Supreme Court Challenge – Setback

• On Monday, Feb. 3, 2020, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Giaschi clarified his July 2019 ruling, saying that he intended for the Labour Board to address Charter values related to the CBA after all, not the Court.
• This clarification comes almost 7 months after the original ruling.
• However, there has been no ruling on the merits of the case, and we will be appealing to have our case heard by the Court as quickly as possible.

The key aspects of our challenge have not changed:

• Central issue – fairness/openness/transparency in how government infrastructure projects are tendered and how workers and construction contractors are treated.
• We are not challenging the collective agreement or any other issue within the jurisdiction of the LRB.
• Government is forcing workers to join unions that it chooses not unions that workers choose, and it is excluding construction contractors whose workers are not organized by their favoured unions.
• If companies are successful in winning government work, their employees should not be forced to:
  • Quit their current employer and become an employee of a new government crown corporation;
  • Leave their benefits and pension plans behind; and
  • Join a union selected by the Government.
  • Contractors should not face the risk of losing their employees in a market when one of the biggest issues facing contraction contractors is the shortage of workers.
  • 85% of the men and women in B.C. are shut out of government funded projects along with 82% of all registered trades apprentices in the province.