Seamus O'Regan Jr @SeamusORegan

We’re banning replacement workers, as we said on Oct. 19th.

We’re working with unions and employers to get the balance right.

As agreed, government will introduce legislation by the end of this year.

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