Federal court backs Eastlink in union expansion dispute

The Federal Court of Appeals handed a small win to Bragg Communications Inc. in a dispute with trade union Unifor, in which the union was seeking to enlarge a collective bargaining unit of Eastlink Inc. technicians. In a decision published Tuesday, Judge David G. Near found that the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) did not provide sufficient reasoning when it determined that this bargaining unit could be substantially enlarged. The case dates to 2018, when the CIRB certified a bargaining unit made up of eight technicians working in five Nova Scotia communities across the Annapolis Valley and South Shore regions. In 2019, Unifor sought to expand that bargaining unit to include 12 technicians from another five communities within those two regions (court documents state that there were six employees in the original group and 11 in the enlargement, however, a Unifor representative said this is an error). This expansion drew objections from Bragg on the basis that it would nearly triple the size of the bargaining unit, and cover an unsuitably large geographic area, making a collective agreement difficult to implement. However, CIRB approved the expansion in December 2019, because the newly-added employees from the expanded regions had delivered majority support for unionization, and the original employees had not objected. Bragg then sought judicial review of this expansion on the grounds that CIRB had given “inadequate” reasons for its decision. In response, Near found that although CIRB had spelled out its reasons for why the newly enlarged bargaining unit would be representative, the Board had not given appropriate consideration to Bragg’s concerns about whether the expanded unit would be “appropriate” because of its larger geographical size. “Without the benefit of any of reasoning on the issue of appropriateness of the bargaining unit, it is impossible to assess whether its conclusion is reasonable,” Near wrote in his decision. “The Board was required to set out its reasoning on the issue of appropriateness, just as it did regarding the question of the union’s representative character.” The appeal is not a guaranteed win for Bragg, though: Near returned the issue to the Industrial Relations Board for reconsideration, leaving the door open for the expansion to be approved again. Responding to the decision, Unifor telecommunications director Roch LeBlanc said that he expects the situation to ultimately be resolved in the union’s favour, in an interview with The Wire Report. “At this point what Unifor expects is that it’s only a matter of technicality. We know that the board, once it has the chance to provide reasons, will have closed that loophole and will satisfy the Federal Court of Appeal.”

Federal court backs Eastlink in union expansion dispute

Brief | March 24, 2021

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Federal court backs Eastlink in union expansion dispute

Brief | March 24, 2021

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