Warning message

Please note that this page is from our archives. There may be more up-to-date content about this topic on our website. Use our search engine to find out.

CUPE Nova Scotia says it will launch a legal challenge against the McNeil Government’s new essential services legislation – Bill 30.

Provincial President Danny Cavanagh says, “Our five home support locals will be giving notice to the provincial Attorney General of our legal challenge to this Bill.

“We believe the provincial government has interfered in our right to bargain collectively and has, effectively, taken away our right to strike in the home support sector,” says Cavanagh.

“This Bill was created for the express purpose of pushing our home support workers into accepting a deal that was dictated to them by the provincial government. Contrary to what the premier and the labour minister have been claiming, that is not free collective bargaining,” he says.

CUPE Home Support Co-ordinator Marianne Welsh, meanwhile, says, “We proved to the provincial government that free collective bargaining works by negotiating deals with two of our employers in this sector at the very same time they were ramming this law through the House.

“Like all unionized workers in Canada, our home support workers have protections under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which include freedom of association and freedom of expression. These are Constitutional rights under the Canadian Charter.”

“There have been several, high-profile, Supreme Court rulings in recent years which confirm that this right extends to collective bargaining. We believe we are on strong legal ground here,” says Welsh.