Mel Myers: a friend to all workers

Mel Myers was for over three decades Manitoba’s most prominent union-side labour lawyer, and one of Canada’s very best.

His recent passing provides the opportunity to celebrate the career of this outstanding worker’s advocate.

Myers LLP today operates under the principles he established; the labour section of the firm represents unions only. Each spring, the Mel Myers labour conference, established in 2002, offers quality labour law education to hundreds of union leaders.

Myers was an impact player at the centre of many leading local and national labour cases. In short, he helped shape Canadian labour law as we know it today.

He began his legal career as a Crown attorney, Manitoba’s first Jewish lawyer to hold the designation. His three years in the courtroom taught him to think on his feet.

He entered private practice at age 28. The Israelite Press in a feature story referred to him as sounding like a “social reformer … interested in moral issues.”

His mentors in his early years in private practice were lawyers Leon Mitchel and Roy MacGregor. He also worked closely with elected labour leaders, including Manitoba Federation of Labour presidents Len Stephens and Dick Martin. He quickly developed a passion for labour, and his practice grew as most unions sought his assistance in the early 1970s.

In 1985, the Supreme Court of Canada agreed with Myers that mandatory retirement at 65 years constituted age discrimination, a violation of Manitoba’s human rights legislation.

In 1987, the Supreme Court of Canada overruled the Manitoba Court of Appeal in the Met Stores case, establishing that provisions such as first contract legislation cannot be set aside through an injunction while employers litigate the constitutionality of the provision. Myers prepared the affidavit of former MFL president Martin, which defended the legitimacy of Manitoba’s first contract legislation.

The Charter era impacted all avenues of the legal profession including the labour relations community. In 1989, together with prominent Toronto-based labour lawyer, Jeffrey Sack, Myers co-founded the Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers. Today, over 500 union-side lawyers gather annually to consider trends and to discuss strategy in the ever-evolving field of labour law.

Myers and Sack were instrumental in convincing the 3.5-million-member Canadian Labour Congress to co-ordinate Charter challenges. Instead of 55 CLC affiliate unions each filing their own constitutional arguments, labour would strive to pool its resources and speak with one voice. This was sound advice that enabled the movement to achieve many groundbreaking precedents, establishing Charter protected labour rights.

In May 2006 I was privileged to introduce Mel Myers as the first labour-side recipient of the University of Toronto, Bora Laskin Labour Lawyer of the Year award. I spoke that evening of Myers, saying he was both a “brilliant legal mind and a person who never forgot his roots, a man who respected the dignity of labour.”

In terms of community service, he served as the first chairperson of the Manitoba Human Rights Commission; president of the YMHA; and as a board member of the University of Winnipeg Board of Regents, Rainbow Stage and the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada.

In the mid-1990s, he represented the NDP at the Monnin Inquiry into the Interlake vote-rigging scandal that enveloped the Conservative government of Gary Filmon. In 2001, he was appointed chair of Manitoba Public Insurances, Automobile Injury Compensation Appeal Commission, providing drivers an appeal outlet in the no-fault era.

His greatest gift to workers was his belief in the trade union movement. He did not believe that the Manitoba Labour Board or the grievance-arbitration system ought to be the sole purview of lawyers. There was a role for legal counsel, but so too there was a role for union representatives and lay practitioners — and he taught many of us the skills needed to navigate these legal waters.

He was a labour historian and great supporter of the movement as a whole. He circulated awards and articles and hosted dinners with prominent practitioners, all in support of developing a generation of union representatives.

The standard cover page for arbitration awards lists the parties to the dispute and the counsel for each party. The words, “Mel Myers for the union” appear on hundreds of such awards.

He was indeed a friend to all workers, as well as our staunchest advocate.

Paul Moist is a retired labour leader and currently serves as president of the Manitoba Federation of Union Retirees.