It has been a decade since the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that workers do have collective rights, including the right to strike, which employers and governments cannot easily overturn. As labour scholar Charles Smith wrote a decade ago for Rankandfile.ca:
The challenge now is how workers and their unions can transform their legal victory into a political one. If that does not occur, questions of “labour rights” will simply become narrow legal tools that benefit labour lawyers more than workers themselves. If the labour movement is willing to use the right to strike for more activist fight-back strategies that seek to challenge the power of government and employers in the current era, then it really does have the potential to spark broader questions about societal transformation based on workplace justice.
Greetings
Unfortunately I could not attend this event….
But if did, here are some questions I would have sought answers to:
– If the right to bargain collectively and strike are constitutional rights, why are they not included in labour standards ?
– to exercise these fundamental rights presently, why it is necessary to run unions and employees through a certification process that an employer can appose ?
– does the labour movement support or apposed to this proposal ?
I would appreciate it if you would forward these questions to Barb Byers, Larry Hubic and Rick Engel for their comment.
Thanks
Dan