UFCW Canada takes ban on Ontario agriculture unions back to court
The rights of Ontario’s more than 100,000 agricultural workers were front and centre as a landmark appeal filed by UFCW Canada was heard May 20 and 21, 2008 by the Ontario Court of Appeal.The application was brought on behalf of three Ontario agricultural workers who worked at the Rol-Land Farms mushroom grow house facility in Kingsville, Ontario who in 2003, along with a majority of the workers at Rol-Land, had voted to form a UFCW Canada unit. The certificate was never issued because under Ontario’s Agricultural Employees Protection Act (AEPA), agricultural workers are excluded from forming unions to bargain collectively.
That exclusion, the appeal argued, is a breach of Ontario agriculture workers’ constitutional rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, section 2(d). The appeal argument was reinforced by a June 2007 decision by Supreme Court of Canada which ruled, "that the Section 2(d) guarantee of Freedom of Association protects the capacity of members of labour unions to engage in collective bargaining on workplace issues." (B.C. Health Services)
Arguing against the appeal was the Attorney General of Ontario, as well as the industry-based Ontario Federation of Agriculture. Ontario and Alberta remain the only two provinces in Canada which continue to deny agriculture workers the right to join a union and bargain collectively.
“Agriculture workers deserve the same rights as any other worker,” says Wayne Hanley, the national president of UFCW Canada.
“Last June’s ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada made it very clear that union activity and collective bargaining are rights, not an option to be granted or denied by the government. UFCW Canada will not stop until those rights are secured at last for agriculture workers in Canada,” said Hanley.
The decision from the Court of Appeal for Ontario is expected sometime before September. The full text of the UFCW Canada appeal can be viewed at www.ufcw.ca/factum (in English only).