Manitoba labour lawyer Garth Smorang reflects on decades of leadership in labour law

Garth Smorang retired on June 26, 40 years from the day he was admitted to the bar in Manitoba. It’s the end of a career for a labour and employment lawyer who was a part of the landmark Buhler Versatile Manitoba Labour Board decision and the recent University of Manitoba Faculty Association labour dispute.

Smorang is the 2023 recipient of the Richard J. Scott Award. The award given by the Law Society of Manitoba recognizes the achievements of individuals who advance the rule of law and contribute to a strong and independent legal profession.

Smorang’s career has been marked with leadership, becoming president of the Manitoba Bar Association in 1996, the Law Society of Manitoba in 2005, and managing partner of the firm Myers LLP in 2020.

After graduating from the University of Manitoba Faculty of Law in 1982, Smorang began practising labour law for Deeley, Fabbri and Sellen.

“I enjoyed helping people navigate a system they wouldn’t be able to navigate on their own,” says Smorang. “Unions are excellent clients because they serve their members and they’re fighting for important issues like workplace safety.”

Smorang moved to Myers LLP and became a partner in 2001. Only a few weeks after joining the firm, Smorang took on the case of Canadian Auto Workers Union Local 2224 and their dispute with new owners of Buhler-Versatile, a tractor plant in Winnipeg. The business had been sold to John Buhler in 2020, and the union had been on strike for months.

As the Globe and Mail reported in 2001, the Manitoba Labour Board found Buhler bargained in bad faith and ordered to pay $6 million in damages. While the case is essential in labour law as a precedent in bad faith bargaining, things didn’t work out for the union. Staff decided to take buyouts, totalling $17 million.

“People who were working at the same job for 40-plus years were out of the job,” says Smorang. “They didn’t want to work for someone like that. It was a sad situation.”

Smorang’s other landmark case would involve bad faith bargaining. In 2016, The University of Manitoba was in labour negotiations with the University of Manitoba Faculty Association. The university had offered the faculty a 17.5 wage increase over four years. At the same time, the Manitoba government was pressuring the University of Manitoba to provide its faculty association with a zero percent wage increase for one year, warning of “financial consequences” otherwise. The university didn’t communicate this to the faculty association until late in the negotiation process. Faculty went on a 21-day strike during the fall semester of 2016 and eventually ratified a one-year agreement with a zero percent wage increase.

In the 2018 Manitoba Labour Board decision, the Board found that the university did not bargain in good faith by withholding information about the government’s interference. 

At the same time, the Manitoba government passed The Public Services Sustainability Act, which would freeze wages of public sector employees for two years and include wage increases up to 1 percent within four years. The legislation applied to more than 110,000 public sector workers, including the University of Manitoba Faculty Association.

Smorang was part of the legal team that challenged the Act, arguing it infringed on workers’ rights to freedom of association under subs. 2(d) of the Charter. In the 2021 Manitoba Court of Appeal decision, the court overruled the trial court’s finding that the law infringed on Charter rights, but it upheld the trial court’s decision that the government interfered with the Charter rights of the University of Manitoba workers. The Act was repealed in 2021.

The case went back to the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench, where Justice Joan McKelvey ruled in 2022 that the government would have to pay $19.4 million in damages to the Manitoba Faculty Association, one of the largest awards of its kind.

“It’s been quite a roller coaster,” says Smorang. “The bullying and backroom antics meant the government had no respect for the union and no respect for the employer. This is why I love the law, the ability to help people in these situations.”

While working on this case, Smorang was busy with volunteer work, serving as a chair for the Law Foundation of Manitoba board from 2011 to 2021.

“There were so many projects we funded that dealt with public interest work and legal education,” says Smorang. “It was so gratifying to give small grants to groups, and they would have such a big impact.”

It’s this drive to help people that Smorang hopes to carry on in the next chapter of his life, whether it’s teaching or working in arbitration.

“I still want to help people,” says Smorang. “I’m looking forward to what comes next.”