This is a followup to yesterdays post on Walmart closing a newly unionized store in Quebec. The United Food and Commercial Workers are taking Walmart to court. A boycott is possible, and they may ask trade ministers in Quebec to kick them out of the entire province if they continue to shut down Unionized Walmarts.
Link to story.
UFCW national director Michael Fraser has already said the union will file an unfair labour practice charge against Wal-Mart with the Quebec Labour Relations Board. And more actions are coming, a source close to the union said yesterday.
A labour board challenge, if successful, could force Wal-Mart to re-open the store or expose it to significant fines, "in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions," said Cavalluzzo, who was lead counsel in the Walkerton water inquiry.
"There's no limit to what the board can order to rectify a violation of the labour law," Cavalluzzo said in a telephone interview late yesterday. The union would first have to prove the company had violated its duty to bargain in good faith, he said...........
"If workers can't form a union without facing these kinds of threats and tactics, it has bigger implications for democracy," said Wayne Samuelson, president of the 700,000-member Ontario Federation of Labour.
"It's a vicious anti-union position to take," said Buzz Hargrove, president of the Canadian Auto Workers union. "I think the remedy is to go after them in court. I'd be asking the Quebec labour board to certify every store in Quebec."