Northern Telecom v. Communication Workers

1945: The Quebec Labour Relations Board certified the predecessor to the CUCW as the bargaining agent on behalf of all non-supervisory hourly rated employees of Telecom in the Province of Quebec including the installers.

1945: Telecom and the CUCW entered into a collective agreement in which Telecom recognized the CUCW as the bargaining agent for all installers "whose base point is in the Province of Quebec", which included all installers in the Eastern Region. This is the present status of Eastern Region installers labour relations.

1968: The CWC and the United Steelworkers of America, Local 8001, respectively applied to the Labour Boards of Ontario and Quebec for certification as the bargaining agent for Eastern Region installers in each of these provinces, and each Union intervened in the other Union's proceedings. Telecom and the CUCW objected on constitutional grounds claiming the employees were not subject in their labour relations to provincial jurisdiction. The Ontario Labour Relations Board found the work of the installers in Ontario to be within provincial labour relations jurisdiction. The Quebec authorities reached the same result. Telecom and the CUCW thereupon challenged both the results in court and in both instances succeeded. In Ontario Lacourcière J., then sitting in the High Court of Ontario, found the appropriate jurisdiction over these labour relations to be federal: The Queen v. Ontario Labour Relations Board, Ex parte Northern Electric Co. Ltd., [1970] 2 O.R. 654. The Quebec Court of Appeal in proceedings in evocation came to the same conclusion in Northern Electric Co. Ltd. v. The Quebec Labour Court, unreported decision number 13,085, January 25, 1972.

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B. Western Region (with which these proceedings are not directly concerned)

1. 1946: An employees' association failed to achieve certification before the O.L.R.B. but were certified for all employees, including installers, working under the Toronto head office under the Wartime Labour Relations Regulations. This presumably included all the employees in the Western Region.

2. 1950: The CWC replaced the first bargaining agent and the O.L.R.B. certified the CWC as the agent for the installers. Telecom apparently raised no constitutional issue.

3. 1958: The CWC applied to the Canada Labour Relations Board for certification as the bargaining agent for all installers employed in the Western Region. The C.L.R.B. found that it did not have jurisdiction.

1963: An employees' association had been certified by the O.L.R.B. in 1961 to represent all employees in Telecom's manufacturing facilities in Bramalea, Ontario. No mention is made of installers in this bargaining unit. The High Court of Ontario refused to quash the O.L.R.B. decision on the grounds that the manufacturing operations, there the subject of the proceedings, were properly within the field of provincial labour relations; R. v. Ontario Labour Relations Board, Ex parte Dunn, [1963] 2 O.R. 301.

1970: The High Court of Ontario (Lacourcière J.) found the O.L.R.B. to be without jurisdiction over the installers' labour relations (supra, item 3, Eastern Region).

C. Eastern and Western Regions after 1971

1. In the Eastern Region, Telecom and the CUCW continued to conduct their labour relations pursuant to the Quebec labour relation laws.

2. In the Western Region, in 1972, Telecom and the CWC recognized the federal jurisdiction by written agreement.

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3. 1974: CWC applied to the Canada Labour Relations Board to be certified to represent the supervisory installers in the Western Region. The Board found it had jurisdiction. Telecom appealed and failed in the Federal Court of Appeal. Northern Telecom Ltd. v. Communications Workers of Canada, [1977] 2 F.C. 406; and in this Court, [1980] 1 S.C.R. 115. Both courts considered that the record before them did not make a decision possible on this important question of jurisdiction.

There is, therefore, no evidence upon which this Court can find that the Board acted beyond its jurisdiction.

[…]

It might be added that, in my view, the facts raise a very difficult question from a jurisdictional and constitutional point of view, upon which this Court should not make a pronouncement in the absence of a full exploration of the facts relating to the jurisdictional and constitutional question as such. [Per Jackett C.J., at pp. 409-10.]

The judgment in this Court was given by Dickson J. who wrote at pp. 139 and 141:

On the evidence in the record, this Court is simply not in a position to resolve the important question of constitutional jurisdiction over the labour relations of the employees involved in the installation department of Telecom.

[…]

I think we must leave that question to another day and dismiss the appeal simply on the basis that the posture of the case is such that the appellant has failed to show reversible error on the part of the Canada Labour Relations Board.

4. Telecom objected to the Canada Labour Relations Board's dealing with the two applications for certification filed in 1978 by the CUCW and the CWC, which give rise to these proceedings, on the grounds of a lack of constitutional jurisdiction in the Board.

5. The CUCW applied to the Quebec Labour Relations Board for certification as the bargaining agent for the installers, some time in 1978-79. Nothing appears in the record as to where this proceeding stands.

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The parties to the current certification proceedings leading to this appeal, before the C.L.R.B., requested that the Board make a reference to the courts on the question of constitutional jurisdiction. I quote from the unanimous reasons of the Board, [supra, at pp. 71-72]: