The appellants challenged a Court of Appeal decision setting aside an arbitration award that had characterized a drastic reduction in scheduled hours, despite largely unchanged actual hours through call-ins, as a constructive layoff.
The Supreme Court majority held that the applicable standard of review was patent unreasonableness because the arbitration board was interpreting a collective agreement within its specialized jurisdiction under a near-privative clause.
The majority concluded that layoff in labour law requires a denial or cessation of work, and that the board patently unreasonably expanded the concept by treating scheduling changes without an actual reduction in hours as a layoff.
The majority further held that the board imposed a remedy not rationally connected to the breach alleged under the collective agreement.
The appeal was dismissed, with a dissent that would have restored the arbitration award.
