Queen's Law to host labour arbitration workshop in Toronto

Photo by Aimee Burtch

Chief Justice of Ontario Warren Winkler (second from left), keynote speaker and Honorary Chair of the CLCW Advisory Committee at Queen's Law in November with CLCW colleagues: Professor Richard Chaykowski, Advisory Board member; Professor Kevin Banks, Director; and Professor Emeritus Bernie Adell, Advisory Board member.

Labour and employment law experts will be gathering to discuss a topic that has been gaining importance for some time: "Labour Arbitration as Access to Justice: What's Working and What Isn't?" The morning workshop, hosted by Queen's Centre for Law in the Contemporary Workplace (CLCW), takes place at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto on April 29.

The workshop will provide members of the labour and employment law community -- practitioners, scholars, students and policy-makers -- a critical reflection on one of the most important aspects of labour arbitration and how well it is working to serve the interest of access to justice.

Grievance arbitration as access to justice currently faces a wide range of challenges, from human rights and tort claims to Charter issues. As Professor Kevin Banks, Director of the CLCW sees it, "There has been a real move towards mediation/arbitration in the last few years as a response to some of these concerns, and so it struck us that now would be a good time to try to get a handle on these developments to understand where arbitration is going. Since it does seem to be at a point of change, this is a good opportunity to identify best or good practices to deal with the changes."

Should we take pride in the fact that a dispute resolution system designed and operated by unions, employers and their counsel is being trusted to resolve a wide range of fundamental and increasingly complex questions? Or is it being pushed beyond its limits? What changes to arbitration processes, if any, are needed today? These are just some of the questions the experts will address.

The keynote speaker, Chief Justice Warren Winkler of the Court of Appeal for Ontario, has a long-standing interest in the workshop topic, having raised access to justice issues throughout his tenure at the court. It is expected that he will pose difficult questions about whether the legalization and judicialization of labour arbitration, as well as the enhanced procedures, formalities and greater use of technical legal argument in it, is helping Canada to reach the goal of access to justice or standing in the way.

"I suspect he's going to tell us that it's doing a bit of both," Banks says, "that the picture is complicated, but we need to think about how we can reduce the sort of unwanted effects of making the procedure more legalistic that result in delay. At the same time we want to keep the beneficial effects of allowing people to present their claims, have their rights vindicated, have a fair process, and so on."

The workshop also features a session on efficiency and delay in arbitration and two panels: One will examine how grievance arbitration interfaces with other forums and whether it is being pushed beyond its limits; the other will focus on process problems to explore the procedural and remedial reforms necessary to allow grievance arbitration to cope with the workload of today and tomorrow.

"The workshop presents an opportunity to share some information, but also to shape a future research agenda for the Centre," Banks says. "We expect it will raise as many questions as it identifies answers, so we hope to build on the discussion that's already taking place in the work of the CLCW."

The April 29 workshop is just one event planned by the CLCW, launched in November 2010 to provide an intellectual home for the Canadian labour and employment law community. It will also host a symposium within a month of the release of the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in Fraser v. A.G. Ontario.

For more information on the "Labour Arbitration as Access to Justice: What's Working and What Isn't?" workshop and to register, go to http://law.queensu.ca/lawResearch/clcw/events.html