Category Archives: Labour Rights

Why labour unions are concerned about the new budget bill — and you should be too

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By H.G. Watson  | November 21, 2013  http://rabble.ca

Photo: flickr/Kim Elliott

It’s almost a yearly tradition now — with a new session of Parliament comes a new omnibus bill to stir up controversy. This year, Bill C-4 — the budget implementation bill — has raised the ire of Canada’s national labour unions, for good reason. And while we might not notice the impacts now, if Bill C-4 passes, we soon will.

So, what’s in this bill?

Bill C-4, like omnibus bills before it, makes amendments and changes to all sorts of legislation. As reported by Macleans, it will extend solicitor-client privilege under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and potentially give the minister of immigration new powers to approve economic class applicants.

But what changes impact labour?

The bill gives the federal government exclusive right to determine what public services workers are essential — a designation that is currently negotiated by the employer and the union. Under the current system, if they can’t reach an agreement they go to the Public Service Labour Relations Board.

Bill C-4 simply calls for consultation, after which the government can still declare the workers essential. In this new proposed system, the final decision rests with the government.

And there’s more. If over 80 per cent of workers in a bargaining unit are deemed essential — essential workers are deemed so if their work is needed to ensure the safety and security of the public — they go right to arbitration. Do not strike. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $50.

At the same time, the bill dissolves and combines The Public Service Labour Relations Board and the Public Service Staffing Tribunal and creates the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board. This new board will oversee all grievances brought by workers in the federal public service.

Lastly, the bill makes some major changes to the health and safety provisions in the Canada Labour Code — a statute that applies to all federally regulated industries. As the Labour Code currently stands, officials called health and safety officers, who are designated by the minister of labour, investigate workplaces and deem them dangerous if need be.

If the amendments contained in Bill C-4 pass, the minister would be directly responsibly for leading the investigations, and the definition of “danger” would be “an imminent or serious threat to the life or health of a person exposed to it.” The current definition notes that the danger only has to be a hazard or condition that could reasonably cause injury or illness.

And why is labour concerned about this?

In a nutshell: unions believe that workers are being stripped of their rights to collectively bargain and protect themselves in unsafe workplaces.

“Obviously we are not pleased with this bill,” said Robyn Benson, the president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), a union that represents 180,000 workers in the federal public service.

She is concerned that if the bill passes, far more of the workers in PSAC will be deemed essential and thus unable to strike should they decide to do so after a round of bargaining their new contracts with the federal government.

“I think that [Clement] will probably, for example, try to deem every customs officer essential when that’s not in fact the case,” she explained. “I don’t believe collecting taxes at the border has anything to do with [that].”

The health and safety concerns extend past the federal public service and include industries like airlines, rail and telecommunications. PSAC representatives believe that the dissolution of the health and safety officers could politicize workplace monitoring and that the new definition of danger leaves too much room for interpretation.

And much like previous omnibus budget bills, the Conservatives are being criticized for including non-budgetary items in Bill C-4, like changing the essential worker designation. “It’s an anti-democratic and anti-parliamentarian tactic,” said Alexandre Boulerice, the NDP labour critic. He worries that because of the scope of the bill, many of the changes contained within — including some of sweeping ones concerning labour — won’t get enough time for proper scrutiny before the parliamentary committees.

Clement declined to be interviewed for this story, but he told The Globe and Mail earlier this month that these changes would transform and modernize “the public service negotiation architecture.” He’s told other media that he believes it ridiculous that the government has to negotiate with labour unions to determine what services are essential — an arrangement that according to Benson had been working with previous Treasury Board presidents, including Vic Towes. According to her, Clement also refused to consult with PSAC during the writing of Bill C-4.

So why make these changes?

Benson believes that these changes are coming for one reason — the federal public service is negotiating a new collective agreement in 2014 and the federal government is preparing to do battle with the public sector unions.

She has no plans to stop battling these changes, now or at the bargaining table next year. “We have told this government from the day that I was elected that I was not going to expect any concessions,” she said. “And I believe that our membership is solidly behind us and will stand up to be counted.”

Clement, for his part, has already started his own campaign to support his cause. He told media that he will stay mum on who is to be deemed essential, but has been sure to stress that it is for the cause of public safety. At question period earlier this month, he also addressed a concern from within his own party about the absenteeism rate of public service workers, noting that he will address the issue next year at the bargaining table.

And what does it mean for the federal public service?

It means that once the new year begins, they may find themselves involved in drawn-out labour negotiations that will have impacts felt beyond federal public service workers. War drums are already beating. On Twitter and in the media, both have Benson and Clement have taken shots at each other.

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]

Lowering our standards for workers’ rights

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By Trish Hennessy   September 3, 2013   http://rabble.ca

Missouri rallies against Right to Work & corporate greed. Photo: Jobs with Justi

The right-wing Fraser Institute has released a paper that, if implemented, would dramatically lower our standards for worker pay, workers’ rights and workplace protections.

It urges governments in Ontario and B.C. to adopt American-style “right-to-work” (RTW) laws which violate a core principle upheld in Canadian law: if a majority of workers in a workplace vote to form a union, everyone should be a member and pay dues — because all workers in that workplace benefit from the gains made by the union in their workplace.

Effectively, it would undermine unions’ right to organize in Canada.

It also promotes the right-wing frame of the day: “worker choice”. That’s the language the Fraser Institute is touting in its latest paper. The frame is an American import; an expression of the oft-touted freedom values in that country. It’s Orwellian language, really, because what we’ve witnessed under similar anti-worker laws in the U.S. is that workers there have far fewer options, worse working conditions and lower pay.

Here’s the harsh reality of workers who live in American states that have implemented such anti-worker laws:

–  The average worker in RTW states earns $1,540 less a year than workers who live in states with more robust worker protection laws;

–  Median household income is $6,437 less ($46,402 vs. $52,839);

–  The percentage of jobs in low-wage occupations is higher (26.7 per cent vs. 19.5 per cent);

–  Poverty rates are higher (15.3 per cent vs. 13.1 per cent);

–  More infants die (infant mortality rates are 15 per cent higher);

–  And more workers die in the workplace (36 per cent higher).

Learn more about the harmful effects of RTW laws in the U.S. here.

Clearly, this is not the direction we should be advising our governments to head towards. But the Fraser Institute’s latest volley is part of a strategic, concerted effort among right-wing groups in Canada to launch wave after wave of assaults on this country’s labour movement following the great disruption of the 2008-09 global economic recession.

Ontario is proving to be one of the major testing grounds for this concerted effort. Shortly after the Ontario government plunged into deficit as a result of recession — coupled with some of its own questionable decisions, such as ORNG and cancelled gas plant projects — right-wingers started in with a major blamestorming campaign to pin the deficit on unionized workers.

The fact of the matter is that polling reflects the majority of Canadians believe unions effectively improve the salaries and working conditions of Canadian employees; they believe that unions are necessary and important in society.

The goal of the right-wing narrative in Canada is to stir resentment, to pit workers against workers, to erode the public’s support for this legitimate public institution.

The Fraser Institute’s most recent paper would take Ontario back to a world where corporate giants could exploit workers with impunity, because workers on their own lack the resources to do much about it. They are powerless.

As this Toronto Star editorial aptly states, the labour movement plays an important role in our society: “Business may not welcome it, but organized labour is a well-established force for social good — one that has raised the standard of living of a great many of us. Statistics Canada rightly counts union membership as a key ‘indicator of well-being’ and it rose last year. About 31.5 per cent of employees were represented by a union, up from 31.2 per cent in 2011.”

In Ontario, 28 per cent of all employees belong to a union. As the Canadian Labour Congress calculated, their weekly payroll amounts to more than $1.7 billion — a third of the total provincial payroll. “On average, unionized workers earned $6.11/hour more than non-union employees. That union advantage translated into $351.6 million more every week paid into local economies to support local businesses and community services.”

That union advantage contributes to all Ontarians’ economic well-being.

By urging Ontario to emulate American states that embrace anti-worker laws, the Fraser Institute is prescribing a race to the bottom. Contrary to the Fraser Institute’s claim that it would benefit Ontario’s economy, research from the Economic Policy Institute shows the reality in American RTW states has been exactly the opposite of what advocates had promised.

Implementing anti-worker laws would slow down Ontario’s economy, because once workers earn less, they spend less — and right now it’s workers who are propping up economic growth by spending locally.

It would put more workers in dire straights, because they’d lose protections that unions secured for all workers generations ago.

It would weaken workers’ rights, making it harder for a worker to turn down unsafe work.

It would turn back the clock to the days before Ontario had a stable middle class.

It would return Ontario to the days in the late-1800s and early-1900s where worker strife led to work stoppages, strikes, and labour unrest.

We’ve come too far to turn back now. Our standards are, and will continue to be, higher than that. We are all worth more.

Trish Hennessy is director of the CCPA Ontario office, located in Toronto. The CCPA Ontario will be posting a compendium of papers to help inform workers about the benefits of the Rand Formula and the current assault on workers’ rights.

Photo: Jobs with Justice/flickr

Ottawa Turns Its Back on Steelworkers-Op-Ed

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Aug 23, 2013    http://www.thespec.com   https://i0.wp.com/www.thespec.com/Portals/9/Images/logo.png

U.S. Steel’s destructive agenda is tacitly condoned by Harper government

By Marty Warren, Ontario Director of the United Steelworkers

For the second time in three years, 1,000 families in Nanticoke and surrounding communities face an uncertain future, targeted again by a deliberate attack on working-class living standards achieved over generations of struggle in Canada.

U.S. Steel’s lockout of employees at the Lake Erie Works steel mill — now in its 17th week — reflects the impunity foreign multinationals enjoy to slash Canadian jobs and drive down wages, benefits and working conditions.

U.S. Steel, in particular, has ample reason to believe it has the tacit consent of Stephen Harper’s Conservative government to run roughshod over Canadian working families.

In 2007, the Harper Conservatives approved U.S. Steel’s takeover of Canadian steelmaker Stelco. The deal included legally binding commitments from U.S. Steel to maintain production levels and a 3,100-strong workforce at former Stelco operations.

Time after time, the Harper Conservatives have demonstrated they stand with giant multinationals that abuse their dominant economic power.

U.S. Steel broke those legally binding commitments, with devastating results for working families and pensioners whose combined losses ran into tens of millions of dollars.

“(Their) working lives, retirement and income security have been seriously and adversely affected,” a Federal Court judge stated in 2011 after legal proceedings were launched against U.S. Steel.

The legal action was brought against U.S. Steel under terms of the Investment Canada Act, which dictates foreign takeovers must provide a “net benefit” to Canadians.

The government’s case against U.S. Steel included expert analysis that concluded the company knew full well the implications of its legal commitments. Even in the midst of the recession, fulfilling those promises “would not have threatened the financial viability” of the company, the analysis concluded.

However, rather than enforce the law and hold U.S. Steel accountable, the Harper government struck a secret deal that abruptly ended the court case. Promises of jobs and healthy production levels were abandoned. Workers, pensioners and communities devastated by U.S. Steel’s behaviour were denied their day in court.

With a nudge and a wink from our federal government, U.S. Steel was free to continue its onslaught against Canadian employees and pensioners.

U.S. Steel has now followed the same transparent, destructive pattern in three successive rounds of contract negotiations with former Stelco employees — twice at Lake Erie Works and once at Hamilton’s Hilton Works.

In each case, U.S. Steel has betrayed even the pretense of attempting to negotiate a fair deal for Canadian employees. The agenda has been to abuse the full force of its corporate power and resources to impose its will — under threat of arbitrary, lengthy shutdowns.

In each instance the workers refused to be provoked into a strike. To their credit, they proposed to keep operating their plants while pursuing a settlement through good-faith negotiations aided by government mediation.

U.S. Steel’s agenda dictated otherwise. It locked out Lake Erie Works employees for eight months in 2009-2010, then imposed an 11-month lockout in Hamilton in 2010-2011.

In April of this year, with carte blanche from the federal and Ontario governments to do as it pleases, U.S. Steel locked out Lake Erie Works employees for a second time. Four months later, the community’s largest employer remains shut down.

The locked-out employees, members of United Steelworkers Local 8782, remain committed to negotiating a fair collective agreement and are eager to get back to work.

They have received tremendous support within and outside their community, from like-minded Canadians who understand the need to resist a relentless and orchestrated assault on our middle class.

The workers, their families and supporters will continue to fight the good fight. However, it is beyond shameful that they don’t have their government on their side.

Time after time, the Harper Conservatives have demonstrated they stand with giant multinationals that abuse their dominant economic power to drive down our working and living standards and eliminate good jobs. It is part and parcel of the Conservatives’ low-wage economic strategy for our country.

Earlier this year, without meaningful public debate or consultation, the Harper government decided to arbitrarily amend the Investment Canada Act, folding the changes into its latest omnibus budget bill.

The Conservatives’ changes weaken the Act. They allow for more foreign takeovers to be rubber-stamped. Secret deals will remain the norm. Neither the government nor multinational corporations will be required to consult with, or be accountable to, the Canadian families and communities directly affected by foreign takeovers.

It has never been clearer that only a change in government can reverse this disgraceful trend.

20 bar employees file labour complaints over alleged bilked pay

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By Kate Webb   http://metronews.ca

Vancouver, B.C.

  Robbie Sanchez, former manager of Mavericks Sports Lounge on Kingsway, says he worked 19-hour days without proper compensation.

 

At least 20 employees staged a walkout earlier this month at a Mount Pleasant sports bar and have filed complaints with the Employment Standards Branch over allegations they were shortchanged hundreds of hours in pay, Metro has learned.

The majority of the complaints were filed together on Aug. 12 against Mike O’Connell, owner of Mavericks Sports Lounge at 395 Kingsway.

Collectively, the claims contain dozens of allegations of unpaid shifts, overtime and vacation pay, pay rates below the minimum wage, excessive hours, disrespectful treatment, and human rights abuses.

O’Connell denies all the claims, which are being investigated by the Employment Standards Branch and have not been proven.

19-hour days

Robbie Sanchez used to be the manager at Mavericks and said he considers his former job “modern slavery.”

He alleges he was expected to come in at 9 a.m. and did every task in the house, from cooking and cleaning to bartending and ordering supplies, because O’Connell did not hire enough staff.

Sanchez would then close the bar at 4 a.m. — seven hours later than the 12 hours employers are legally allowed to ask employees to work in a day.  He asserts he never saw a dime of overtime pay.

“I slept there,” he said. “I had my own blankets rolled up and I slept on the floor there, because my body couldn’t make it.”

Former staff members say O’Connell bought the bar about five months ago and not one person who was working there then is still there now. Many quit, while others were fired.

Two cooks claim they were paid $9 an hour even though the minimum wage in B.C. is $10.25. They also allege their pay cheques were often late.

In early August several employees allegedly noticed their paychecks were drastically less than they should be.

“People cried,” Sanchez said. “The ladies in the kitchen were all crying because he was paying them $9 an hour, and then they waited for that check, and on top of that he took 47 hours from their pay.”

Fired while pregnant

Waitress Stephanie Lipp, 24, was about four months pregnant when O’Connell bought the bar.

“Our manager at the time… ended up leaving because he couldn’t get along with Mike, and when he left he told me ‘We’ve all been trying to save your job. He’s wanted to fire you from day one because of your pregnancy.’”

Lipp says when she confronted O’Connell they argued about it.

“He denied it of course. I sat down with him and tried to talk to him and I was like, ‘You realize that you can’t fire me on the basis of my pregnancy,’ and he was like, ‘Oh, I can give everyone whatever shifts I want and I’m not firing you.’”

When he cut Lipp’s shifts down to one day per week she quit and phoned a lawyer.

She has since filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal for wrongful termination, which has not been resolved.

Unable to pay dad’s hospital bills

Virginia Dalaguiado is one of the cooks who alleges she was paid only $9 an hour.

The Filipina immigrant scrimped and saved so she could send money home each month to pay hospital bills for her elderly father, who is half paralyzed, and her elderly mother is also ill and in and out of hospital.

Reached by phone on Friday she cried as she recounted what it was like when she got her paycheck late, only to discover there would not be enough to send anything home after she paid her bills and rent.

“We agreed [on] $11 an hour,” she said. “I work July 15 and then Aug. 8 I receive my first cheque. From July 15 until July 31 I work 120 hours. He paid me only 80 hours and $9 is the rate.”

She has not been unable to find employment since and said she doesn’t know how she will pay her bills.

“I was not able to send money for the month of July. The hospital knows we can’t pay, because I am the only one supporting the family,” she said.

All claims denied

The Employment Standards Branch confirmed it is investigating a total of 20 complaints against Mavericks. Sanchez said another five are pending.

“As this is an active complaint file, no further information can be provided at this time,” said spokesman David Currie in an email.

“The branch looks at every complaint it receives, and each complaint is treated equally.”

When asked how the branch investigates, Currie said disclosing that could compromise the investigation.

Reached by phone on Friday O’Connell initially agreed to a sit-down interview at Mavericks, but later backed out.

“I’m not going to be discussing this here situation. We have never heard nothing from the labour board that we had complaints, me or my accountant,” he said.

He dismissed the allegations as “totally untrue,” and when asked to elaborate, O’Connell suggested booking an appointment to sit down with him and his accountant next week.

Currie said the Employment Standards Branch receives 6,000 to 7,000 complaints every year and recovers on average about $6.5 million in wages owed on behalf of employees.