Commission des relations ouvrières du Québec v. Burlington Mills Hosiery Co. of Canada

Labour-Certification-Exclusion from unit of employees under sixteen years of age-Writ of prohibition-Jurisdiction of Labour Board-Question of law-Whether decision of Board reviewable-Labour Relations Act, R.S.Q. 1941, c. 162A, ss. 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 27, 41a-Article 3(a) of By-law No. 1 of the Board.

The mis-en-cause union applied to the Quebec Labour Relations Board for recognition as collective bargaining agent for certain employees of the respondent company. The Board granted the certificate, but for the purposes of determining the representative character of the union and the appropriateness of the unit, excluded, among others, all employees under sixteen years of age, as it was authorized to do by one of its own by-laws. Had employees under sixteen been included in the bargaining unit, the union would not have had the majority called for under the Act. A writ of prohibition taken by the employer was refused by the trial judge, but the Court of Appeal, by a majority judgment, granted the writ and set aside the certification. The Board was granted leave to appeal to this Court. It was argued, inter alia, that the Board had exceeded its jurisdiction in excluding from the bargaining unit employees less than sixteen years old.

Held (Cartwright and Fauteux JJ. dissenting): The appeal should be allowed and the writ of prohibiton dismissed.

Per Taschereau C.J. and Abbot and Judson JJ.: Under The Labour Relations Act, the Board was given the powers, inter alia, to determine (1) the unit of employees which was appropriate for collective bargaining purposes and (2) the representative character of the union seeking certification as the agent of the employees in that unit. The responsibility of determining what employees were to be included or excluded from a bargaining unit had been committed to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Board. Aside from being prohibited by the Act from including certain specified categories of employees, the Board was free Taschereau CJ. and Cartwright, Fauteux, Abbott and Judson JJ.

R.C.S.

to include or exclude other categories, and provided it exercised that discretion in good faith its decision was not subject to judicial review. - To hold otherwise would fail to give effect to the plain words of s. 41a of the Act. The decisions of L'Alliance des Professeurs Catholiques de Montrial v. The Labour Relations Board of Quebec, [19531

OuvIuiRES 2 S.C.R. 140, and Toronto Newspaper Guild v. Globe Printing Co., [19531 2 S.C.R. 18, had no application to the present case.

Les Juges Cartwright et Fauteux, dissidents: La Commission n'avait pas

Mims le pouvoir d'exclure les moins de seize ans, comme elle l'a fait, en HosIERY Co. suivant un procid6 et en s'appuyant sur un motif dont la constante application aurait in~vitablement pour consdquence de priver d~finitivement les moins de seize ans d'6tre repr6sent6s dans une unit6 de n~gociations et d'avoir les b6n6fices que la Loi accorde aux salari6s. De plus, en agissant ainsi, la Commission s'est attribub le pouvoir d'imposer h l'employeur la reconnaissance d'une association minoritaire, contrairement aux prescriptions des arts. 4 et 5 de la Loi. Ayant ainsi rendu une d6cision ultra vires, la Commission ne peut validement invoquer

I'art. 41a de la Loi pour faire obstacle au recours adopt6 par

I'employeur.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Court of Queen's

Bench, Appeal Side, Province of Quebec', reversing a judgment of Bertrand J. Appeal allowed, Cartwright and

.

Philip Cutler, for the mis-en-cause.

The judgment of Taschereau C.J. and Abbott and

Judson JJ. was delivered by

ABBOrr J.:-This appeal, by leave, is from a majoriy judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench' allowing an appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court, granting a writ of prohibition against the appellant Board and declaring void certain of its decisions.

The facts are not now in dispute. On March 21, 1956, the mis-en-cause (which I shall refer to as the Union) applied to the Board for recognition as collective bargaining agent for certain employees of the respondent company at its

Lachine plant, described as follows in the application:

tous les employds pay6s A l'heure et h la pice, except6 les contremaitres, contremaitresses, arrangeurs de machines, personnes ayant fonction de surveillance, employ6s de bureau, chauffeurs, les personnes paydes h la semaine, et ceux automatiquement exclus par la Loi des Relations Ouvribres.

1 [19621 Que. Q.B. 469.

119641

That application was opposed by the respondent. On CoMMIssION November 13, 1956, following a series of hearings, the Board rendered a decision certifying the Union as bargaining agent to representtous les employds pay6s sur une base horaire ou h la pice except6 les contremaitres, contremaitresses, personnes ayant fonction de surveillance, MILLs

HosiERY CO. employds de bureau, les personnes paydes & la semaine, les aproduction supervisors*, le chef m6canicien, les mineurs de moins de seize ans et ceux automatiquement exclus par la Loi des Relations Ouvribres, A 1'emploi de Abbott J

1'Intimbe Burlington Mills Hosiery Company of Canada Limited, 130 rue St-Joseph, Lachine, P.Q.

A petition to have this certificate cancelled was filed with the Board by respondent on December 6, 1956, and after a hearing was dismissed on January 17, 1957. The present proceedings were launched by respondent on February 12, 1957, asking for the issuance of a writ of prohibition and that the decisions of the Board be set aside as having been made outside its jurisdiction.

In the Courts below and before this Court, respondent challenged the decisions of the Board upon two grounds namely, that the Board had exceeded its jurisdiction in (1) recognizing as bargaining agent a Union which had neither constitution nor by-laws and which had not complied with s. 27 of the Labour Relations Act and (2) excluding from the bargaining unit employees less than sixteen years old.

Turning now to respondent's second grounds of objection to the jurisdiction of the Board. The relevant sections of the Labour Relations Act, R.S.Q. 1941, c. 162A, as amended, are as follows:

a) "Employee" means any apprentice, unskilled labourer or workman, skilled workman or journeyman, artisan, clerk or employee, working individually or in a crew or in partnership; but it does not include:

persons employed as manager, superintendent, foreman or representative of an employer in his relations with his employees; R.C.S.

the directors and managers of a corporation;

any person belonging to one of the professions contemplated in chapters 262 to 275, or admitted to the study of one of such professions;

OUvaIFRES domestic servants or persons employed in an agricultural exploitation.

Several associations of employees may join to make up such majority Abbott J. and appoint representatives for purposes of collective negotiation upon such conditions, not inconsistent with this act, as they may deem expedient. 5. The employer shall incur the obligation contemplated in the preceding section, as the Board may decide, either towards the aggregate of his employees or towards each group of the said employees which the Board declares is to form a separate group for the purposes of this act.

In order to assure itself of such representative character, the Board may, by by-law subject to the formalities of section 38, determine the conditions on which a person may be recognized as a member of an association.

41a. Notwithstanding any legislative provision inconsistent herewith, a) the decisions of the Board shall be without appeal and cannot be revised by the courts;

b) no writ of quo warranto, of mandamus, of certiorari, of prohibition or injunction may be issued against the Board or against any of its members, acting in their official capacity;

c) the provisions of article 50 of the Code of Civil Procedure shall not apply to the Board, or to its members acting in their official capacity.

In establishing the bargaining unit, for which it certified the Union as collective bargaining agent, the Board excluded from such unit, among others, all employees under sixteen years of age. For the purpose of determining the representative character of the Union it also excluded members of the Union under that age. On this basis the Board found that the bargaining unit contained 324 employees [19641 and that the eligible members of the Union totalled 165. Had employees under sixteen been included in the bargaining unit, the Union would not have had the majority called for under the Act.

No doubt the Board had sound reasons for excluding these young persons from the bargaining unit, and it might be observed in passing, that By-law 3a of the Board adopted pursuant to of the Act (which by-law has been in force specifically excludes them members union for the purpose of determining its representative character. At all events, in my opinion the decision include or exclude such young persons as members of a bargaining unit is one which is clearly within the jurisdiction of the appellant Board.

Under the Act the Board is given the powers inter alia to determine (1) the unit of employees which is appropriate for collective bargaining purposes and the representative character of the Union seeking certification as the collective bargaining agent of the employees in that unit. It is clear that the absolute majority referred to in s. 4 means the absolute majority of a bargaining unit, where that unit does not comprise all employees.

The responsibility of determining what employees are to be included or excluded from a bargaining unit has been committed to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Appellant Board. Indeed that is one of its principal functions. The Act prohibits the inclusion of certain specified categories of employees in such a bargaining unit, but aside from these prohibitions, the Board is free to include or exclude other categories, and provided it exercises that discretion in good faith its decision is not subject to judicial review. In my respectful opinion, to hold otherwise fails to give effect to the plain words of s. 41a of the Act.

In my view the decisions of this Court in the Alliance des Professeurs' case and the Toronto Newspaper Guild case, which were cited in argument, have no application here. In the Alliance case it was held that the rule audi alteram partem applies to the hearings of a Board such as the Labour Relations Board, and that in issuing the order complained of in that case, without holding a hearing, the Quebec Labour Relations Board had acted without jurisdiction. No such situation existed here. The Board in this case held not merely one hearing, but a series of hearings. In the Toronto Newspaper Guild case the majority of this Court held that the Ontario Labour Relations Board, at a hearing before it, had refused to allow cross-examination of a union secretary and that, in so doing, it had declined jurisdiction. Nothing of this sort is in issue here.

One other point. In his argument before us Mr. Mercier drew attention to the following dictum of Choquette J. who delivered the majority opinion in the Court below- With respect, the statement made by the learned judge in the second sentence as to the powers of the Board, while perhaps obiter, is in error. The judgment in Labour Relations Board of Saskatchewan v. John East Iron Works Ltd.' and other decisions which have held that a board of this kind is competent to decide questions of law, were reviewed recently by my brother Judson in Farrell v. Workmen's

Compensation Board .

I would allow the appeal and restore the judgment of the learned trial judge. The appellant is entitled to its costs throughout.

(dissident):-La mise-en-cause a demand6 A la Commission de Relations Ouvribres de la Province de Qu6bec d'6tre reconnue, aux fins de la Loi des Relations Ouvrisres, comme reprisentante d'un groupe de salari6s form6 de

Apris contestation, la Commission d6cida d'6mettre un certificat de reconnaissance syndicale h la mise-en-cause pour repr6senter

ComIsIoN D'oii l'on voit que les moins de seize ans, faisant partie du groupe de salaries payis sur une base horaire ou A la pi&ce, furent exclus par la Commission de ce groupe de salari6s pour lequel la mise-en-cause demandait d'6tre accr6dit6e comme agent n6gociateur. On apergoit, A 1'extrait suivant de la d6cision rendue par la Commission le 13 novembre 1956, le proc6d6 et le motif par elle adopt6s pour justifier cette exclusion:

et & Il est concid6 que si la Commission n'avait pas soustrait le nombre des moins de seize ans du nombre total des salari6s pay6s sur une base horaire ou A la pihce, il aurait 6t6 impossible pour l'union mise-en-cause de pr6tendre compter dans ses rangs la majorit6 absolue de tous les salari6s. Et, comme on le sait, c'est la majorit6 absolue qui conditionne essentiellement le titre h la reconnaissance syndicale et le pouvoir de la Commission de l'accorder A l'union qui la recherche. ttant d'opinion que la Commission n'avait aucune juridiction pour ainsi agir, l'intimbe fit 6mettre un bref de prohibition, demandant particulibrement que cette d6cision de la Commission soit d6clar6e ill6gale, nulle et sans effet et qu'il soit enjoint h la Commission de ne faire aucun acteproc6dure de n6gociations ou autres-pour donner effet A cette d6cision.

Rejet6 en Cour supirieure, ce recours fut admis en Cour du banc de la reine' par une d6cision majoritaire. Par la suite, 'appelante demanda et obtint la permission d'en appeler A cette Cour.

La Commission avait-elle le pouvoir d'ainsi proc6der pour accorder la reconnaissance syndicale A l'union mise-en-cause et, dans la n6gative, y a-t-il, en 1'espice, un exchs de juridiction donnant lieu au bref de prohibition, nonobstant 'art. 41a de la Loi des Relations Ouvribres qui 6carte tout recours en revision des d6cisions de la Commission. Tels sont les COMMISSION deux points qui ont t6 soulev6s h 1'audition.

REMEHOS Pour justifier cette decision, on s'est appuy6 sur les dis- UiBES positions de 1'art. 3(a) du R~glement No 1 des R&glements de la Commission et sur celles de l'art. 5 de la Loi des Rela,unLs HOSIERY CO. tions Ouvriares.

Il convient de reproduire en entier l'art. 3 du R~glement et No 1:

Fauteux J. 3. Pour l'appr6ciation du caractbre repr6sentatif d'une association, les conditions auxquelles une personne peut 6tre reconnue membre d'une association, sont les suivantes:

a) 6tre d'au moins seize ans;

b) avoir 6t6 r6gulibrement admise membre et avoir signi une carte d'adh6sion diament dat6e;

c) avoir personnellement pay6 un droit d'entr~e ou d'initiation d'au moins un dollar (81);

d) 6tre tenue de payer personnellement des cotisations A un taux non inf~rieur h cinquante cents (.504) par mois;

e) avoir personnellement pay6 les cotisations pour au moins un mois, s'il s'agit d'un nouveau membre;

f) n'avoir pas d'arri6ris de cotisations pour plus de trois mois, s'il s'agit d'un membre ddj& initi6;

g) occuper r6gulibrement un emploi se rattachant aux occupations professionnelles normales de 1'employeur A 1'gard duquel la reconnaissance est demand6e;

h) les conditions privues pour 6tablir le caractbre reprisentatif d'une association doivent avoir 66 remplies le ou avant le jour du d6pt de la requite pour reconnaissance syndicale & la Commission de relations ouvribres.

Nous ne sommes pas appelbs h nous prononcer sur la validit6 des dispositions du para. (a) de 1'art. 3. Ce qui est certain, c'est que si, pour appr6cier le caractere representatif d'une union, la Commission doit 6carter de ceux qui en sont membres les personnes qui sont ag6es de moins de seize ans, il ne s'ensuit pas qu'elle doive aussi les exclure pour 6tablir la somme totale des salari6s, somme dont elle doit tenir compte pour decider si l'union r6unit comme membres la majorit6 absolue. Comme le note M. le Juge Choquette, 1'exclusion des moins de seize ans est prescrite par 1'art. 3(a) pour l'appr~ciation du caractbre representatif d'une union et non pour la d6termination du nombre total des salari6s de 1'entreprise ou du groupe. Et si, ajoutet-il, parce que, en ob6issance au R6glement, on les exclut pour appricier le caractbre repr6sentatif, on doit 6galement [19641 les exclure pour 6tablir le nombre total de salaries, il faudrait, pour 6tre consequent, adopter le meme proc6d6 en qui concerne ceux qui ne rdpondent pas aux exigences des paras. b), c), d), e) et f) du m~me article du R~glement. L'article 2 de la Loi d6finit le mot «salari6>>; les moins de seize ans ne sont pas de ceux qui sont exclus de cette d6finition. Ils ont donc droit au b6n6fice que la Loi accorde aux salari6s d'8tre repr6sentis pour fins de ndgociations. Quand A l'art. 5 de la Loi, il autorise bien la Commission a former des groupes distincts de salari6s pour les fins de la Loi, ce qui implique 6videmment, comme 'a soumis le procureur de l'appelante, I'exclusion d'une partie des salari6s dans la formation d'un groupe distinct. En l'espice, cependant, la Commission n'a pas exclu les moins de seize ans afin de former un groupe distinct, mais elle a form6 un groupe distinct parce qu'elle les avait exclus pour l'appr6ciation du caract&re repr6sentatif de l'union et la d6termination de la question de savoir si celle-ci r~unissait parmi ses membres la majorit4 absolue. En tout respect pour les tenants de l'opinion contraire, la Commission n'avait pas le pouvoir d'exclure les moins de seize ans, comme elle l'a fait, en suivant un proc6d6 et s'appuyant sur un motif dont la constante application aurait in6vitablement pour cons6quence de priver d6finitivement les moins de seize ans d'6tre repr6sentis dans une unit6 de n6gociations et d'avoir les b6n6fices que la Loi accorde aux salari6s.

De plus, et en agissant comme susdit, la Commission s'est attribu6 le pouvoir d'imposer h 1'employeur la reconnaissance d'une association minoritaire, contrairement aux prescriptions des arts. 4 et 5 de la Loi.

Ayant ainsi rendu une decision ultra vires, la Commission ne peut validement invoquer Fart. 41a de la Loi des Relations Ouvrisres pour 6chapper au pouvoir de contr6le et de surveillance de la Cour sup6rieure. Comme en a jug6 la majorit6 en Cour d'Appel, en s'appuyant particulibrement sur les principes formulas par cette Cour dans L'Alliance des Professeurs Catholiques de Montr6al v. La Commission de Relations Ouvriares de la Province de Quebec' et Toronto Newspaper Guild Local 87, American Newspaper Guild (C.I.O.) v. Globe Printing Company', cet article ne fait pas obstacle, en 1'espice, au recours adopt6 par I'intim6e.