Sanity Prevails

There's a fine line between legitimate strike action and blackmail. Thankfully, recent court decisions have prevented the line from blurring.

The court decisions that I refer to concern two recent incidents of labour dispute. On June 20th, taxi and limousine drivers involved in a dispute with the Greater Toronto Airport Authority (GTAA) blockaded roads leading up to Toronto's Pearson International Airport. Traffic on Highway 427 ground to a halt as outraged travellers were forced to get out of their cars and walk several kilometers - suitcases in hand - to catch flights. The other incident involves about a thousand workers from Hydro One, the company that handles provincial energy distribution, on strike since early June. On June 27th, the striking workers picketed at the Nanticoke coal-fired power plant. Employees of the generating station were blocked from going to work, forcing Ontario Power Generation (OPG) to close down six of the 4000 megawatt station's 500 megawatt units.

After the first day of the airport strike, the GTAA was able to obtain a 24-hour court injunction that barred the picketers from obstructing other motorists, on the grounds that the obstruction was a danger to public safety. A deal was later struck between the GTAA and the drivers to allow the demonstrations to take place within designated areas of the airport. In the case of the Hydro One strikers, OPG obtained an injunction against the picketing at Nanticoke. Today, an Ontario judge banned the Hydro One workers from blocking entrances to any generating plant in the province, citing the risk to the entire power system.

In both these cases, I am glad to see that sanity has prevailed. The right to strike - that is, the right to withdraw one's labour - is an essential protection against potential abuses by employers. It is a right that should be enshrined in law. The right to withdraw one's labour is, however, the only thing that the right to strike implies. An employee only has the right to withdraw his or her own labour, not to disrupt someone else's. Regardless of the maladies that afflict the taxi and limo drivers and the Hydro One workers, they do not have the right to harry other workers who have no part in the quarrel (namely the employees who run Pearson International Airport or those who run the Nanticoke generating plant). Attempting to garner attention for their cause by unjustifiably inflicting major inconveniences upon the general public amounts to little more than thuggery.

As Sir Wilfred Laurier once said, "the rights of each man end precisely at the point where they encroach upon the rights of others."