Waldun Forest Products v. IWA Canada

Waldun Forest Products v. IWA Canada Analysis
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Waldun Forest Products v. IWA Canada analysis
The case focuses on the legal issue of who to include in a bargaining unit. Accordingly, only an employee can be allowed to involve in bargaining. In practice, conflicts arise on who qualifies as an employee and if a group meets the guidance. In this case, the Union needed a legal document from Walden Forest products LTD about all its employees except for supervisory personnel, sales, office, and management employees. With the Employer facing legal action due to claims of unfair labor practices, the immediate concern of the Union was assessing who to include or exclude in employment discussions between the Union and the Employer who had enlisted 89 employees.
The Union wanted some employees excluded, including those hired to replace an old employee shortly before certification, an acting supervisor who is close to management, casual staff, employees with marginal relations with the Employer, some employees working for other companies, a student aged 15 and even employees with physical problems such as back problems hence not likely to work fully. In the exclusion consideration, employees close to the majority owners and with close management ties faced assessment. According to the Union, some full-time employees not in the firm at the time of the listing but likely to be recalled would have been included in the list. According to the Union, various reasons explain excluding employees who are family members, casual workers, or involved in the management team. On the contrary, the Employer opposed the Union's position and provided that these employees in the three categories did not in whatever manner identify with the interests of the Employer. Even the casual workers had a history with the Employer and should not be excluded. In contrast, the employees in the supervisory roles cannot be categorized as "management exclusions" since they are similar to charge hands, commonly included in the bargaining unit. 
To conclude the issues of inclusion or exclusion of certain employees in the bargaining unit, the LRB has to analyze the facts of this case and apply precedence as demonstrated in previous rulings. To start, familial relationships did not provide enough evidence regarding conflict of interest in collective bargaining. As shown in the past case of Bruce Clarke Ltd., BCLRB No. 56/78, [1979], 1 Can LRBR 149, an employee could only...