Union Access to Workers during Organizing Campaigns: A New Look through the Lens of B.C. Health Services

Abstract

he Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the recent B.C. Health Services case that the protection of "freedom of association" in s. 2(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms should be interpreted to provide "at least as much protection" for associational rights as is provided by Convention No. 87 of the International Labour Organization. The ILO Committee on Freedom of Association sees the convention as giving trade unions a right of access to employer property when attempting to organize employees. However Canadian statute and common law provides employers with an almost unfettered right to exclude union organizers, even when allowing them to have access would not interfrre with the employer's production interests. This paper examines whether that law will have to be rethought in the wake of the Supreme Court s decision.