The Saskatchewan Employment Act (SEA) provides the rules and regulations for unionizing (organizing) a workplace. The legislation clearly states, “Employees have the right to organize in and to form, join or assist unions and to engage in collective bargaining through a union of their own choosing.”
The Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board (SLRB) is tasked with upholding this fundamental right and protecting employees from coercion or intimidation when they seek to unionize their workplace.
When an employer interferes with an organizing drive, a union can file an “unfair labour practice.” Examples of unfair labour practices under the SEA include cases where an employer:
- Interferes with, restrains, intimidates, threatens or coerces an employee that seeks to bring a union into the workplace;*
- Interferes in the formation or selection of a union;
- Requires as a condition or term of employment that employees abstain from joining, assisting or being active in a union;
- Discriminates against an employee with respect to hiring, length of employment or any other condition of employment, or terminates or suspends an employee, in order to discourage membership in or support of a union;
- Spies on union members or questions employees as to whether they are union members or supporters.
The Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board has broad powers to order employers to stop committing unfair labour practices, to reinstate employees unjustly dismissed and to order employers to pay lost wages and benefits.
Where an employer suspends or fires an employee during a union organizing drive the employer can be required to prove that the firing or suspension was not because of their support for or membership in the union. Otherwise, the SLRB can find that the employer committed an unfair labour practice. The SLRB may hear a case quickly if an employee is suspended or fired and can often order the employer to reinstate an employee back to work immediately – pending a full hearing of the matter at a later date.
* The SEA, however, does not prevent an employer from “communicating facts and its opinions to its employees.”
CUPE CAN HELP!
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AIMEE NADON, Organizer
anadon@cupe.ca | 1-306-631-1844