Canadian Labour Reporter

Teaching assistants strike at McGill University MONTREAL — Teaching as- sistants at McGill University be- gan a 24-hour strike on April 16. Demands include a wage increase and the indexation of teaching support funding to undergraduate enrolment. Teaching assistants at the university have been in bar- gaining since August 2014. The labour action saw the employ- ees — represented by the As- sociation of Graduate Students Employed at McGill — on strike for the first day of final exams. The union represents 2,000 graduate teaching assistants and 600 exam invigilators at McGill University. According to the union, the strike included picket lines on the McGill campus. A rally for precarious academic workers across the province was sched- uled at the end of the day. Hydro One sell-off runs afoul of law: Union TORONTO — The partial privatization of Hydro One in Ontario runs afoul of the law, according to the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Last week, Premier Kath- leen Wynne announced 60 per cent of the electricity utility will be sold off to the private sector to help fund her govern- ment's transit infrastructure plan, much to the chagrin of the Canadian Union of Pub- lic Employee (CUPE), which denounced the plan as "short- sighted." "Hydro One is a valuable public asset — something we all own together, that provides revenue to the government, and that in public hands provides stable, secure power to millions of Ontarians," said Fred Hahn, president of the union's Ontario faction. "Selling it would mean a loss of public control over our electricity network and signifi- cant costs for the public." While the sale (one of the biggest in recent government history) is expected to raise $4 billion for transit projects, $5 billion will be earmarked for paying down Hydro One's debt. A new legal opinion report, prepared for the union by la- bour law firm Sack Goldblatt Mitchell, found reasonable grounds to challenge the sell- ing-off of Hydro One. The government has no law- ful authority under the Elec- tricity Act to sell the utility to fund transit infrastructure, ac- cording to Steven Shrybman, a partner at the firm who served as counsel back in 2002 when then-premier Ernie Eves tried and failed to sell Hydro One. "The exercise of a statutory discretion to privatize Hydro One could be challenged on administrative law grounds of unreasonableness or irratio- nality," Shrybman said in his report. "Regardless of whether the sale itself is lawful, if the government fails to pay the net proceeds from any such sale to the Ontario Electricity Finan- cial Corporation, it would be in breach of the explicit require- ments of the Electricity Act." With Ontario's budget slated to drop April 23, CUPE is call- ing on the Liberals to halt the sale, saying it is prepared to take the government to court. "We hope the Wynne gov- ernment will see the danger of selling our hydro transmission and distribution systems and will agree with us that it would be a mistake. We are prepared to challenge a sale in court if necessary," Hahn added. LABOUR BRIEFS 2 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2015 FORMERLY CLV REPORTS Serving labour relations professionals since 1956 www.labour-reporter.com Published weekly by omson Reuters Canada Ltd. Subscription rate: $595 per year Customer Service Tel: (416) 609-3800 (Toronto) (800) 387-5164 (outside Toronto) Fax: (416) 298-5106 Email: carswell.customerrelations@ thomsonreuters.com Website: www.carswell.com Director, Carswell Media Karen Lorimer Publisher John Hobel Associate Publisher/Managing Editor Todd Humber Lead Editor Sarah Dobson | (416) 649-7896 sarah.dobson@thomsonreuters.com News Editor Sabrina Nanji | (416) 649-9348 sabrina.nanji@thomsonreuters.com News Editor Liz Foster | (416) 298-5129 liz.foster@thomsonreuters.com Marketing Co-ordinator Keith Fulford | (416) 649-9585 keith.fulford@thomsonreuters.com © 2015 Carswell, a division of omson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher. e publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other professional advice. If legal or other expert assistanceis required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. e analysis contained herein represents the opinion of the authors and should in no way be construed as being either offi cial or unoffi cial policy of any governmental body. ISSN 0045-5113 Publications Registration 2089 Canadian Labour Reporter is part of the Canadian HR Reporter group of publications. Visit www.hrreporter.com for more information. Labour Reporter Canadian www.labourreporter.com Photo: Reuters LABOUR LENS Health workers hold up placards while on strike at a clinic in Monrovia, Liberia. The employees launched the labour action in a demand for hazard pay.

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