Report Finds Lack of Accountability, Transparency at Alberta Labour Relations Board

Report Release Speaking Notes
AFL President Gil McGowan
June 22, 2006

When people in Alberta's government and business circles get together, they like to brag about our province being "Number One."

"We're number one in oil and gas. We're number one in economic growth. We're number one in investment."

Now, it may be true that we're at the top of the heap in all of those areas.

But everyone in this room knows that when it comes to labour law, we're at the bottom of the pile.

Call it the Alberta DIS-advantage for working people.

No other province or jurisdiction in the country has more restrictive labour legislation.

No other province or jurisdiction in the country shows so little regard for the right of workers to join unions.

And no other province or jurisdiction in the country makes it so difficult to bargain collectively.

When you're a union member or union activist working in this kind of environment, you have to cling to the minimum protections that the law does provide.

And, when you go to court or appear before the Labour Board, you have to hope that, while the law may not be fair, its interpretation and application will be.

That's why we're here today.

We're not here because we have bad labour law - we've known that for a long time.

We're here because we have grave concerns about the institutions and systems our province has in place to apply the law.

In particular, we have concerns about our province's labour court - the Alberta Labour Relations Board.

Most of you are familiar with the history behind those concerns. But, for our purposes this morning, it bears repeating.

A little more than three years ago, the Alberta government rammed Bill 27 through the Legislature.

Clint Dunford was Minister of Human Resources at the time - and he described it as administrative house-keeping.

But from our perspective, it was anything but housekeeping.

Bill 27 basically allowed the government to tear up dozens of freely negotiated contracts covering the pay and working conditions of tens of thousands of health care workers.

It forced unions into run-off votes, denying many workers the right to choose the union they actually prefer.

And it removed the legal right to strike from thousands of union members in areas like Community Health, Mental Health and Extended Care - without ever attempting to justify how the public interest would be threatened if a speech pathologist or a physio-therapist or community health nurse walked a picket line.

Our concerns about the substance of the law were profound.

In many ways, it was one of the most blatantly anti-union pieces of legislation that we've seen in more than 20 years - and that's really saying something in a province like Alberta.

But we also had serious concerns about the process. In particular, we were concerned about the role that the Labour Board played in drafting the law.

In the years since Bill 27 was passed, the Federation of Labour and a number of our affiliates in the health sector have been digging. We've been trying to piece together a picture of where Bill 27 came from and how it was developed.

Not surprisingly, the government and the Labour Relations Board have fought us every step of the way.

But as a result of persistence and a little good luck, we were finally able, last November, to get our hands on a number of interesting documents.

What those documents show is that a senior member of the Board - one of its vice chairs - helped draft the regulations attached to Bill 27.

They show that the Board vice-chair who help draft the law, later chair the panel that interpreted it.

They show that the Board met and consulted with government.

They even show that an employer-side lawyer may have been involved in the process.

And, to top it off, all of this was done in secret.

The Board never told health care workers or their unions that they were helping the government draft legislation that was going to be used against them.

And they never mentioned that the board vice-chair who helped on Bill 27 would be the same one sitting as judge in the major cases challenging the new law.

That's why the labour movement has been boiling for months. And it's why we haven't been willing to let this issue go.

The Labour Relations Board is supposed to be the impartial referee in all labour relations matters. It is supposed to be free from influence from both employers and unions. And it is supposed to be independent from government.

But as a result of the revelations around Bill 27, there's a crisis of confidence in Alberta's labour relations community.

Many Alberta workers and unions are no longer convinced that the Labour Board will act as a truly independent and impartial referee in labour relations matters.

And without confidence in the board, our system of labour relations breaks down.

Since the Bill 27 documents were made public, the government and the LRB have adopted an interesting defence.

After months of saying "we didn't do it" they're argument has become "okay we did it, so what?"
 
Basically they've been arguing that this is the way we've always done business in Alberta, so what's all the fuss?
 
Well, we in the labour movement think that if this is business as usual, then there's something wrong with business as usual.

And we think that the independence and impartiality of the LRB is something worth making a fuss over ...
 
That's why after winning our court case to keep the documents, we made a decision to go to an outside expert.

The government wanted to shrug off our concerns; they wanted to dismiss us and they wanted to leave the impression that this was just yet another example of unions whining and overreacting.
 

In an effort to show that we weren't crazy and that we weren't overreacting,, we went right to the top.

We approached the man who is our main guest today - and asked him if he would be willing to give us his formal written opinion about what has been happening with the LRB here in Alberta.

Professor Lorne Sossin is not one of the "usual suspects".

He's one of Canada's preeminent authorities on administration law. He's associate dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto and he's the author of countless books and articles dealing with the administration of tribunals like our labour board.

Fortunately for us, when we approached him, Prof. Sossin saw this whole issue as an interesting and important academic question - and he agreed to write a report.

Today, it is my pleasure to make that report available to you.

It is also my pleasure to introduce Professor Sossin himself. He's going about his research and summarize findings &

 

 

 

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