The BC Labour Relations Board has ruled that a union cannot continue to picket a location where the employer had been contracted by a third party to perform work but no longer is performing such work owing to a termination of the third party-employer contract.
Coastland Wood Industries, a non-union company that operates a log sorting and booming operation, hired Shearwater Scaling and Grading to provide scaling services at Coastland’s operations in Howe Sound. Shearwater’s employees went on strike on July 20, 2007, as part of the Coastal forest industry dispute. On July 23, the union began picketing Coastland’s operations.
On August 1, Coastland terminated its contract with Shearwater. Despite being informed of the termination, the union continued to picket at Howe Sound,. Coastland applied to the Board for a declaration that the union was engaging in illegal picketing. The Board granted the application because there was no longer any contract between Coastland and Shearwater. As union members were not otherwise performing work at Coastland’s Howe Sound location, the picketing was not permitted under the Labour Relations Code.