'It’s not good for negotiations, and it’s actively bad for labour peace,' says lawyer discussing downsides of relying on Section 107
Are employers like Air Canada increasingly counting on goverment intervention when it comes to disruptive labour action?
Aaron Zaltzman, associate at Whitten and Lublin, thinks so. He says the airline's response to the strike “was proof that employers are relying on it, that it is a precedent."
At the heart of the issue is Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, a provision that allows the federal government to end otherwise legal strikes by forcing binding arbitration.
Zaltzman says the system was built to limit wildcat strikes and direct action in exchange for easier union recognition, but it has also allowed employers to count on Ottawa stepping in when work stoppages grow disruptive.
“It was never supposed to be a case where the employer would just say, 'We don’t really have to negotiate in good faith, because as soon as the strike gets too disruptive, the government’s going to step in and force them into arbitration,’” he says.
For Air Canada, the reliance was obvious. Zaltzman notes that the CEO admitted the company had no real contingency plan for passengers, since they expected intervention. But the bigger concern, he argues, is with Ottawa, which has turned to Section 107 repeatedly – four or five times in just the past 18 months – to shut down strikes it deemed too disruptive.
That...
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