In early July, the British Columbia Labour Relations Board (BCLRB) certified UFCW-Canada as the bargaining representative for over 500 UBER drivers in the province’s capital city of Victoria. A few days later, the BCLRB issued another decision that certified the union Unifor (formerly the Canadian Auto Workers) for a bargaining unit of hundreds of employees employed at an Amazon distribution centre in suburban Vancouver. These victories are noteworthy not only because of the anti-union corporations involved, but also because the unions were aided by several simple legal rules found in the B.C. Labour Relations Code. (In Canada, labor relations falls primarily within provincial rather than federal jurisdiction.)
UBER, Card-Check, and Dependent Contractor Bargaining Units
UFCW won bargaining rights with barely a fight by Uber, benefitting from two legal rules found in the B.C. labor legislation. The first rule is card-check certification. British Columbia is one of five (of 11) Canadian jurisdictions that permits labor boards to certify a union based on union membership evidence representing a majority of bargaining unit employees (see the chart below from my book The Law of Work). UFCW was certified after the BCLRB confirmed that the union had submitted membership evidence representing greater than 55 percent of drivers in the bargaining unit, which is the required threshold in the B.C. Labour Relations Code. The absence of a requirement for a vote after a union has...
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