CUB 6801
CORRESPONDING FEDERAL COURT DECISION: A-787-81
IN THE MATTER OF THE UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT
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IN THE MATTER OF a claim for benefit by
GIONEST, Odilon et al.
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IN THE MATTER OF an appeal to an Umpire by the Commission
from the decision of a Board of Referees given at
Chandler, Quebec, on December 23, 1980.
DECISION
DUBÉ, J.
The Commission has appealed on the grounds that the Board of Referees erred in law in deciding that there was not a labour dispute at the fish plant in Newport, Quebec, where the appellant and other claimants were employed, from April 30 to May 13, 1980.
"Labour dispute is defined as follows in section 44(4) of the Act:
(4) In this Act, "labour dispute" means any dispute between employers and employees, or between employees and employees, that is connected with the employment or non-employment, or the terms or conditions of employment, of any persons.
After hearing the arguments put forward by counsel for the claimants and counsel for the Commission at the hearing of this appeal held in Percé, Quebec, on July 8, 1981 and after examining the exhibits in the record, I have no alternative but to determine that there was indeed a "labour dispute" within the meaning of the Act at the plant in question.
To begin with, there was a difference of opinion between the Quebec United Fishermen and the employees represented by the Syndicat national des Employés des Usines de Pêcheries de Newport. The main stumbling blocks in the negotiations were the wage clauses, hours of work, cost of living allowance and the introduction of new production standards required by the employer. All these points in dispute related of course to the claimants' employment and terms and conditions of employment. During the negotiations, the Quebec United Fishermen decided not to resume operations at the plant in Newport so long as the collective agreement was not renewed. Thus, the offshore fishermen who supplied the plant were told by the employer to unload their catches elsewhere. Had it not been for the labour dispute, the employees would normally have gone back to work at the start of the fishing season on April 30, 1980.
In its decision, the Board of Referees reviewed the situation. Several meetings had been held between the union and the employer before the season began in March and April. The Board noted that there was no picketing, that the employees were not called back to work and that they did not refuse to work. It concluded that the negotiations were not stormy and that there was no interruption, no picketing, no strike, no conciliation, no request for conciliation and, therefore, no labour dispute.
In my opinion, this decision by the Board is erroneous. The existence of a labour dispute in accordance with the aforementioned definition does not require the presence of the factors considered by the Board. As numerous past decisions have consistently established, there can be a labour dispute even if there is no strike, no conciliation, no picketing and no disturbances.
In the instant case, the two parties concerned disagreed on the claimants' terms and conditions of employment. Consequently, the employer did not open his doors and informed the fishermen who supplied the plant to unload their catches elsewhere. As a result, a work stoppage attributable to a labour dispute occurred.
In its decision, the Board dwelt on the absence of a labour dispute and did not deal with the question of whether or not there had been a stoppage of work. The evidence clearly shows that the employer shut the doors of the plant in Newport and informed the fishermen who normally unloaded their fish there to take their catches elsewhere. Those catches would have been sufficient to employ the workers at the plant in Newport.
For these reasons, the Commission's appeal is allowed.
J.E. DUBÉ
Umpire
OTTAWA
August 14, 1981