This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
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A ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada on Friday morning has stressed that workers have a constitutional right to strike. Writing for the majority in a 5-2 ruling, Justice Rosalie Abella stated that “the right to strike is an essential part of a meaningful collective bargaining process in our system of labour relations.”
The ruling highlighted that even though the governments are allowed to limit right to strike for essential workers, it should be no more than necessary. Furthermore, it was added that not all public-sector workers should necessarily be considered to do essential services. The ruling was made in a Saskatchewan case in which public-sector unions challenged a 2008 provincial law passed by Premier Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party, which limited the right to strike by workers deemed by the government to be in essential services. Furthermore, Justice Abella pointed out that the law allowed the government to unilaterally decide which workers were essential, while denying them access to effective alternatives for resolving labour disputes.
In her remarks, Justice Abella highlighted that “the right to strike also promotes equality in the bargaining process,” adding that “this Court has long recognized the deep inequalities that structure the relationship between employers and employees, and the vulnerability of employees in this context. While strike activity itself does not guarantee that a labour dispute will be resolved in any particular manner, or that it will be resolved at all, it is the possibility of a strike which enables workers to negotiate their employment terms on a more equal footing.”
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