By Ahmad Hathout
Ericsson says it is being incorrectly classified as a federally regulated company for the purposes of bringing hundreds of its workers under collective bargaining.
It is asking the Federal Court to review a decision of the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) that certified on November 6 the Telecommunications Workers Union, United Steelworkers Local 1944, as the bargaining agent for employees working on Rogers wireless infrastructure. The union said this includes over 200 Ericsson field technicians, the “vast majority” of which had previously signed cards to join the union.
Ericsson challenges the decision on the basis that CIRB doesn’t have jurisdiction because the telecom equipment manufacturer is “not a federally regulated telecommunications company, nor are its operations vital or integral to a federal undertaking.” Rather, the company argues the workers are under provincial jurisdiction.
The company had brought a complaint this summer with reasons why CIRB should reject the union’s request to certify and, alternatively, disputed the appropriate bargaining unit considering the work it does with Rogers.
According to the judicial review application, dated late last week, Ericsson said it had requested an oral hearing but didn’t get one. “Without an oral hearing, there is no basis on which the Board could have determined the credibility or veracity of the Parties’ contradictory evidence, which is material to the question of the Board’s jurisdiction,” it said.
Ericsson is asking the court to stay and, ultimately, set aside CIRB’s decision and dismiss the certification application.
The union, which says this is a matter of federal jurisdiction, received certification for “all employees of Ericsson Canada Inc. in Canada engaged in commissioning, maintaining and supporting all technology of the Rogers Wireless infrastructure and who are classified as field technician, technical expert, sr network operations specialist or switch operations specialist, excluding managers and those excluded by the Code.”
The court application comes after the union sounded the alarm in late October about a different set of Ericsson telecommunications workers whose jobs were being outsourced to India.
“This is not only the offshoring of our economy, but the offshoring of our privacy and of our national security,” Michael Phillips, president of the USW, said in a release. “This is a Made-in-Canada problem, and one that can be solved through government action.”
The USW represents nearly a quarter-of-a-million members in various economic sectors across Canada and is the largest private sector union in North America.
Photo via Rogers
