Supreme Court rules for workers’ right to form a union

Precedent setting decision puts Ontario government actions under scrutiny

            In a precedent-setting decision handed down today, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that workers in agricultural industries have the right to the same protection in the workplace as other Ontario workers. One of the first acts of Harris Tory government was to repeal and remove these protections from this group of workers.

            Their law, called the Labour Relations and Employment Statute Law Amendment Act, 1995 has now been declared unconstitutional to the extent that it excludes all agricultural workers. The Supreme Court ruled that “there is a positive obligation on the government to provide legislative protection against unfair labour practices”, The current Tory government has been given 18 months to scrap this unconstitutional law and restore basic rights and freedoms to this group of workers.

            “In addition, this government should act on recommendations of recent coroner’s inquests and give all workers basic employment standards, health and safety,” Samuelson said.

            “We need to take a long, hard look of what has been happening to even the most basic laws protect and defend workers in this province from exploitation. There are over 100,000 people working in agriculture, half of them full-time and until now they have been denied even the most basic workers’ rights. Maybe now these workers can also be brought under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and regulated to protect workers from injury and death.

            “The lack of protection for thousands of workers in Ontario and across Canada is an ongoing threat to their lives and livelihood,” Samuelson said. “The Tory government here in Ontario should be ashamed that it singled out a whole sector of workers in agriculture and repeated laws that gave them basic rights and freedoms like most other workers. The government should move to extend such protections to workers still excluded such as domestics, and Ontario Workfare participants.