Employment and Labour Law

For Union:

• The employer failed to bargain in good faith by refusing to meet; cancelling meetings, rescheduling meetings, not giving the negotiating team any power to bargain, surface bargaining, deliberate provocation, refusing to justify a position, (Olivio, 2013)
• Section 17 of the OLRA states that the parties must have the true decision maker at the table. (Olivio, 2013). The negotiating team was included more junior members of the human resource department.
•  Surface bargaining is evident as the employer agrees to meet and discuss the issues but a real effort was not made to reach an agreement when the employer withdrew several concessions it had made without any explanation.

For Employer:

- According to Section 17   of the Ontario Labour Relations Act, the parties must meet within 15 days after the notice to bargain has been given or they must agree on a later meeting time.  (Olivio, 2013)

- Section 16 of the Ontario Labour Relations Act states that once the union is certified or voluntarily recognized, it must give notice to the employer to bargain. (Olivio, 2013)

- Section 65 of the Act says that if the union fails to do so within 60 days, it risks being decertified because it is “sleeping on its rights”. Also according to section 65 of the act, if the union fails to give notice to bargain for renewal in accordance with the OLRA or the collective agreement, the employer may apply to terminate the union’s bargaining rights because it has abandoned this workplace. (Olivio, 2013)

For Union:

• Conciliation has taken place and not resulted in a new agreement.
• Under Section 79 of the Act, more than 50% of the voters must be in favour of the strike. 89% of the members voted to strike. (Olivio, 2013)
• The collective agreement should have expired for the strikes to be permitted. As the agreement expires March 1st, the employees went on strike March 2nd, which is acceptable.

For Employer:

• No strikes are permitted during the term of a collective agreement. As the collective agreement had expired on March 1st, no strikes are permitted during the term of a collective agreement. On December 7th, the union instructing its members not to show up for the next day, is a form of illegal striking, which violates the OLRA. (Olivio, 2013)
• The minister of labour must have issued a decision that a conciliation board will not be appointed, a no board report should be issued for the legality of strike. (Olivio, 2013)
• Also a cooling off period of fourteen days must have gone by after the issuing the no-board report.
• Under Section 79 of the Act the union must have conducted a strike vote, which the earliest could be is 30 days before the agreement expires. The union voted on January 15th, which was more than 30 days before the expiry of agreement (March 1st).