The president of Canada’s largest private sector union is criticizing SNC-Lavalin for firing the leader of a union that represents hundreds of its engineers and other workers.

Unifor National President Lana Payne says SNC should reinstate Mark Chudak, who ran the Society of Professional Engineers and Associates (SPEA) until he and another staff member at the company’s Candu Energy subsidiary engineering were fired last month following allegations of sharing confidential information with an outside organization.

Payne believes the move, which she considers retaliatory tantamount to union busting, will have an impact on labor relations and employee morale.

The statement follows a complaint filed by SPEA with the Canada Industrial Relations Board earlier this year that SNC managers were monitoring emails between the union and employees of Candu’s nuclear division.

In an interview on Friday, SNC chief executive Ian Edwards said the employees in question, who were initially placed on paid administrative leave, had breached information security policies.

He added that unions were essential to the realization of the projects and that he hoped that the Montreal company and the SPEA, which represents some 900 workers in Candu, would manage to regain some level of mutual respect.