Is a collective agreement enforceable in common law?

Arbitration of rights disputes is one of the fundamental features of Canadian labour law. Collective agreements are meant to eliminate work stoppages during the term of a collective agreement and instead resolve disputes between employer and employee concerning the interpretation and operation of a collective agreement through grievance and arbitration. As Estey J. said in St. Anne Nackawic Pulp & Paper v. CPU, 1986 CanLII 71 (SCC), [1986] 1 S.C.R. 704, The collective agreement establishes the broad parameters of the relationship between the employer and his employees. This relationship is properly regulated through arbitration and it would, in general, subvert both the relationship and the statutory scheme under which it arises to hold that matters addressed and governed by the collective agreement may nevertheless be the subject of actions in the courts at common law. … [L]abour relations legislation provides a code governing all aspects of labour relations, and … it would offend the legislative scheme to permit the parties to a collective agreement, or the employees on whose behalf it was negotiated, to have recourse to the ordinary courts which are in the circumstances a duplicative forum to which the legislature has not assigned these tasks.