Crown attorneys looking for independent bargaining

By JEREMY APPEL on December 13, 2019.

SUBMITTED PHOTO
Matthew Block, who was a Crown prosecutor in the Hat from 2009-2013, is the treasurer of the Alberta Crown Attorneys Association.

jappel@medicinehatnews.com@MHNJeremyAppel

A former Medicine Hat prosecutor is working on getting the Alberta Crown Attorneys Association certified as an independent bargaining unit.

ACAA treasurer Matthew Block, who now resides in Calgary but worked as a prosecutor in Medicine Hat from 2009-2013, told the News they’re trying to change a requirement under the Public Service Employees Relations Act that Crown prosecutors, as public employees, must be represented by the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees.

To that effect, the ACAA launched a Charter challenge to the Labour Relations Board, arguing this stipulation violates their freedom of association.

This challenge was rejected, but Block says the ACAA is taking it to the Court of Queen’s Bench for judicial review.

“The problem is that prosecutors are supposed to be independent,” he said, referencing the SNC-Lavalin scandal, which brought this issue to the broader public’s attention.

“We don’t want to be part of this larger organization, with employees like sheriffs and probation officers, and so on, whom we end up interacting with, whether they’re witnesses or other interested parties. We don’t want prosecutorial independence to be affected by being part of the same organization as them.”

In Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and British Columbia, Crown prosecutors have their own bargaining unit.

Beyond the question of who represents Crown lawyers in collective bargaining, Block says Alberta prosecutors need a union because they are often overburdened and underpaid, two factors which are closely intertwined.

“One of the biggest issues we’ve had is resourcing, not having enough prosecutors for the files we have,” Block said. “This just seems to fall on deaf ears when we keep raising it with the government.”

Prosecutors’ wages are continuously getting frozen, while the cost of living constantly increases, he added.

“I’ve been a prosecutor for just over 10 years. Our salaries have been frozen for about eight of those years,” said Block, with the most recent freeze beginning in April 2015 and scheduled to remain in place until March at the soonest.

As a result, the Alberta Crown has had “retention issues,” with prosecutors moving to other jurisdictions, whether it’s the federal service or another province, to get better pay for the amount of work they’re doing.

The appetite for collective bargaining among prosecutors is not at issue. Block says the ACAA had between 70 and 80 per cent support for its certification drive.

“Prosecutors are finally fed up and just want something formalized so that the government has to bargain with us,” he said.

A “silver lining” in the unsuccessful hearing at the Labour Relations Board was its recognition that the government wasn’t bargaining with the ACAA in good faith, he said.

“On some issues, the ACAA has written and received no response. On some occasions, significant changes have been made to wages without notice or attempted dialogue,” the ruling reads in part.

“Where there is no response or no attempted dialogue, the ACAA has no knowledge whether its representations have been considered in good faith.”