Taxi union ordered to pay airport legal fees
An Ottawa judge has ordered Unifor, the union representing Ottawa taxi drivers, to pay the Ottawa Airport Authority more than $10,000 to cover legal fees incurred by the airport, and placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of a top union official.
Judge Robert Beaudoin said he was awarding costs against the union because national representative Harry Ghadban had made “false statements in respect of material facts” in a series of hearings related to picketing rights at the airport.
“Nothing excuses Mr. Ghadban from providing false evidence to the court,” said Beaudoin in a decision released Tuesday.
“The defendant’s conduct cannot be excused or condoned. Unifor will have to bear the consequences of the actions of one its representatives.”
Two hundred drivers, who operate under the Airport Taxi brand, have been locked in a labour dispute since August with their dispatcher, Coventry Connections, over a new contract to service the airport.
As part of their labour action, taxi drivers had taken to picketing, banging drums and disrupting traffic in and around the airport,
The airport obtained a court injunction on Aug. 14 forbidding them to make “excessive noise” and limiting the number of protesters the drivers could have on airport property at any one time.
However, in October lawyers for Unifor appeared in court to challenge parts of the Aug. 14 injunction. Beaudoin denied the union’s challenge when Ghadban’s testimony failed to hold up in court. The airport claimed that the excessive noise caused safety issues by masking public address messages that could be important to people around the building.
Ghadban argued that he had been tracking noise levels to ensure that the union’s protests never exceeded certain decibel levels. However, a review of airport security video found no proof that the decibel readings were ever taken by Ghadban.
Ghadban could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. Bob Orr, an assistant to Unifor’s national president, said Ghadban thought he took the reading that day but it was another union representative.
“It was no attempt on his part to deceive the courts,” Orr said. “He simply misspoke.”
Beaudoin upheld the injunction, and placed more specific requirements on the union, limiting the number of pickets to 20 and moving them from a penned-in area on a concrete island in front of the arrival’s section to a grassy area at the southernmost part of the airport’s parkade.
The union challenged the judge’s decision again on Oct. 22, claiming that it believed the judge’s earlier decision allowed for more than 20 people to be in the grassy area. Lawyers for the picketers also complained that the new protest area was not sheltered, as the island where they previously were was covered. Beaudoin dismissed their complaints a second time and questioned the union’s use of the court’s time.
“Whenever we give the picketers an inch they want to take a mile, (and) we have to be as clear as possible,” Beaudoin said in court on Oct. 22. “I can’t trust that the union will comply with anything other than extremely strict conditions, and I’ve tried to give them an opportunity to protest. If it rains, they’ll have to bring an umbrella or a raincoat.”
On Tuesday, Beaudoin was again firm.
“The noise reached an unacceptable level and interfered with the airport authority’s ability to communicate and carry out its security obligations,” he said in his decision.
The union must now pay the airport authority $10,000 plus HST, and an additional $1,000 for legal costs relating to Tuesday’s decision.
On Friday, Unifor members stormed the company’s dispatch centre on Coventry Road, assaulting employees within the building and destroying equipment used to dispatch taxis in various fleets across Ontario.