There is still an injustice here unless I do not have all the facts. They should have been awarded all costs incurred in their own defense. The lawyers for the union should have been severely reprimanded by the courts for wasting the courts time on an issue that should not have passed the application stage. Whatever victories are won in our legal system are done so at great cost. Is there no accountability and shame ?

Great job NC - I hope Jeff & April were awarded court and legal costs. Guess that’s too much to expect.

I fully concur with John Douglas’ posting. Perhaps more information regarding this question can be added to today’s blog. Congratulations for helping this pair of civil servants.

As far as I am concerned Jeff and April are scabs and are accepting advancements at the expence of the other people that they work with.
They can refuse to picket, if they have objections to the issues, but they cannot cross a picket line.
Whatever the Union fought for and wins in this cofrontation they will receive exactly the same. But for these two it will be on the backs of the strikers.
If they don’t want to picket they have two choices: stay home or get another job where every thing is cosy.
If the NC take any more side such as this it wont be payed for with my contributions.
J. W. Seaton

Congrats Jeff&April,hope you feel vindicated…
You should be awarded all your legal costs and stress related compensation.

Excelent job LabourWatch and to you NC.

Great news but in Canadan no real progress will be made unless and until the Rand Decision/Formula is reversed. Enforced union dues are a blkight on Canadian workers and their freedoms. The use of enforced union dues for political contributions or purposes also needs to be banned also.
JM

Congratulations Jeff and April and well done NCC and LabourWatch. I also agree with John Douglas that the union should have been made to cover the costs etc. This could have been a small deterrent to stop them from pursuing such nonsense in the future…

Excellent news. I have spent a great deal of my life battling unions in the UK. I got to know a lot of the full-time union officials and they all admitted over pub drinks that they had no time for the “membersheep” as they called them. They became union officials to get away from the drudgery of life on the line or in the mine. They noticed that the management of their respective businesses all showed a great deal of respect (as well as fear) to the union officials and they wanted some of that. So the last thing they would allow was for any member to step out of line as it would affect their personal seniority and prestige. Solidarity was more important than individual rights. I always made time for union meetings during the working day, insisted on minutes of the meeting being published for the membes and the light of day being shone on the backroom corruption in the plants. I got everyone to agree that union decisions taken outside working hours were nul and void, but of course when the going got rough, the unions reneged on that particular deal. My wife and children were threatened everytime we drove a hard bargain. We were told by the local official that life would be smooth if we made a contribution to his son’s college fund! These people have no guts and no morals. When I retire, I shall devote my life to making union membership as toxic as membership of the Klan.

Read J. W. Seaton above. His is a typical unionist’s evasion of the truth. The union is nothing more than a mob using strength of numbers to extort unearned benefits from the employer. Scheming politicians pander to unions because they represent large voting blocs. A free society needs unions like it needs more lawyers. The truth really is as simple as that. Jeff and April, I salute your integrity and perseverance.

Well done Jeff and April. Unions have created value in the past for members, but of late seem to spend most of their time acting like draconian entities where freedom of choice and member needs are secondary to power and pontification.

This refusal by the Supreme Court of Canada to hear a farcical case such as PSAC-UTE had, was also visited upon the Telecommunication Workers Union (TWU) in Alberta. The TWU fined hundreds of its own members who crossed the TWU picket lines in Alberta. Thousands of Telus employees crossed and our website was lucky enough to give many of them a voice in the fight when the TWU began fining and suing its members. The TWU was pushed back into its little dark hole by this decision as it stood loud and proud beside the PSAC. These fines were given to terrorize and for many, they did but no more. Alongside Jeff Birch and April Luberti stood Wayne MacMillan, Robert (Bob) Pinchak and Cody Gejdos

John Mortimer’s article in the Financial Post on Thursday, May 14, 2009

Courts spurn ‘unfair’ union fines

By: John Mortimer / The National Post
It’s the end of the legal road for Canadian unions that threaten legal action to collect fines from unionized workers, just to maintain union solidarity on the picket line.

Last week, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed union applications for leave to appeal lower court judgments in Alberta and Ontario. These rulings upheld the rights of workers against the tyranny of union leaders by reinforcing the common law that the courts cannot be used by unions to enforce discipline and collect fines.

The unions knew they couldn’t collect fines through the courts yet they continued to deliberately misrepresent the situation to their unionized workers by telling them that unions had won that legal right. Unions even backed up the lie by suing them.

But there has never been a substantive ruling to support their contention. Since 1986, unionized Canadians who’ve been fined and sued by unions have won their court cases when properly represented by labour lawyers. The only judgements against employees appear to be a couple of small claims court awards where employees either failed to show up or their lawyer was not well-versed in this aspect of the common law.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) knew it couldn’t use the courts to collect fines because its own lawyers told it so.

In 2004, PSAC used forced union dues to get a legal opinion. In an internal memo, then-national president Nycole Turmel advised PSAC’s board that the legal opinion “clearly and without ambiguity” advised the union had no legal ability to enforce the collection of fines in court. As a result, Turmel stated, “It is imprudent and detrimental to the interests of the membership for the union to threaten fines, when we now know that they are effectively unenforceable.” A board committee recommended removing the fining provision. But PSAC never acted on that recommendation and, in an arrogant display of disrespect for the law and the rights of Canadian workers, it continued to use this tactic.

It’s an egregious act of intimidation when a union initiates legal action knowing it has no legal foundation to do so–and it shouldn’t be tolerated in Canadian society.

Canadians have little viable protection from union leaders. Current “duty of fair representation” provisions in labour codes are at best a joke. Labour boards have rendered a union’s duty to be so low that worker claims against unions are almost always dismissed.

In December, 2008, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld a lower court ruling against collecting fines from unionized workers who exercised their legal right to cross picket lines and do their jobs. In fact, that court ruled such fines “very unfair,” “extremely onerous” and “unconscionable in the circumstances.” In a revealing assessment, the court found that PSAC used the fines “in terrorem.” (Translation: “as a warning; in order to terrify others”.)

Similarly, an Alberta court rejected a request by the Telecommunications Workers Union (TWU) to collect fines levied against hundreds of the more than 4,000 unionized employees who crossed picket lines during a 2005 strike at Telus. The judge found that the TWU essentially wanted the court “to give the authority of law” to internal union discipline and “rubberstamp the … fine and call it a judgment.”

Now that the Supreme Court has rejected union requests to appeal, will unions apologize to the workers they represent? Or make monetary recompense for what they’ve done to the people? Don’t hold your breath.

Unions don’t appear willing to act according to the law, let alone tell this legal truth to workers. Few unionized employees have been willing or able to stand up for their rights against well-monied and well-lawyered unions.

The Supreme Court’s rejection should affect all unionized Canadians –except for provincially regulated workers in Saskatchewan. Egregious laws passed in 1983 and 1994 override the common law, giving unions the ability to collect fines in Saskatchewan courts.

This aptly demonstrates the power imbalance characterizing the relationship between union leaders and unionized workers (recognized by the Supreme Court, Berry vs. Pulley, 2002). Clearly, our laws must be are amended to reflect that finding and protect workers from union leaders.

Employees in the above legal cases acted because they weren’t happy with how their union leaders handled the strike vote, bargaining and communication with workers. Crossing the line was their only means of expressing that, and that’s why provincially regulated Saskatchewan workers need legislative reform.

Canadian laws are needed to guarantee that a percentage of union dues go to a legal aid fund for workers to defend and even challenge inappropriate union tactics in court. Until then, Canada’s workers will continue to be abused by the very ones they must pay to be their “protectors.”