08) JONQUIERE WALMART RULING: A VICTORY FOR WORKERS' RIGHT TO ORGANIZE

 

Issued by the Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada, September 3, 2014

 

            A decade ago, Walmart workers in  Jonquière, northern Québec, made international media headlines and won the attention of the labour movement around the world. In August 2004, the workers became among the first Walmarts to unionize in North America.

 

            Winning a certified union was a small but significant advance against a notoriously vicious anti‑labour mega corporation ‑ and a breakthrough for organizing the unorganized in general. After a hard struggle, the workers joined Local 503 of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).

 

            Walmart, however, refused to negotiate a collective agreement in good faith and after several months, the UFCW was forced to demand that an arbitrator settle the collective agreement. Just days after, Walmart announced it was closing the Jonquière store, throwing nearly 200 workers into unemployment and tearing up Québec labour law. There was immediate broad public outcry across Québec and the rest of Canada against Walmart's attack on the workers democratic right to organize.

 

            Now, after a protracted legal battle by the UFCW and great determination, tenacity and perseverance by the Jonquière workers who filed many complaints, court cases and appeals, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) has historically ruled largely in their favour with a 5‑2 decision authored by Justice Louis LeBel. (The workers also beat out a former major multi‑national Canadian law firm, expert on labour law, where various former Prime Ministers like Trudeau and Chretien have worked).

 

            The struggle to win the ruling shows how hard workers must fight just to win enforcement of the existing provincial labour code. While a victory, the workers have still lost their jobs. Nor is their fight for compensation completely over. Walmart will have to pay the union's legal fees, and an arbitrator will impose what LeBel very generally called an "appropriate remedy."

 

            That not withstanding, LeBel's ruling is positive and should be used to the maximum advantage by the labour movement.

 

            Specifically, the SCC ruling agreed with the workers that Walmart shutting down their store was a drastic change in their "working conditions" ‑ which is forbidden by s. 59 of Quebec's labour code while the collective agreement is being negotiated ‑ and saw this action as a violation of the workers right to have negotiations in good faith, and their fundamental human rights including freedom of association. Further, the SCC ruling explicitly says that "The mechanism codified in s. 59 is by no means specific to Quebec, as it exists in all provinces of Canada and at the federal level."

 

            The SCC ruling therefore reinforces workers' legal right to organize, at a moment when existing labour law is under an unprecedented attack in Québec and federally by the Harper Conservative government (Air Canada, Canada Post, EI, etc.) It helps not only the Jonquière and Walmart workers but workers in general. If other corporations temporarily lay off employees, dismiss them, or close‑up an entire shop after an organizing drive, they will most likely also be forced to pay. The SCC ruling may not prevent shop closures during organizing and collective bargaining, as companies can still close a shop, but that cause must now be proven. Although big business has considerable time to demonstrate such just cause, this proof is the burden of the corporation not the union.

 

            The Communist Party of Canada has always supported any strengthening of all workers' right to organize (including foreign workers, part‑time, "on call," domestic, agricultural, contract workers, etc.) The Communist Party also opposes mass layoffs and shop closures, and demands they be prevented through legislation with teeth ‑ including the employer giving two years notice and also public tribunals on any large shop closures, with the power to nationalize the shop.

 

            Furthermore, the Communist Party has long proposed that a Bill of Rights for Labour be enshrined in a new Constitution, drafted by a constituent assembly of the peoples and nations of Canada, which should extend and protect the political rights of labour as well as the rights to collectively organize, to free collective bargaining, and to strike.

 

(The above article is from the September 16-30, 2014, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)