8(1)Notwithstanding anything in this Act, the parties to a collective agreement may include in the agreement provisions for requiring, as a condition of employment, membership in the trade union that is a party to or is bound by the agreement, granting a preference of employment to members of the trade unions, or requiring the payment of dues or contributions to the trade union.

8(2)Where a person is required by the terms of a collective agreement to be a member of a specified trade union, his membership or application for membership shall not be affected by any terms or conditions not applicable to other members.

8(3)No trade union that is party to or bound by a collective agreement, containing a provision mentioned in subsection (1), shall require the employer to discharge an employee where such employee has been expelled or suspended from membership, or denied membership in the trade union where

8(4)Subsection (3) does not apply to an employee who has engaged in unlawful activity against the trade union mentioned in subsection (1) or an officer or representative thereof, or whose activity against the trade union or on behalf of another trade union has been instigated or procured by the employer or a person acting on behalf of the employer, or whose employer or a person acting on behalf of the employer has participated in such activity or contributed financial or other support to the employee in respect of such activity.

8(5)A trade union or council of trade unions and the employer of the employees concerned shall not enter into a collective agreement that includes provisions requiring, as a condition of employment, membership in the trade union that is a party to or is bound by the agreement unless the trade union has established at the time it entered into or became bound by the agreement that not less than fifty-five per cent of the employees in the bargaining unit were members of such trade union, and any such provision entered into contrary to this subsection is void.

8(6)Subsection (5) does not apply

8(7)Notwithstanding anything in this Act, where the parties to a collective agreement have included in it any of the provisions permitted by subsection (1), any of such provisions may be continued in effect during the period when the parties are bargaining with a view to the renewal or revision of the agreement or to the making of a new agreement.

8(8)Notwithstanding anything in this Act, where the parties to a collective agreement have included in it any of the provisions permitted by subsection (1) and the employer who was a party to or was bound by the agreement sells his business within the meaning of section 60, any of such provisions, as were included in the collective agreement, may be continued in effect during the period when the person to whom the business was sold and the trade union or council of trade unions, that is the bargaining agent for his employees in the appropriate bargaining unit by reason of the sale, bargain with a view to the making of a new agreement.

8(9)Nothing in subsection (7) or (8) affects the application of section 35.

8(10)No employer, and no person acting on behalf of an employer, shall discharge or otherwise discriminate against an employee within the meaning of this section when he has reasonable grounds for believing that membership was not available to the employee on the same terms and conditions generally applicable to other members or when he has reasonable grounds for believing that membership, subject to subsection (4), was denied, suspended or terminated for a reason specified in subsection (3).

8(11)Where a dispute arises as a result of a provision in a collective agreement permitted by subsection (1), the employer’s obligation to discharge an employee is arbitrable under the terms of that collective agreement.