Category Archives: Bill C-525

Georgetti: The Tories Attack on the Middle Class Should Worry You

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Ken GeorgettiKen Georgetti    President, Canadian Labour Congress

12/04/2013   http://www.huffingtonpost.ca

The Conservative government is engaged in a campaign to distract their supporters from a series of Senate scandals and cover ups. The Conservative fundraising machine believes that if it feeds its base a constant diet of someone to dislike, the donation cheques will keep rolling in. Workers and their unions are their current targets with a long list of legislation designed to keep their base happy.

The Conservative government’s recent volleys against workers and their unions will only serve to undercut the well-being and security of middle-class families in Canada if they succeed in pushing through their anti-union legislation. The Globe and Mail said as much in a recent series of articles on growing inequality in Canada — “declining unionization has contributed to wage inequality.”

Canada’s labour movement is not just about decent jobs, it’s about a better life for everyone. Unions have worked to protect good jobs, make workplaces safer, fought for paid vacation time, public health insurance and the Canada Pension Plan. When union members stand up for fairness everyone benefits — whether you belong to a union or not.

Canadians will see through the government’s attempts to divide people against one another. At one end of the legislative spectrum, the government uses giant omnibus bills to throw everything but the kitchen sink into one piece of legislation. The current budget bill runs to 308 pages and in the fine print it makes sudden and dramatic changes to the Canada Labour Code. One of those changes would place workers’ lives at risk by eroding their right to refuse dangerous work.

Other amendments to federal labour laws would erode workers’ constitutional right to bargain collectively by letting the government unilaterally, without negotiation, change the rules for bargaining with their employees. To add insult to injury, witnesses to the parliamentary committee studying the bill who would speak out against the changes were deliberately scheduled to testify after the deadline for the committee to make amendments passed.

What is the government really trying to fix here? We know that well over 99 per cent of all collectively bargained contracts in Canada result in an agreement rather than a strike or lockout. There was no consultation with any of the parties affected by this proposed legislation, and changing the rules without consultation and negotiation is simply heavy-handed and unfair. Given the Supreme Court of Canada will soon rule on very similar legislation introduced by the Saskatchewan government, the ideological cousins of this government, it’s also premature.

At the other end of the legislative spectrum, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is offending parliamentary tradition by using its influence to introduce Private Member’s Bills and to force their passage. That is what happened with Bill C-377, an unconstitutional piece of legislation that will force labour organizations (but no one else) to undertake costly and time consuming reporting of even the most minute of financial transactions.

Bill C-377 was supposedly the initiative of backbench Conservative MP Russ Hiebert but we know that special interest groups met frequently with the PMO, including the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Nigel Wright, and the PMO exerted pressure in order for the bill to pass.

The senate found Bill C-377 to be so offensive that it was sent back to the House of Commons in June with numerous amendments. But then the Prime Minister shut down Parliament and Bill C-377 is now going to be sent to the senate all over again. Bill C-377 is ideologically-motivated and aimed at wasting union members’ money and it is not needed. Our members already have access to financial information about the unions to which they belong.

Bill C-525, another Private Member’s Bill put forward by a Conservative MP, would make it nearly impossible for workers in the federally-regulated sector to join a union. The bill would consider workers who don’t bother to vote in a certification vote as casting “no” ballots on having a union. That’s not democratic — giving those who don’t vote control over those who do. If those rules applied to electing MPs, Parliament would be empty. One set of rules for Conservatives and a different set for workers — that’s unfair.

Finally, the recent Conservative Party convention in Calgary passed a number of aggressively anti-worker resolutions. One of them would allow some workers to stop paying union dues but still receive all the benefits that the union negotiates – all at the expense of their coworkers who do pay their dues. Leave it to ethically-challenged Conservatives, counselling people that it’s okay to dine and dash at a restaurant while leaving others at your table to pay the bill. That’s unfair and it’s a recipe for conflict and disruption in the workplace.

This government puts its extreme ideology ahead of all other considerations, but Canadians see these bullying tactics for what they are. The CLC and its affiliates ran a television advertising campaign during October and November 2013. We talked directly to Canadians about the positive role that the labour movement plays in our society. The response to our campaign has been overwhelmingly positive from both union members and the public at large. That response and our polling shows that we are on the side of the vast majority of Canadians. They will support a labour movement that works in the interest of fairness for everyone.

Ken Georgetti is president of the 3.3 million member Canadian Labour Congress.

Unions plan public fight over federal labour reforms

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Canadian Labour Congress says Ottawa ‘declared war’ by pushing changes without consultation

By Trinh Theresa Do, CBC News Posted: Nov 21, 2013 5:00 AM ET

Tony Clement says the labour reforms will "bring savings, streamline practices and bring them in line with other jurisdictions"

Tony Clement says the labour reforms will “bring savings, streamline practices and bring them in line with other jurisdictions”

Tony Clement on public service right to strike 9:51

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In a sign they have all but given up on talks with the Treasury Board over labour reforms proposed in the federal government’s budget bill, union leaders say they are taking matters into their own hands.

The Canadian Labour Congress quietly met with more than 100 representatives from unions across the country this week to plot a long-term strategy to engage both the public and union members in pressuring the government to reverse its proposed labour law changes. The CLC represents more than 3 million workers across the country.

The CLC has already wrapped up a series of television ads that ran over the past six weeks. Its next step is to reach out to each of its own members in a campaign that will detail how reforms in the budget bill will affect their bargaining rights.

And then, according to CLC secretary-treasurer Hassan Yussuff, union members must appeal directly to their MPs.

“They need to, of course, take direct responsibility to how they’re going to start speaking out on behalf of their union, on behalf of themselves,” said Yussuff. “And more importantly, in terms of the gains they have made to ensure this government doesn’t take that away.”

‘Government had declared war on us’

Yussuff said this offensive strategy will become the “new normal” unless policy changes are reversed.

“I think the government had declared war on us,” he said. “We didn’t start any of these measures — the government itself has done so. I think it’s fair for us to respond to their actions.”

If passed, Bill C-4 would make sweeping changes to a number of labour laws, including the Canada Labour Code and Public Service Labour Relations Act.

Among other things, it would streamline collective bargaining by allowing the government to determine which services are essential and make it illegal for those workers to strike. In situations where 80 per cent or more of workers in a bargaining unit are designated essential, the only dispute resolution method is arbitration.

In a statement sent to CBC News, Treasury Board president Tony Clement said the Public Service Labour Relations Act is being amended to ensure that the public service is modern and affordable.

“The proposed amendments will bring savings, streamline practices and bring them in line with other jurisdictions. Our government will sit at a bargaining table on behalf of the taxpayer where the rules are fair and balanced.”

Unions were not consulted in the drafting of the reforms. Labour leaders have since tried to meet with Clement to present counter-proposals, with little success.

Robyn Benson of the Public Service Alliance of Canada recently had a meeting with Clement during which she proposed he withdraw changes from the budget bill to allow for more consultation.

She wrote on her blog afterwards, “He stated bluntly that he had no intention of consulting with us, and that he wanted all his changes in place for the next round of collective bargaining — in fact, by Christmas.”

In response, Clement tweeted, “That’s also the meeting where you claimed co-governance with Parliament. Takes ‘union boss’ to a whole new level.”

Signs Harper Is Gearing Up to Declare War on Unions

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Tory tweets, convention chatter and looming legislation hint at what may be coming, say labour advocates.

By Tom Sandborn, Today, TheTyee.ca

“Just wrapped up a meeting with several staff members, at midnight. Good thing they’re not unionized!”

Federal Conservative Employment Minister Jason Kenney’s tweet was the object of some derision on social media in the early hours of Nov. 19. Although quickly deleted, the tweet’s sentiment hit a deep nerve for some trade unionists across the country — particularly those already worried about what the federal Conservatives have in mind for labour legislation in Canada.

A set of non-binding resolutions was adopted earlier this month at the federal Conservative party convention in Calgary. The resolutions include a call on government to reduce wage and benefit levels for civil servants. The resolutions also call for stripping unions of the right to use member dues to support social policy campaigns and other expenditures not part of a set of narrowly-defined workplace issues.

The resolutions, in addition to clauses in Bill C-4, the omnibus budget bill currently before Parliament, aren’t merely expressions of Conservative anti-labour sentiment; according to trade unionists and labour advocates, they signal a growing war on Canadian workers.

For one, trade unionists argue because Tony Clement, Conservative cabinet heavyweight and president of the Treasury Board, supported a resolution at the convention that calls for public-sector wage and benefit roll-backs, it suggests that the Harper majority government may be inclined to implement them.

“We’re not here to buy labour peace through caving in to every single public-sector union boss’s demands,” Clement told The Globe and Mail at the Calgary convention. “We’re not here to do that. We’re here to represent the taxpayer.”

Bob Jackson, vice president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, describes Conservative actions on labour as “an all-out declaration of war on unions, coming from the highest levels of the party.” Jackson traveled to Calgary to participate in a union-sponsored demonstration outside the Calgary Stampede Grounds where the convention took place.

“We have never encountered this level of animosity and ill will from the government before,” Jackson said in an interview. “They want to get rid of us and to strip away things we have maintained for decades.”

Fears over labour gain roll backs

Hassan Yussuff, secretary treasurer of the Canadian Labour Congress, shares Jackson’s concerns about a turn to more anti-labour confrontations by the government. Yussuff said he thinks Minister Clement is “fixated” on rolling back gains that organized labour has won over the past half century.

Yussuff expressed particular concern about provisions in Bill C-4, the latest signature government omnibus budget bill, that would strip away rights from public-sector workers to refuse unsafe work. He also raised concerns about Bill C-4’s reduction of independent federal work-site safety inspections.

As well, Yussuff highlighted language in the bill that would allow the government to unilaterally define workers as “essential” during a labour dispute, a definition that has previously been negotiated between the employer and public-sector workers.

This power could conceivably allow government to define workers in a particular job setting as essential, rendering strike action impossible.

Simon Fraser University professor Marjorie Griffin-Cohen is also concerned about the Conservatives’ get tough approach to labour, as evidenced both in the Calgary resolutions and the provisions of Bill C-4. In particular, she said the right of unions to use member dues in social policy campaigns is important.

“If trade unions were not active in encouraging governments to deal in fair ways with labour issues, they would be derelict in their support of labour,” Griffin-Cohen told The Tyee via email.

“Corporate spokespeople, of course, are really objecting to labour uniting on political issues — they would much rather every individual work organization deal with their mighty power all by themselves,” she added.

Resolutions ‘not an attack on labour’: CPC activist

If the Harper government is declaring war on organized labour in Canada, John Mortimer has no apparent objections.

Mortimer, president of the Labour Watch Association and a board member of the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation, is a prominent spokesperson for Canadian conservatism who ran for Parliament in 2000 for the Canadian Alliance.

“Unionization doesn’t belong in the public sector,” Mortimer said, adding that he does not endorse any specific party because of his role in the taxpayers’ federation.

Mortimer said that Canada is the only country in the world in which unions can collect compulsory dues and spend part of what is collected to campaign on broad social issues like poverty, minimum wage levels and environmental protection.

“Look at what the Canadian Autoworkers did not so long ago. They used auto workers’ dues to bring Saint [David] Suzuki to a meeting to tell the members their industry was ‘disgusting’,” he said. “I have no issue if a union wants to donate to a party or to promote a cause, but they shouldn’t be able to use mandatory dues collected from all of their members to make those donations.”

Vancouver lawyer and Conservative Party activist Scott Lamb, a member of the party’s national council, said there was broad party support at the Calgary convention for the labour-related resolutions. He disagrees with critics who characterize them as a “war.”

“That’s not fair. We are a grassroots party,” he said in an interview. “Those resolutions came from all across the country. They were not an attack on labour.”

The business-friendly Fraser Institute recently weighed in on public sector wages in an April report that suggested public-sector workers have, on average, a 12 per cent better wage level than comparable workers in the private sector, with most of the difference due to the higher level of unionization in the public sector.

The tone of the Institute’s report suggests that it would be better for public employees to have their wages reduced than for private sector workers to earn more in order to address this disparity.

‘Social unionism’ under threat?

Since 1946, after an influential arbitration ruling by Justice Ivan Rand in an auto industry dispute, Canadian labour law has permitted unions to collect dues from all workers in a bargaining unit, whether they choose to join the union or not.

This led to government and the courts allowing unions to use dues not only for narrow job site issues, but also for campaigns, such as the BC Federation of Labour’s long-standing push to increase the minimum wage in British Columbia.

In the early 1990s, for example, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Lavigne v. Ontario Public Service Employees Union that “the state objectives in compelling the payment of union dues which can be used to assist causes unrelated to collective bargaining are to enable unions to participate in the broader political, economic and social debates in society, and to contribute to democracy in the workplace.

“These objectives are rationally connected to the means chosen to advance them, that is the requirement that all members of a unionized workplace contribute to union coffers without any guarantee as to how their contributions will be used,” the judgment continues. “An opting-out formula could seriously undermine the unions’ financial base and the spirit of solidarity so important to the emotional and symbolic underpinnings of unionism.”

Unionization in the Canadian private sector is down from 30 per cent in 1997, to 18 per cent last year in both Canada and B.C. Public-sector unionization is just over 70 per cent, even after a 4.7 percent reduction in that sector over the same period — a reduction created mainly by the contracting out of public services to for-profit providers whose workers are often not unionized.

If the recent Tory convention resolutions ever make it into Canadian law, trade unionists worry the kind of “social unionism” described in the Lavigne case will become illegal, and union membership could continue to shrink across the country. [Tyee]