Description: In a complex judgement, the Supreme Court of Canada has upheld an Ontario law that limits the bargaining rights of farm workers. The court ruled that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms gives workers the right to bargain with their employers, but that “it does not guarantee a legislated dispute resolution mechanism in the case of an impasse.”

Source: slaw.ca

Date: 04/29/2011

Link: http://www.slaw.ca/2011/04/29/scc-decision-in-fraser-v-ontario/

Related links:

• Prof. David Doorey’s workplace law blog
• Globe and Mail article (Note – the headline on this article appears to be inaccurate. See the above link.)
• The United Food and Commercial Workers’ response to the decision
• The SCC decision
• The Agricultural Employees Protection Act, 2002

Questions for discussion:

• How does this decision fit with previous Supreme Court of Canada rulings on the Charter and industrial relations?
• Agricultural employers say that having to deal with unions would make it extremely difficult for them to do business. What arguments can you think of to support this claim?
• What arguments do you think a union would use in response to this claim?
• In the Globe and Mail story linked above, law professor Allan Hutchinson asks: “What good is a recognition of rights if the least advantaged and most disenfranchised in society – agricultural workers – cannot access them?” Do you agree or disagree with him?
• In the same story, Brad Elberg, who represented the Mounted Police Members’ Legal Fund before the court, says the court was correct to resist organized labour’s attempts to use the Charter “to impose on government its vision of the ideal model of collective bargaining.” What other models of collective bargaining are there?