m o d e r n i z i n

it is presented in four sections: • an introduction to the union certification process in Canada • a review of the use of electronic signatures in union organizing in Canada and the United states • a consideration of the advantages of adopting electronic signatures in all eleven of Canada’s federal and provincial jurisdictions • a recommended path for changing labour relations boards’ (LrBs) rules. [...] prior to 1977, the 11 jurisdictions – the federal government and the 10 provinces – employed the card check system as the legislative gateway to unionization. [...] in 2016, the United Food and Commercial Workers interna- tional Union, Local 1518, managed to address each of these requirements through the use of commercially available soft- ware – adobe e-sign.6 The BCLrB emphasized the importance of each of the above elements to the success of an application, and added “at present, [the Board] will expect trade union ap- plicants to identify the audit trail f. [...] This included the ip address information of both the organizer and the employee, the date and time when the organizer sent the electronic card for signature and the dates and times when the employee viewed the electronic card, signed it and sent it back to the organizer.8 Based on this ruling, employers will no longer be able to chal- lenge a certification application on the basis of electronic si. [...] a further consideration to the test case approach is there is a risk that the LrB would reject the cards used in the test case and the union would fail to become certified.