The Supreme Court of Canada issued two important decisions today
involving the RCMP. Although the first of these decisions was
reported in some media as upholding the right of RCMP members to
unionize, that is a misleading summary of the decision.
RCMP members have historically been excluded from the general
public service labour relations statute which involves the usual
union relationships that are similar across the country: there is a
right for the majority to choose a trade union to be their
bargaining representative, a duty on both sides to bargain
collectively in good faith towards a collective agreement, and
either a right to strike or a right to access third party
arbitration if there is an impasse in that bargaining. The
appellants wanted to be caught by the same scheme (which is
generally known as a "Wagner Act model of labour
relations" because that was the name of the original American
statute which adopted such a scheme).
