Longtime labour dispute hits crisis point

Since March 1998, Crown Counsel have been without an employment agreement. Prohibited by law to unionize, continuously frustrated with their inability to negotiate satisfactory terms of employment, and at the end of their patience, Crown Counsel have voted 97 per cent in support of job action in the face of continued government delay in implementing a third party mediator’s recommendations.

In March 1999, Crown Counsel and the government agreed to the appointment of Stephen Owen QC, former Ombudsman and Deputy Attorney General of BC, as a mediator in this dispute. Mr. Owen’s final report was submitted in December 1999, following an October 1999 interim report. One of Mr. Owen’s recommendations was that both parties enter an expedited arbitration to be concluded by the end of February 2000. In response to Crown Counsel overtures to begin that process, government negotiators are claiming lack of instruction to proceed. In addition to expedited arbitration, the report recommends that:

• Crown Counsel be represented by a discrete bargaining unit in recognition of their quasi-judicial role, which Mr. Owen identifies as quite different from other public servants;
• an independent comparative study of Crown Counsel employment standards be commissioned every five years; and
• the Criminal Justice Branch be directed to collaborate with the Crown Counsel Association to restructure the classification system to support recruitment and retention of senior counsel.

Implementation of these recommendations will require amendments to the Crown Counsel Act and Public Service Labour Relations Act, and potential budget adjustments resulting from arbitration. Given the short timeline involved in preparing legislative and budget amendments for a Spring sitting of the Legislative Assembly, an immediate government response to the Owen Report is required.

Any further delay by the government is not acceptable to the Crown Counsel involved, and it is not acceptable to the Canadian Bar Association, which supports Crown Counsel in their pursuit of adequate working conditions and a fair process for resolving labour disputes. The President of the Branch has written both to the Attorney General of BC, Ujjal Dosanjh, and the Chair of the Public Sector Employees Council, Stephanie Nicholls, calling on them to show leadership in resolving this issue.

“We agree with mediator Stephen Owen that the concerns of Crown Counsel can best be addressed by this government through the establishment of a long term process solution that begins with an immediate arbitration of Crown Counsel’s outstanding concerns,” says Branch President Mayland McKimm. “BC is lagging behind other provinces in ensuring that government lawyers have a fair process of resolving labour disputes, and it is up to this government to ensure that BC is not left behind.”

This article was published in the February 2000 issue of BarTalk. © 2000 The Canadian Bar Association. All rights reserved.