The Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) has rejected the Canada Post workers union's argument that the government's return to work order is unconstitutional.
December 13, 2024 Federal Labor Minister Steve McKinnon exercised his powers pursuant to section 107 of the Canada Labor Code, direct the CIRB to end the postal workers' strike and arbitrate the labor dispute..
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) said using Section 107 to end the strike was unconstitutional and questioned whether striking workers' Charter rights were violated.
In its decision, the CIRB recognized the right to strike as “essential” but “not absolute”.
Ultimately, the board concluded that the use of Section 107 did not violate the Charter. The council also found that it did not have the power to review the minister's direction suspending workers' right to strike.
One of the three council members dissented.
Union member Paul Moist wrote a dissenting opinion and sided with the union, calling the minister's use of the labor code “reverse engineering of the highest order.”
“Section 107 has been used as a tool of political expediency to avoid the parliamentary process and public debate,” he wrote.
In Moist's opinion, the board should not have been allowed to issue the Secretary of Labor's order to resume work because it limited or suspended workers' right to strike, thereby violating their charter right to a meaningful process of free collective bargaining.
CUPW also filed an application for judicial review, but the federal court has yet to make a decision.
Hotly contested legislation
Trade unions have consistently denounced the government's use of Section 107 as a tool to intervene in labor disputes, saying that creates a dangerous precedent for the workers' right to strike.
They argue that this tool, which has been repeatedly used by the Liberal government to intervene in strikes, discourages employers in federally regulated industries from meaningful participation in negotiations and undermined the government's ability end the strikes.
Section 107 has been part of the code since 1984 and has been used rarely, but the Liberal government has used it several times in recent years.
The use of code to intervene in a strike came to the fore recently when then Labor Minister Patty Hajdu ordered an end to the Air Canada flight attendant strike just hours after it began – an order that the union ignored.
In addition to the dispute with Air Canada, the government has recently used this provision in labor disputes between workers and Canada's two largest railway companiesports in Montreal and Vancouver and Canada Post.
