Why a management rights clause couldn't justify pulling five jobs from the bargaining unit
A British Columbia city that tried to remove five jobs from its bargaining unit during contract talks has lost its bid to overturn the ruling against it. The province's Labour Relations Board declined to reconsider a decision that the city breached the statutory freeze when it did so while bargaining a renewal agreement.
In a decision dated May 15, 2026, a three-member panel chaired by Jennifer Glougie, with vice-chairs Jonathan Hanvelt and Andrew Nathan, dismissed the City of Powell River's bid to reconsider a loss to the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 798. The earlier ruling found the city breached the statutory freeze in section 45(2) of the Labour Relations Code by removing five positions from the unit during renewal bargaining.
How a mid-bargaining move reached the board
The facts were not in dispute. After the union gave notice to bargain, and while the parties were negotiating a renewal agreement, the city told the union it would move five positions, and the people in them, out of the bargaining unit. The city said the step sat within its residual management authority and the collective agreement, pointing to clause 2.01 on management rights and clause 1.01 on employees.
The union saw it differently. It said pulling the jobs mid-bargaining stripped those members of their right to be represented and risked destabilizing the talks. An arbitrator, it argued, would only ask whether the exclusions were proper under the management rights clause, not what they did to bargaining.
The original panel chose to rule itself rather than send the matter to arbitration, and found the city had breached the freeze. It also found that the employees' ability to access the rights in the collective agreement at all was itself a protected term or condition of employment.
Management rights met the freeze
On reconsideration, the city argued the original decision misread section 45(2) by importing a "business as usual" test drawn from disputes over first contracts. When an employer acts in line with the collective agreement, it said, that is business as usual, and the panel had imposed the wrong standard.
Reconsideration is not a fresh shot at the case; it tests whether the first decision raises a serious question of correctness or fairness, and the board found the city had not raised one. On that point the panel wrote: "We find the Employer does not raise a serious question as to the correctness or fairness of the Original Decision's conclusion that excluding the Disputed Positions altered the affected employees' terms and conditions of employment."
The board added that even if the original panel had wrongly leaned on the "business as usual" idea, the result would be the same, because excluding the positions still altered the employees' terms and conditions.
What the board decided about the freeze
On these facts, the board held that the city could not unilaterally move employees out of the bargaining unit during the renewal freeze, because doing so cut off their access to collective agreement rights and union representation. A management rights clause did not authorize that step here.
The decision also addressed what counts as a protected term or condition during the freeze. It was not limited to wages or the entitlements written into the contract; the employees' continued access to those contractual rights, and to representation by the union, came within section 45(2)'s protection.
The board left the original finding in place and dismissed the city's application: "For the reasons given above, the Employer's application for leave and reconsideration is dismissed."
