When does an employer's requirement that a worker belong to a particular union count as an unfair labour practice, and what does the proviso leave permitted?
General information · Not legal advice
Material to check
For this exercise, the practice file would hold the collective agreement said to require membership, papers showing how many workers the workplace has and how many the union represents, the employment terms offered to the worker, and any record of discipline or disadvantage imposed after the worker was expelled or left the union.
These are types of material to look for, not evidence already verified by PRO SE.
Where readings differ
One reading takes the item at its word: an employer may not make a worker's non-membership or withdrawal from a union, or membership of a specific union, a condition of employment, and the proviso opens a single exception, the conclusion of a collective agreement making membership a condition, available only where that union represents two or more thirds of the workers at the workplace.
Another reading stresses what the proviso does not lift: even where the threshold is met and the agreement concluded, the employer still may not impose status-based disadvantage on a worker because the worker was expelled from that union or withdrew and then organised a new union or joined another, so permission to conclude the agreement does not settle how the employer may treat a later leaver.
Your judgment
If the employer acted against a worker who joined another union, what in the file shows whether the action was status-based disadvantage for that reason rather than something else?
PRO SE does not make this decision or keep a case record on this public site.When to reconsider
We look at this again if the provision is amended to change the representation threshold or the scope of the proviso, or if a court or Labour Board decision explains how the two or more thirds representation at the workplace is to be counted.