Doug Ford government loses Bill 124 appeal in Ontario court
CTV
Ontario's top court has rejected the provincial government's Bill 124 appeal, which more than one million workers argued infringed on their collective bargaining rights.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford's law that imposed wage restraint on public sector workers violated their collective bargaining rights and is unconstitutional, the province's Appeal Court ruled Monday.
The law, known as Bill 124, capped salary increases for public sector workers to one per cent a year for three years.
A lower court struck it down as unconstitutional and the Appeal Court, in a 2-1 decision, largely upheld that decision, writing that the infringement couldn't be justified.
"Because of the Act, organized public sector workers, many of whom are women, racialized and/or low-income earners, have lost the ability to negotiate for better compensation or even better work conditions that do not have a monetary value," the court wrote in its majority opinion.
The Progressive Conservatives enacted the law, known as Bill 124, in 2019 as a way to help the government eliminate a deficit. The province had argued the law did not infringe constitutional rights, saying the charter only protects the process of bargaining, not the outcome.
The Appeal Court wrote that governments are entitled to try to hold compensation increases to a certain level, but the issue is how they do that.
"Ontario has not been able to explain why wage restraint could not have been achieved through good faith bargaining," the court wrote.
