Anthony Glavin

Partner

Background & Experience

Anthony (Tony) has practiced labour and workplace law since his call to the BC Bar in 1994. He became a partner in 1997 and remained with the same firm which ultimately became Glavin Gordon Clements and now Koskie Glavin Gordon. Best Lawyers in Canada recognizes Anthony for his expertise in Employee Benefits Law and Labour and Employment Law. Chambers and Partners Canada ranks both the firm and Anthony in its top echelon (Band 1) for employment and labour relations in BC. In addition, Lexpert has repeatedly recognized Anthony as one of the leading labour relations practitioners in the province since 2004.

Anthony’s practice includes representing unions in both the private and public sectors.  His private sector clients represent workers in industries ranging from airlines, brewery and winery, longshore and newspapers to camera, technicians and performers in film and television.  In the public sector he represents firefighters, resident doctors, ferry workers and unions in the health care, post-secondary education, transportation and municipal sectors.  Anthony has also developed a significant health and welfare trust practice, having concluded two large public sector joint trust agreements affecting over 50,000 employees and their dependents.  Anthony continues to be involved on behalf of unions in the creation and implementation of new health benefit joint trusts, including transitioning health and welfare trusts to Employee Life and Health Trusts.

Anthony’s practice routinely involves appearing before a range of administrative bodies including labour arbitrators, labour relations boards, pension standards tribunals, financial services tribunals, privacy commissioners, workers’ compensation boards and human rights tribunals.  As well, he pursues his clients’ interests at every level of the courts in British Columbia and in the federal jurisdiction. Anthony also participates in negotiations with several of his clients, including as chief spokesperson for Resident Doctors of BC, on behalf of Longshore workers, Ambulance Paramedics, as well as for the BC Council of Film Unions in industry bargaining with the film and television producers in Los Angeles.

As part of the firm providing full services to its clients, Anthony is involved in teaching a variety of labour law courses and, each year, puts on a week-long arbitration law course with three arbitrators for the Canadian Labour Congress Winter School in Harrison Hot Springs, BC.

Anthony Glavin provides legal services through Campion Law Corporation.

Representative Matters

  • Union of B.C. Performers – On February 8, 2023, Koskie Glavin Gordon successfully represented the Union of B.C. Performers (UBCP) at the British Columbia Court of Appeal.  The decision concerned UBCP’s right to direct its benefits trust, and thereby allow UBCP members to transfer their benefits and certain assets held under trust, to an alternative benefits provider that serves both UBCP and the national branch of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television, and Radio Artists (ACTRA).
  • Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association – Anthony Glavin and Rob De Luca win a $10,000,000 award for the Union in a case involving Bargaining Compensation Comparability with the BC Nurses Union.
  • International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 500 -and- BC Maritime Employers’ Association (Guardrail Safe Work Procedures case) – this case involved 3 grievances brought by Local 500 and, over the course of 28 days of hearing that included evidence from competing expert witnesses, the Union succeeded in all aspects of its case requiring the employers to implement new safe work procedures using guardrails when shipping grain in inclement weather.
  • Joint Health Science Benefits Trust; Joint Facilities Benefits Trust – successfully negotiated the joint trust agreements on behalf of two large public sector bargaining associations covering over 50,000 health sector employees and their dependents.
  • Unifor Local 2000 -and- Pacific Newspaper Group (Re: Job Guarantees) – successfully persuaded an arbitrator that Lifetime Job Guarantee agreements affecting Pressmen and a Mailer were applicable in the context of a contracting out of the employer’s presses.
  • Brewery Winery & Distillery Workers, Local 300 –and- Brewers Distributor Ltd. (Defined Benefit Pension Case) involved successfully litigating pension rights for hundreds of members of the pension plan before the Pension Standards Branch, Financial Services Tribunal, and ultimately BC Supreme Court.
  • United Food and Commercial Workers Local 247 –and- Westfair Foods Ltd. (Statutory Holiday Pay), upheld by the Labour Relations Board on appeal, involved successfully obtaining a remedy for a large bargaining unit of employees who were underpaid in respect to statutory holiday pay.
  • Interior Brewery Workers, Local 308 –and- Labatt Brewery (Surveillance Case)involved successfully striking out all surveillance and related evidence obtained by a private investigator in support of a termination by the company.
  • Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association Anthony Glavin and Rob De Luca win a $10,000,000 award for the Union in a case involving Bargaining Compensation Comparability with the BC Nurses Union. The arbitrator found that the HSPBA had successfully established “Me Too” claim when comparing benefit regimes with BCNU. The award (just shy of $10,000,000) required payment of interest in accordance with the Court Order Interest Act. The hearing involved more than a dozen days of evidence which included competing experts giving testimony on behalf of the respective parties. See the link here for the FULL AWARD.

Education

  • The Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University – LLB
  • Simon Fraser University – BA (Honours, Pol Sci; Minor Cmns)

Associations

  • Law Society of British Columbia
  • Canadian Bar Association – Labour Law Subsection
  • Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers (CALL)
  • International Foundation, Employee Benefits

Awards & Rankings

  • Chambers Canada- and L’expert-recognized union-side specialist in labour relations in British Columbia.
  • Recipient of Canadian Bar Association Lawyer Referral 10 year Recognition
  • Clyde W. Sperry Property Law Award – Dalhousie Law School

Publications

  • “Employer Investigations” –   Continuing Legal Education – Glavin, A.
  • “Arbitration: To Go or Not to Go” –  Canadian Labour Congress Winter School – Glavin, A., Nichols, J.,  McPhillips, D. & Moore, W.