The Quebec Court of Appeal has just ruled that anti-scab provisions may indeed apply to remote work under certain circumstances. Three judges of the Court of Appeal overturned a ruling first handed down by the Quebec Superior Court in 2023. The Court of Appeal reinstated the initial decision of the Administrative Labour Tribunal, rendered in 2021 in the case of Unifor v. Groupe CRH, which operated the Joliette cement plant. The case regarding the scope of anti-scan provisions attracted significant attention. The Quebec Employers’ Council, FTQ and the Public Service Alliance of Canada intervened in the Court of Appeal case. The dispute centres on the interpretation of an employer’s “establishment” during a strike or lockout. The anti-scab provisions of the Labour Code prohibit an employer, during a labour dispute, from using replacement workers “at the establishment where the strike or lockout has been declared” to perform the duties that normally performed by the striking or locked-out employees. The Administrative Labour Tribunal had ruled in favour of the Unifor union, which argued that the employer violated the anti-scab provisions during the lockout by using a non-unionized employee assigned to its Joliette facility but working remotely to perform tasks normally carried out by its members. The Superior Court had ruled that the Labour Court’s decision was “unreasonable,” a decision the Court of Appeal overruled. This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Nov. 6, 2026.
