Date of Award
1998
Document Type
Thesis
Abstract
This thesis examines the continuing development of a union's duty to fairly represent its members, the duty owed by a union to its members based upon negligence principles and the recent development of the duty to accommodate in the field of human rights legislation. As the federal government and seven of the ten Canadian provinces moved to codify the union duty of fair representation the lower courts saw a continuing need for judicial supervision in the area of intra-union conflict. However, the Supreme Court of Canada appears to have willingly accepted ouster of the courts' inherent jurisdiction in favour of statutory tribunals. I critically assess those cases in which the courts concluded their jurisdiction was ousted. I also trace the development of the duty to accommodate union members in circumstances where the union is guilty of adverse affect discrimination. I critically assess those circumstances where the courts have allowed an extension of the jurisdiction of human rights tribunals based upon what I refer to as administrative tribunal (as opposed to judicial) lawmaking. The analysis of the courts' willingness to accept ouster of its jurisdiction in the field of intra-union conflict and its willingness to permit human rights tribunals to expand their own jurisdiction sets the stage for a call for less law making by tribunals and a greater willingness by the courts to recognize that tribunals do not possess any jurisdiction other than that afforded by the Legislator.
Recommended Citation
B. Richard Bell, The Evolving Duties of Trade Unions Toward their Members: Defining the Duties and Determining the Standards (LLM Thesis, Dalhousie University, 1998) [unpublished].
