Letter to Fred Muzin, President - Hospital Employees Union - Re: Collective Bargaining Rights Protected by the Charter

Fred Muzin
President,
Hospital Employees Union
5000 North Fraser Way
Burnaby, B.C.
V5J 5M3

Dear Brother Muzin:

Re:  Collective Bargaining Rights Protected by the Charter

It is my great pleasure to convey to you that a meeting of the CUPW National Executive Board and all Regional Executive Committees across Canada and Quebec on Monday, June 11, 2007, has adopted a special resolution of congratulations and appreciation to the unions in British Colombia that pursued this Charter case to the Supreme Court.

It is a huge victory for all workers for the Supreme Court to rule that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the process of collective bargaining. The decision provides a major avenue to redress the vicious attack on health-care workers in B.C. and a weapon to use in the fight against privatization of the health care system. But it accomplishes far more than this. It applies to employers and governments across the country and may well, for example, result in the rapid end to the denial of collective bargaining for agricultural worker in Ontario and Alberta, as well as other groups of workers currently not covered by collective bargaining legislation.

It is particularly gratifying because it reverses the judicial retreat of previous Supreme Court decisions from the issue of freedom of association which declared Section 2(d) of the Charter did not extend to protecting collective bargaining rights. There can be no doubt that this decision was forthcoming in large measure due to the tremendous solidarity and militancy that the labour movement brought to the struggle against Bill 29 in 2002, when Premier Campbell initially tore up health care workers’ collective agreements and unconstitutionally laid off 8000 unionized workers.

In fact, the decision recognized that the history of trade unions fighting for collective bargaining rights have influenced the Court’s thinking, to the extent that the judgement “may properly be seen as the culmination of a historical movement toward the recognition of a procedural right to collective bargaining”.

The actions of workers in B.C. and the determination of the unions to see this process through to the end have yielded results which will benefit all of us.

Once again, please accept our congratulations and thanks.

 

In Solidarity,

Deborah Bourque,
National President.

 

c.c.:

National Executive Board
National Union Representatives
Specialists
Local Presidents
Jim Sinclair, President, B.C. Federation of Labour
Ken Georgetti, President, CLC