Bargaining unit

When a business has a union, the union represents the employees in a defined group, the bargaining unit. Ontario’s Labour Relations Act, 1995 deems every collective agreement to recognize the union as the exclusive bargaining agent of the employees in the bargaining unit defined in it. A buyer meets the term in diligence, when the question is which of the staff the agreement actually covers. Check the collective agreement and the union’s certification for how the unit is described.

What to ask about the unit

• Which positions are inside the unit and which, such as management, are outside it
• Whether the unit is a single location, several locations or a subdivision of one
• What the certification or collective agreement says about the unit’s description
• Whether another union has applied to represent any of the employees

What happens to the unit on a sale

The statutes cited here each have their own rule. Under Ontario’s Labour Relations Act, 1995, when an employer bound by or a party to a collective agreement sells its business, the person it is sold to is, until the Labour Relations Board otherwise declares, bound by the agreement. The Canada Labour Code, for federally regulated work, binds the purchaser to a collective agreement applicable to the employees on the date of sale. Quebec’s Labour Code says that the alienation of an undertaking does not invalidate a certification or collective agreement, subject to the rules in section 45.2 for an undertaking operated in part by another. British Columbia’s Labour Relations Code has its own successor section (s. 35). This entry covers Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and federally regulated work only; check the rules in the province where the business is. See the key considerations when buying a unionized business.