''Saskatchewan Federation of Labour v Saskatchewan'' 1 SCR 245
is a Canadian labour law">015
1 SCR 245
is a Canadian labour law case on the right to strike.

Facts

The Saskatchewan Federation of Labour and a group of other unions claimed that two new provincial statutes violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by suppressing the freedom to take

collective action Collective action refers to action taken together Advocacy group, by a group of people whose goal is to enhance their condition and achieve a common objective. It is a term that has formulations and theories in many areas of the social sciences ...

and

collective bargaining Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between employers and a group of employees aimed at agreements to regulate working salaries, working conditions, benefits, and other aspects of workers' compensation and labour rights, rights for ...

. The government of

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

introduced Public Service Essential Services Act 2008 which would have unilaterally designated

public sector The public sector, also called the state sector, is the part of the economy composed of both public services and public enterprises. Public sectors include the public goods and governmental services such as the military, law enforcement, pu ...

workers' services as "essential" and therefore prohibited strike action. The new ''Trade Union Amendment Act, 2008'' increased the level of employee support required to unionize, thereby making it more difficult to organize a union.

Judgment

The

Supreme Court of Canada The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC; , ) is the highest court in the judicial system of Canada. It comprises nine justices, whose decisions are the ultimate application of Canadian law, and grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants eac ...

held that the Public Service Essential Services Act 2008 was an unwarranted interference with the right to strike and the right to collective bargaining, as previously elaborated in '' Health Services and Support – Facilities Subsector Bargaining Assn. v British Columbia'' and ''

Mounted Police Association of Ontario v Canada (Attorney General) ''Mounted Police Association of Ontario v Canada'' 0151 SCR 3 is a leading Canadian labour law case concerning freedom of association under section 2(d) of the ''Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms''. The Court concluded that the exclusion o ...

''.2015 SCC 1 It was unconstitutional and violated the Canadian Charter section 2(d) because it left a determination of what was essential up to the employer. The Trade Union Amendment Act 2008 was lawful, even though it made union organizing more difficult.

Rosalie Abella Rosalie Silberman Abella (born July 1, 1946) is a Canadians, Canadian jurist. In 2004, Abella was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, becoming the first Jews, Jewish woman and refugee to sit on the Canadian Supreme Court bench. She retire ...

gave the leading judgment, saying the following:

Beverley McLachlin Beverley Marian McLachlin (born September 7, 1943) is a Canadian jurist and author who served as the 17th chief justice of Canada from 2000 to 2017. She is the longest-serving chief justice in Canadian history and the first woman to hold the ...

Louis LeBel Louis LeBel (November 30, 1939 – June 8, 2023) was a Canadian jurist who was a puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. He served on the Court from 2000 to 2014. LeBel was born in Quebec City. He was the son of lawyer Paul LeBel, Q.C ...

Thomas Cromwell Thomas Cromwell (; – 28 July 1540) was an English statesman and lawyer who served as List of English chief ministers, chief minister to King Henry VIII from 1534 to 1540, when he was beheaded on orders of the king, who later blamed false cha ...

, and

Andromache Karakatsanis Andromache Karakatsanis (born October 3, 1955) is a Canadian jurist. She was nominated to the Supreme Court of Canada by Stephen Harper in October 2011. She is the first Greek-Canadian judge on the Court. Since the retirement of Rosalie Abell ...

concurred. Marshall Rothstein and

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...

dissented in part.

References

{{reflist

External links

* Full text of

decision available a
CanLII
an
LexUM
Labour disputes in Canada Canadian trade union case law Saskatchewan law Section Two Charter case law Supreme Court of Canada cases 2015 in Canadian case law