Union Access to Workers During Organizing Campaigns : A New Look Through the Lens of Health Services

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the recent Health Services decision that the Canadian Constitutional protection of "freedom of association" should be interpreted to provide "at least as much protection" of associational rights as provided by ILO Convention 87, as interpreted by the ILO's expert bodies, including the Committee on Freedom of Association ("CFA"). The CFA has interpreted C87 to include a limited right of unions to access employer property in order to organize employees. However, Canadian statute and common law confers on employers an almost universal right to exclude union organizers, even when allowing access would not interfere with the employer's production interests. This paper examines whether the Court's direction to interpret Section 2(d) of the Charter as protecting as great a level of protection of freedom of association as C87 requires a rethinking of Canadian laws governing union access to employer property