Finding against Wal-Mart
Posted on November 7, 2008
Wal-Mart Canada’s bid to derail charges it broke Saskatchewan labour laws has been shot down by the Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board (SLRB). It comes just days after numerous objections were filed to thwart Wal-Mart’s banking ambitions, and ten weeks before charges against Wal-Mart will be heard by the Supreme Court of Canada stemming from the company’s closure of a unionized Quebec Wal-Mart in 2005.
That Quebec closure was also the subject of a just released ruling by the SLRB, that the impact of the closure may have also broken Saskatchewan labour law. The unfair labour charges were filed in Saskatchewan by UFCW Canada Local 1400 in 2005 after Wal-Mart first threatened and then eventually closed a Wal-Mart in Jonquiere, Quebec after workers there had formed a union.
Local 1400 charged the Jonquiere closure intimidated Wal-Mart workers in Saskatchewan and across Canada from unionizing. Wal-Mart countered by filing to have the case dropped, citing the charges as “frivolous”, while also objecting to the authority of the SLRB to judge the company on actions it had taken in another province. (….)
Further scrutiny of the company’s behaviour will happen in January, when the Supreme Court of Canada begins to hear charges that Wal-Mart violated the Charter rights of its Jonquiere employees when it shut their store after it unionized.
