Air Canada union serves strike notice

If the Cons keep interfering in the collective bargaining process, could we be getting close to a general strike?

In the event back to work legislation is introduced (or changes to the labour code as raitt is now suggesting) would it not then make sense for people from the occupy wall street movement here in canada to start major disruptions/protests at airports in cities accross the country?

i mean, they can charge/punish the union members but they can't charge people who aren't employed by the union right?  wouldn't that be a way of continuing their struggles without putting them in danger?

I can't think of a more obvious example of government and corporate inerests colluding against people than stripping them of their right to collective bargaining or changing the labour code

like what if people made lines at air canada, started to buy tickets and then returned them in the thousands a la Saul Alinsky?

 

[]           On November 6, 1991 Kevin Thomas wrote to Mr. Tom Hamaoka at Daishowa Canada Company Ltd. (in August 1988 Mr. Kitigawa had become president of the parent company, Daishowa Forest Products Ltd.). This letter represented the first direct contact between Daishowa and the Friends. In his letter Mr. Thomas set out the commitment the Friends were seeking from Daishowa and presaged the Friends’ plan if the commitment was not made. The letter reads in part:

We are writing to you today to inform you of our intentions vis-a-vis this impending crisis.

While you were willing to honour the March 7, 1988 agreement with the Lubicon Nation not to log in their territories until a settlement of their land rights was in place, we kept our energies directed at the federal government’s refusal to resolve Lubicon land rights. However, you have flagrantly broken the terms of that agreement by planning the clear‑cutting of Lubicon territories through your subsidiary Brewster Construction, making you an active agent in the destruction of the Lubicon peoples land and future.

We expect from you a clear, firm and public commitment to not cut and not to purchase any wood cut on unceded Lubicon territory until after a settlement of Lubicon land rights and negotiation of a harvesting agreement with the Lubicon people that takes into account Lubicon wildlife and environmental concerns. Until such time we are initiating a public boycott campaign of Daishowa products.

This campaign will encompass all Daishowa products which reach the public, including all paper products and chip board. We are currently negotiating with many of your clients who have shown an interest in the Lubicon Nation’s concerns and are reconsidering their contracts with Daishowa.

[]           Indeed, the last sentence in this letter was particularly accurate. On the same day, the Friends sent letters to several of Daishowa’s customers, including Pizza Pizza, Cultures and HoLee Chow in Toronto and Knechtel Food Stores in Kitchener. The contents of these letters were identical; I set out the one to Pizza Pizza which was authored by Ed Bianchi:

On March 7, 1988 an agreement was made between the Lubicon Lake Cree Nation of northern Alberta and Daishowa, a multinational paper company. Part of this agreement stated that Daishowa would not begin clear-cutting Lubicon land until their land rights settlement has been negotiated.

Daishowa has broken this agreement. As soon as the land freezes, Brewster Construction Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Daishowa, will begin clear-cutting Lubicon land. This, as well as previous destruction of their land by government sponsored oil and gas development, will result in the cultural genocide of the Lubicon people.

The Canadian Peace Alliance has contacted you previously requesting that you stop using Daishowa paper products.

This letter serves as notice to you that a boycott of your company will be initiated unless we receive from you written confirmation by November 25, 1991 of your intention to stop using Daishowa paper products.

I look forward to hearing from you.

...

[]           Pizza Pizza was chosen as the subject of the first public demonstration against a customer of Daishowa because it had refused to join the boycott as requested in Mr. Bianchi’s letter of November 6. Approximately 10-15 Friends converged on a single Pizza Pizza store on November 30. They displayed a large banner: some of the Friends wore sandwich boards. They did not impede the entry of anyone into the store. According to Kevin Thomas, some people stopped to talk to the Friends. Some also talked to a representative of Pizza Pizza who was there. The Friends distributed leaflets to people who would accept them. The leaflets stated:

BOYCOTT

PIZZA PIZZA

THE PIZZA PIZZA CHAIN PURCHASES SOME OF ITS PAPER PRODUCTS FROM THE MULTI-NATIONAL PAPER COMPANY DAISHOWA.

On March 7, 1988, Daishowa met with the Lubicon Cree of Northern Alberta and agreed not to cut trees on unceded Lubicon territory until a land rights settlement was negotiated between the Lubicon and the Government.

Daishowa now denies ever making such an agreement, and is planning to clear-cut vast areas of Lubicon land.

THIS IS AN ACT OF GENOCIDE AGAINST THE LUBICON LAKE NATION.

Up until a few years ago, the Lubicon were a self-reliant people who lived off the land. Federal and Alberta government supported oil and gas development, which began in the late seventies, devastated the traditional economy and lifestyle of the Lubicon by ruining the environment and driving away wildlife. Unbridled resource exploitation has forced 95% of the people on to welfare, and now threatens to destroy the community.

You CAN MAKE A CHANGE.

Make your voice heard! Help us put pressure on Daishowa to make a clear and public commitment to stay out of unceded Lubicon territory. Support the boycott of Pizza Pizza stores until they cancel their contracts with Daishowa.

For more info call Friends of the Lubicon at 783-4694

and

Write directly to Daishowa and ask them to deal fairly with the Lubicon people.

Mr. Tom Hamaoka,

Vice president,

Daishowa Canada Co. Ltd.,

3500 Park Place,

666 Burrard Street,

Vancouver, BC

V6C 2XB

(604) 689-1919—fax (604) 689-2853

[]           A second demonstration was held at nine Pizza Pizza stores in January 1992. Two Friends attended each store. There were no banners or placards on this occasion; however, leaflets were handed out to prospective customers.

[]           For three years, from late 1991 to late 1994, the Friends continued their boycott campaign. They approached about 50 companies which purchased Daishowa paper products. The pattern for engaging customers was consistent, with minor variations for some customers. Usually the first contact was a telephone call to the customer. Occasionally the first contact was by letter. This initial contact was followed by a package of material sent by a Friend to the customer. This package usually included Kevin Thomas’ letter to Daishowa dated November 10, 1991, a five-page background paper prepared by the Friends which described events relating to the Lubicon Cree during the last half-century, copies of updates prepared by the Friends as the campaign progressed, letters from other Daishowa customers confirming that they were joining the boycott, and occasional press reports about the boycott. As well, the Friends would include in the package any information they received from Daishowa, such as Mr. Morrison’s letter dated November 8, 1991 and the Daishowa position paper included with that letter. After the information package was sent, a Friend would follow up by telephone or letter. The purposes of the follow-up were to verify that the customer had received the material, to invite discussion concerning its contents, to ascertain whether a decision had been made, and to inform the customer that a boycott would take place if the customer continued to use Daishowa products. If a customer agreed to discontinue use of Daishowa products, the Friends typically insisted on receiving a letter confirming this decision. They would then issue a press release announcing a new participant in the boycott. If the customer did not agree to join the boycott, its stores would be picketed in the hope that the store’s customers, once informed of the fact that a store was purchasing paper products from Daishowa, would decide not to shop at the store, thus putting pressure on it to stop buying Daishowa products.

[]           Essentially, the Friends campaign against Daishowa was a simple two-stage campaign. The first stage was an approach to the direct customers of Daishowa with a request, coupled with the threat of a boycott, that they stop using Daishowa products. If this approach did not obtain the desired response, the Friends moved to the second stage, namely informational picketing at the stores of those Daishowa customers with a view to educating the customers of the customers of Daishowa about the Lubicon Cree situation and the perceived connection of Daishowa to that situation, and with a view to enlisting their support to persuade Daishowa’s direct customers to change their minds.

...

[]           There is no collective bargaining relationship between the Friends and Daishowa. The Friends do not meet Daishowa on the stage of economic self-interest, and in the context of a continuing, and regulated, relationship. Rather the Friends have identified what they perceive to be an important social and political issue—the plight of the Lubicon Cree. They believe that Daishowa’s corporate activities have contributed, and will continue to contribute, to the worsening of that plight. Accordingly they speak to Daishowa and ask it to change its conduct.

[]           However, the Friends have not limited their message to Daishowa. In Dieleman, supra, Adams J. said that political protestors “will often have multiple targets for their messages because of their multiple purposes” (p. 678 D.L.R.). The Friends have multiple purposes in their campaign in support of the Lubicon Cree—they try to educate the public, persuade governments to change their policies, and dissuade Daishowa from logging on land the Lubicon believes belongs to them. With respect to this last purpose, the Friends speak directly to Daishowa. However, since the Friends are themselves consumers of Daishowa products they also take their message to their fellow consumers, both corporate (e.g., Pizza Pizza) and individual (e.g., fellow purchasers of Pizza Pizza products placed in Daishowa bags). In doing this, the Friends’ message is not: we are engaged in a personal economic dispute with Daishowa; please help us. Rather, the essence of their message is: we, like you, are consumers of Daishowa products; on an important political and social issue Daishowa has taken a position that is detrimental to some of the poorest citizens in Canada; please, join us in communicating to Daishowa that we will not continue as customers if it does not change its position.

...

[]           The Friends say that their picketing activities at the business locations of Daishowa’s consumers is speech concerning public affairs. I agree. The essential subject-matter of everything the Friends say and do is the plight of the Lubicon Cree in Alberta. There can be little doubt that their plight, especially in recent years, is a tragic, indeed desperate, one. The compelling testimony of Chief Bernard Ominayak painted a vivid picture of the disintegration of a proud people who had lived successfully and prospered, on their own terms, for centuries. The loss of a traditional economy of hunting, trapping and gathering, the negative effect of industrial development on a communal spirituality anchored in nature, the disintegration of a social structure grounded in families led by successful hunters and trappers, alcoholism, serious community health problems such as tuberculosis, and poor relations with governments and corporations engaged in oil and gas and forest operations on land the Lubicon regard as theirs—all of these have contributed to a current state of affairs for the Lubicon Cree which deserves the adjectives tragic, desperate and intolerable.

[]           Chief Ominayak described in detail the complex and troubling relationship between the Lubicon Cree and resource companies. He testified (transcript, pp. 28-29):

But my experience in dealing—in dealing with the non-native society, not as a whole, but most of the people that are in, say, the oil and gas development, and the other people who are interested in the resources, whether it be oil, gas, or now, you know, we’re getting into diamonds, they’ve found diamonds in our area, or the logging people, is that they don’t—they want to come in, exploit the resource as fast as they can, and don’t have any regard to the environment or to the land, to the animals, to the trees.

And it’s something that I don’t think a lot of our people can accept, even to this day, where, because we were so dependent on the land that everything we done, we had to protect and preserve as much as we could in order to have something for tomorrow.

And the kind of rapid pace that is taking place all throughout just about the whole traditional area now is that there has been excessive destruction by way of, say, roads, pipelines. Lot of it has to do with the oil and gas exploration. A lot of the land, a lot of the area that we’ve preserved and lived off for many, many generations is just being eroded every year as we—as we get into these things.

So those are the kinds of—you know, at the outset, the kinds of differences from our people versus the people coming in from outside and trying to take the resources.

[]           Archbishop Edward Scott, the retired leader of the Anglican Church of Canada and a man who has made an impressive lifelong contribution to social justice issues in Canada and abroad, testified about the profound connection between nature and spirituality for the Lubicon people. He said that the Lubicon see themselves as in nature, not overnature. The activities of governments and corporations in recent years, with an emphasis on resource exploitation and economic gain, challenge the core of the Lubicon’s spirituality.

[]           I cite these brief examples from the testimony of witnesses like Chief Ominayak and Archbishop Scott not because I have concluded that they are true. It is impossible, and would therefore be wrong, for a judge sitting in a Toronto courtroom, even one who heard 28 days of testimony, to reach any firm conclusions about why the Lubicon Cree is in such a sad situation in 1998. It would especially be wrong to lay blame on anyone for the current situation. To be specific, I do not say a single negative word about Daishowa’s past conduct or future plans for the forest lands within their FMA.

[]           The reason I cite brief portions of Chief Ominayak’s and Archbishop Scott’s testimony is that it establishes clearly that the situation of the Lubicon is a complex and important amalgam of historical, political, social, cultural, religious and economic issues. It is this amalgam that the Friends’ activities seek to address. It follows that the expression engaged in by the Friends relates directly to a very important public issue. As such, it deserves respect, protection and a forum. It is precisely the type of expression that the Supreme Court of Canada has declared as lying at the heart of the fundamental freedom protected by the Charter; see, for example, Dolphin Delivery, supra; Edmonton Journal v. Alberta (Attorney General), , [1989] 2 S.C.R. 1326, 45 C.R.R. 1; and Committee for the Commonwealth of Canada v. Canada, , [1991] 1 S.C.R. 139, 4 C.R.R. (2d) 60.

[]           Daishowa’s response to the Friends’ submissions grounded in the principle of freedom of expression on important public issues is that the Friends’ message is really an economic message. It is intended to be, and is perceived by most of its recipients as, blunt dissuasion from purchasing Daishowa products.

[]           I agree that the Friends’ message has a strong and direct economic content. The message is in part an exposition of a public issue and a critique of Daishowa’s role with respect to that issue. The message is also a vigorous attempt to persuade Daishowa to change its position. However, the message goes even farther—it invites consumers of Daishowa products to become informed about Daishowa’s position and to participate in the debate on the issue by refusing to purchase Daishowa products unless Daishowa changes its position. In short, an important part of the Friends’ message, and certainly the most effective part, is the attempt, through speech in a picketing context, to enlist consumers in a boycott of Daishowa products.

[]           Is there anything unlawful about such a consumer boycott? And do those who conceive and organize it violate any law? I think not.

[]           One of the interesting and, to some, surprising results in the early Charter jurisprudence was the decision by the Supreme Court of Canada to protect what is loosely called “commercial Speech”, that is speech focused on an economic issue. In Ford v. Quebec (Attorney General), , [1988] 2 S.C.R. 712 at p. 764, 36 C.R.R. 1 at p. 44, the court said:

The post-Charter jurisprudence of this Court has indicated that the guarantee of freedom of expression in s. 2(b) of the Canadian Charter is not to be confined to political expression. In holding, in Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, Local 580 v. Dolphin Delivery Ltd.… that secondary picketing was a form of expression within the meaning of s. 2(b) the Court recognized that the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression extended to expression that could not be characterized as political expression in the traditional sense but, if anything, was in the nature of expression having an economic purpose.

[]           See also Irwin Toy Ltd. v. Quebec (Attorney General), , [1989] 1 S.C.R. 927, 39 C.R.R. 193.

[]           One of the consequences of decisions like Ford and Irwin Toy is that corporations have a constitutionally protected right to try to persuade people to purchase their products. Moreover, for the most part, they do this entirely in a context of economic self-interest—they want to make a profit through the sale of their products.

[]           If the great principle of freedom of expression protects a corporation, say Daishowa, whose simple message is: “Here is why you should buy our products”, then is there any reason why the same principle should not protect a small group of consumers of Daishowa products, say the Friends, from saying to fellow consumers: “Here is why you should notbuy Daishowa’s products”? In my view, the answer is clear: there is no reason, in logic or in policy, for restraining a consumer boycott.

[]           Indeed, the argument for protection of the expression of the consumers is perhaps even the better one. The corporation’s expression is almost always entirely economic; it is designed to promote its own economic interests and, inevitably, to harm the economic interests of competitors. There is no “public issue” context within which most of a corporation’s expression will operate. Nike hires Tiger Woods to speak on its behalf because it wants to make money and harm Adidas and Reebok. Roots hires Ross Rebagliati because it wants to sell more winter jackets and hats, and hopes that Sporting Life’s sales of the same items will decline. There is nothing unlawful about any of this—the attempt to persuade people to purchase your product, and a concomitant attempt, either explicit (e.g., negative advertising) or implicit, to dissuade people from purchasing a competitor’s product, is entirely an economic message and entirely a lawful form of expression.

[]           The Friends’ message has a similar starting point. It is, as Daishowa asserts, a message with a negative economic content; it says bluntly to the public, “Do not buy Daishowa’s bags.” However, there is no economic self‑interest in the Friends’ message; they do not add as a reason “because we have better or less expensive bags to sell”. Rather, the economic component of the Friends’ message is anchored in the same foundation as all of its activities, namely an attempt to focus public attention on a public issue, the plight of the Lubicon, and Daishowa’s alleged connection to that issue.

[]           For these reasons, my conclusion is that if the Canadian Constitution protects a corporation’s expression where the context is largely economic, and where one of the consequences of the expression, if accepted by the listener, might well be economic harm to competitors, then the common law should not erect barriers to expression by consumers where the purpose and effect of the expression is to persuade the listener to use his or her economic power to challenge a corporation’s position on an important economic and public policy issue. The plight of the Lubicon Cree is such an issue, as is Daishowa’s connection to it.

[]           I make one final observation on this aspect of the case. Consumer picketing and boycott activities cannot operate in a completely unfettered fashion. There are important procedural limitations which must be respected. Picketing cannot be accompanied by violence, assaults or destruction of property: see Dolphin Delivery, supra, at p. 588 S.C.R. It cannot intrude into legitimate privacy interests; for example, picketers cannot bring the public expression of their views to the private residences of those on the other side: see Dieleman, supra, at pp. 741-44 D.L.R.

[]           The Friends’ picketing and boycott activities do not run afoul of any of these procedural constraints. The picketing takes place on public property. The number of picketers is small. They communicate their message in a courteous fashion. They do not attempt to stop anyone from communicating a different message. They do not impede access to the store being picketed. On this point, I can observe, as did Neil L.J. in Middlebrook Mushrooms Ltd. v. Transport and General Workers Union, [1993] I.C.R. 612 at p. 620, [1993] I.R.L.R. 232 (C.A.):

In the present case it is an important fact that the suggested influence was exerted, if at all, through the actions or anticipated actions of the third parties who were free to make up their own minds.

[]           In short, the manner in which the Friends have performed their picketing and boycott activities is a model of how such activities should be conducted in a democratic society.

[]           There are also substantive limitations on what consumers can say while picketing and boycotting a business. They cannot induce people to breach contracts with the business. They cannot tell lies about the business.

Boom Boom I agree. However you realize I am sure that that means the vast majority of workers who are not unionized and who legally can be fired for not showing up to work.