|  | | Issue 84, January 2017 |
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The Supreme Court of Canada upholds the right to collective bargaining for teachers’ union
British Columbia Teachers' Federation v. British Columbia, 2016 SCC 49, Supreme Court of Canada, Nov. 10, 2016
On 10 November 2016, in a decisive victory for workers’ rights, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) upheld the constitutional right to the freedom of association {S. 2 (d)}, delivering a 7-2 decision in favor of the British Columbia Teacher’s Federation (BCTF), the labour union that represents all public school teachers in the province of British Columbia (BC).
The judgment is the culmination of a 14-year legal battle precipitated in 2002 by the passage of legislation which nullified hundreds of clauses in an existing contract between the provincial government and thousands of teachers relating to class size, resources for special needs students, student-teacher ratios and similar workload provisions. In addition, the 2002 law deprived teachers of the right to bargain those issues in the future. In 2011, this legislation was deemed unconstitutional by the BC Supreme Court. The provincial government of British Columbia (BC), following pre-legislative consultations with teachers, then passed a second legislation in 2012 with largely similar provisions (one change was that there was no longer a permanent curtailment of collective bargaining rights although a temporary prohibition remained in place). As a result of the two laws, thousands of teachers lost their jobs and others suffered a significant adverse impact on their working conditions. Moreover, schools as well as students, especially ones with special needs, struggled to cope with a severely under-resourced education system.
Visit the caselaw database for more information on the case summary, the judgment and other related documents.
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