Tag Archives: federal government

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.

Reform Act, 2013

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https://i0.wp.com/michaelchong.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/welcome2.jpg  Michael Chong, P.C., M.P. Wellington-Halton Hills

On December 3, Michael Chong, P.C., M.P. Wellington-Halton Hills introduced to the Canadian Parliament a private member’s bill, Bill C-559, Reform Act, 2013: An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Parliament of Canada Act (reforms).

The following is a backgrounder behind Bill C-559 put out by Mr. Chong.

 

On December 3, 2013, Michael Chong, Member of Parliament for Wellington-Halton Hills, introduced the Reform Act, 2013. The Reform Act is an effort to strengthen Canada’s democratic institutions by restoring the role of elected Members of Parliament in the House of Commons.

The proposals in the Reform Act would reinforce the principle of responsible government. It would make the executive more accountable to the legislature and ensure that party leaders maintain the confidence of their caucuses.

Responsible government was introduced to Canada in the 1840s by Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, reformers whose contributions to responsible government are commemorated in a monument behind Centre Block on Parliament Hill. Together, they led the first responsible government in Canada. Responsible government is the principle that the Executive Council (cabinet) is responsible and accountable to the elected Legislative Assembly (House of Commons), and not the appointed Governor.

Since Confederation, numerous and gradual changes have eroded the power of the Member of Parliament and centralized it in the party leaders’ offices. As a result, the ability of Members of Parliament to carry out their function has been curtailed by party leadership structures. The Reform Act proposes to address this problem by restoring power to elected Members of Parliament.

The Need to Reform Parliament

In Canada’s single-member district plurality (first-past-the-post) system, Canadians directly elect Members of Parliament to represent them in the House of Commons. This is the only franchise (excepting the occasional non-binding ad-hoc consultative Senate elections) that Canadians exercise at the federal level.

It is important to note why the role of the Member of Parliament is so vital to our system.

In many systems of government, citizens exercise three franchises, three votes. For example, in the United States, citizens exercise three votes at the federal level: A vote for the President, a vote for a Senator and a vote for a Congressman or Congresswoman. So, citizens have three avenues to pursue their democratic representation.

But in Canada, citizens exercise only one franchise, one vote: A vote for their local Member of Parliament. And they rightfully expect that their local member be responsive to their views.

It is for that reason that the role of the Member of Parliament in the Canadian system is so critical.

However, evidence demonstrates that Canadians are becoming increasingly disengaged with their elected Parliament. Recent public opinion research reveals that only 55 per cent of Canadians report being satisfied with the way democracy works in Canada,i dropping 20 per cent from 2004.ii Voter turnout during federal elections has reached an all-time low, and in the last federal election, four out of ten Canadians chose not to vote.iii

Studies have found that many Canadians are disengaged because they feel that politicians work for someone else, and are therefore indifferent to their views.iv

The Reform Act will help to re-engage citizens by introducing bottom-up reforms, giving greater decision-making authority to electoral district associations, and strengthening accountability in parliamentary party caucuses. When electoral district associations have the final authority over selecting party candidates in the electoral district, it ensures local control over who represents the district in Parliament. The Reform Act also provides greater power to elected Members of Parliament to hold their party leaders to account, thus reinforcing the confidence that caucus must have in the leader, and strengthening the principle of responsible government, the foundation of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy.

The reforms proposed in the Reform Act are not new. If enacted, they would restore Parliament to the way it worked in Canada for many decades. Furthermore, many of the reforms proposed in the Reform Act are similar to current practices in other Westminster parliaments. The Reform Act would, however, codify into statute practices that are currently governed by unwritten convention.

The Reform Act proposes three main reforms: Restoring local control over party nominations, strengthening caucus as decision-making body, and reinforcing the accountability of party leaders to their caucuses. The Reform Act amends two Acts of Parliament: The Canada Elections Act and the Parliament of Canada Act.

It is important to note that the Reform Act would not come into force until seven days after the next general election.

Restoring Local Control over Party Nominations

Currently, the Canada Elections Act effectively gives a party leader authority over the selection of a candidate by an electoral district association. According to paragraph 67(4)(c) of the Canada Elections Act, a prospective candidate must submit to the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, proof that a party leader has endorsed his or her candidacy. Only after this proof has been submitted, can the Chief Electoral Officer approve his or her nomination as a candidate for a party in an election. This requirement was introduced when the Canada Elections Act was amended in 1970.v Without such endorsement, the name of a prospective candidate and the political party with which he or she is affiliated cannot be put on the election ballot.

In other Westminster parliaments, the leaders of political parties do not exercise this type of centralized authority. For example, in Australia’s Labor Party and Liberal Party, decisions on candidate nomination are generally made by the local party membership.vi,vii In the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party and Liberal Democratic Party, candidates are generally selected by the constituency membership or constituency association.viii,ix In these parties, the final decision on candidate nomination rests with the members of local constituencies.

The Reform Act proposes to amend the Canada Elections Act, restoring local control over party nominations by replacing a party leader with a nomination officer, for the purpose of endorsing a party candidate in an election. Nomination officers are to be elected by members of electoral district associations through a majority vote. The Reform Act ensures that decisions pertaining to candidate nominations are made locally and are binding; meaning that the decisions of the electoral district association cannot be overruled by a party leader. By restoring control to electoral district associations to nominate candidates, power is effectively restored to Canadians, since it becomes a local decision as to who gets to represent the party in an election.

In effect, the Reform Act gives local associations the final decision on which candidate will run for a political party in that electoral district. Strengthening electoral district associations would enhance local engagement with political parties by giving these associations a stronger voice in a party’s direction.

Strengthening Caucus as a Decision-Making Body

Caucus is central to the functioning of a Westminster parliament. Most parliamentary power flows from the institution of Parliament through the caucus leadership to individual caucus members. Therefore, the structure and governance of caucus, as well as the accountability of the caucus leadership to its members, becomes vitally important in the Westminster system. Those members who sit outside a recognized party caucus are distinctly disadvantaged.

It is important to draw a distinction between registered political parties (Conservative Party of Canada, Liberal Party of Canada, New Democratic Party of Canada, etc.) which are created and exist outside Parliament, and parliamentary parties – also referred to as caucuses or recognized parties – which exist inside Parliament. While there is significant correlation between both types of parties, they are separate in structure and governance.

It is clear that, due to a series of changes going back decades, the ability of Members of Parliament to carry out their functions has been curtailed by caucus leadership structures. This stands in stark contrast to the significant power that members have in other Westminster parliaments, such as Australia and the United Kingdom.x,xi,xii

While the Parliament of Canada Act implicitly recognizes House of Commons caucuses by providing for the remuneration of House of Commons caucus chairs, no detail is provided as to how these caucuses should be structured or governed. In particular, no mention is made of how a House of Commons caucus chair is to be selected, nor is any mention made regarding caucus membership and expulsion. Currently, the structure, governance and membership of caucuses are regulated by unwritten convention. Over the decades, this unwritten convention has evolved in a way that has advantaged caucus leadership and disadvantaged caucus members.

The Reform Act proposes amendments to the Parliament of Canada Act in order to formally define the structure and governance of House of Commons caucuses.

The Reform Act would amend the Parliament of Canada Act by adding the definition of a House of Commons caucus.

The Reform Act would also formalize the procedure for the expulsion and re-admission of caucus members. Currently, the process for expulsion and re-admission is an undefined process that can vary between caucuses and individual cases. Under the Reform Act, a caucus member may only be expelled if the caucus chair has received a written notice signed by at least 15 per cent of the caucus members requesting that the member’s membership be reviewed at a meeting and the expulsion be approved by a majority vote by secret ballot of the caucus members present at that meeting.

Expelled caucus members may be re-admitted if one of two criteria is met. One criterion for re-admission is that the expelled member is re-elected to the House of Commons as a candidate for that party. The second criterion is that the caucus chair has received a written notice signed by at least 15 per cent of the caucus members requesting a vote to re-admit that member at a meeting, and the re-admission is approved by a majority vote by secret ballot of the caucus members present at that meeting.

The Reform Act also sets out a formal procedure for the election of a caucus chair. The chair of caucus is elected following every general election, or following the death, incapacity, resignation or removal of caucus chair. The chair is elected by a majority vote by secret ballot of the members of caucus who are present at a meeting of caucus. That meeting is presided over by the caucus member with the greatest number of years of service in the House of Commons.

The Reform Act also sets out a formal procedure for the removal of a caucus chair. The chair of a party caucus can only be removed if the chair has received a written notice signed by at least 15 per cent of the caucus members requesting that the occupancy of the chair be reviewed at a meeting, and the chair’s removal is approved by a majority vote by secret ballot of the caucus members present at that meeting. That meeting is presided over by the caucus member with the greatest number of years of service in the House of Commons.

These measures will enhance the accountability of caucus leadership to caucus members, ensuring party leaders and their caucuses are mutually accountable by virtue of requiring the maintenance of confidence. This is particularly important in House of Commons caucuses, since it is only members of the House of Commons to which the constitutional convention of confidence applies.

Reinforcing Accountability of Party Leaders to Caucuses

By convention, leaders of parliamentary parties must maintain the confidence of their House of Commons caucuses. While this convention is frequently used in Australia and the United Kingdom, it is rarely used in Canada.

Since the 1960s, party leaders in most Westminster systems have become more powerful in relation to elected Parliaments. With a few exceptions, the checks and balances on the power of party leaders has weakened. One of those exceptions is the ability of party caucuses to conduct a leadership review, which is the most important check and balance on the power of party leaders. In the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, Australia’s Liberal Party, and New Zealand’s National Party and Labour Party, the party caucuses retain the power to review their party leaders.xiii,xiv,xv,xvi Within the last two decades, caucuses in all three countries have exercised this important power.

However, in Canada registered political parties have increasingly displaced the role of caucus in reviewing the party leader. Furthermore, the by-laws of registered parties make it difficult to initiate a leadership review.

Much like caucus structure and governance, little is set out in Canadian statute regarding leadership review. The Reform Act proposes to amend the Canada Elections Act to ensure that party by-laws recognize the current caucus power to review the caucus leader, by making explicit what is currently unwritten convention. Quite simply, the bill takes the current unwritten constitutional convention and makes explicit in statute the rules and process for caucus to review the party leader.

The Reform Act proposes that a party leadership review may be initiated by the submission of a written notice to the caucus chair, signed by at least 15 per cent of the caucus members. The review will occur by secret ballot, and the result will be determined by a majority vote of the members present at the meeting. When a majority of caucus members vote in favour of a leadership review, a second vote by secret ballot occurs immediately to select a person to serve as the interim party leader until a new leader has been elected. Aside from the election of an interim party leader, the Reform Act does not specify how a party leader is to be elected, leaving that decision to the political party.

The Reform Act makes registration of a political party contingent on the party’s by-laws conforming with these leadership review provisions. Registered political parties will have twelve months after the Reform Act comes into force to bring their party by-laws into compliance.

The Reform Act does not affect, in any way, the current power of registered political parties and their members to review a leader or to select a leader, regardless of what their current practises are.

Evidence shows that Westminster parliaments that operate under the rules proposed in the Reform Act, like those in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, are no more are unstable than the system Canada currently operates under. The length of time between leadership changes are about the same in both systems.xvii,xviii

Currently, party leaders exercise a great deal of control over caucuses, with the result that caucuses decreasingly function as decision-making bodies. The provisions proposed in the Reform Act would make explicit the requirement that the party leader maintain the confidence of his or her caucus, making the leader more accountable and restoring the role of elected Members of Parliament.

_________________________

i Anderson, Kendall, et al., “Lost in Translation or Just Lost?: Canadians’ Priorities and the House of Commons”, Samara Democracy Report #5, Samara Institute, February, 2013. p.2.

ii Anderson, Kendall, et al., “Who’s the Boss?: Canadians’ Views on Their Democracy”, Samara Democracy Report #4, Samara Institute, 2012. p.1.

iii Bastedo, Heather, et al., “The Real Outsiders: Politically Disengaged Views on Politics and Democracy”, Samara Democracy Reports, Samara Institute, December, 2011. p.2.

iv Bastedo, Heather, et al., “The Real Outsiders: Politically Disengaged Views on Politics and Democracy”, Samara Democracy Reports, Samara Institute, December, 2011.

v http://www.parl.gc.ca/content/lop/researchpublications/bp437-e.htm

vi Australian Labor Party National Platform and Constitution, Constitution, part D. s.9. http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/australianlaborparty/pages/121/attachments/original/1365135867/Labor_National_Platform.pdf?1365135867

vii The Liberal Party of Australia is a Federation of Divisions. http://www.liberal.org.au/the-party/our-structure

viii Constitution of the Conservative Party, Schedule 7. s.15 http://www.bracknellconservatives.org.uk/sites/www.bracknellconservatives.org.uk/files/constitution_0.pdf

ix Liberal Democrat Federal Constitution Article 4 and Appendix Leadership Election Regulations. http://libdems.org.uk/constitution.aspx

x http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1922_Committee

xi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_Labour_Party

xii Australian Labor Party, “National Executive Guidelines for the Election of the Labor Leader”, Ballot Rules, http://www.alp.org.au/ballot_rules

xiii United Kingdom, House of Commons Library, Leadership Elections: Conservative Party, Standard Note, SN/PC/1366, 7 December 2005, pp. 7-9.

xiv Guaja, Anika, “Labor leadership spill: the rules of the game”, The Conversation, [University of Sydney], 27 February 2012. http://theconversation.com/labor-leadership-spill-the-rules-of-the-game-5575

xv http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1922_Committee

xvi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_Labour_Party

xvii http://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2012/06/keeping-party-leaders-honest/

xviii Blais, A., & Cross, W. P. (2012). Politics at the Centre: The Selection and Removal of Party Leaders in the Anglo Parliamentary World. New York: Oxford University Press.

Public sector employee protections watered down under bill C-4

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Monday, 11 November 2013 08:00 | Written By Barry Goldman and Matthew Scott

On Oct. 22, the government of Canada introduced bill C-4, a massive piece of omnibus budget legislation containing reforms and amendments to many existing laws.

The amendments affect a number of laws, including the Public Service Labour Relations Act.

The bill C-4 amendments to the act would remove many labour rights public service employees are entitled to under current legislation. Sweeping reforms to the definition of essential services, the mandate of the Public Service Labour Relations Board, the right to strike by public servants, and the financial nature of the arbitral and conciliation awards the board may grant would, among other things, effectively neuter the bargaining rights of the affected members of the public sector.

The opening volley on bargaining rights is a subtle change to the mandate of the board under s. 13 of the act. Previously, the board had a mandate to provide “adjudication services, mediation services, and compensation analysis and research services” in accordance with the act. But the amendments in s. 295 of bill C-4 dispense with the compensation analysis and research services powers of the board. That means the board could now only provide adjudication and mediation services. The change foreshadows amendments that will dramatically modify the board’s powers with respect to arbitral and conciliation awards.

The amendments to the act redefine essential services as being “a service, facility or activity of the government of Canada that has been determined under subsection 119(1) to be essential.” Under the old language of Division 8 of the act, the employer had only the exclusive right to determine the level at which an essential service could be provided. The employer and employees had to co-operate to determine which employees were affected and then enter into an essential services agreement. Failure to agree would result in intervention by the board.

The new language under s. 305 of bill C-4 would give employers the exclusive right to determine if a service, facility, or activity is essential “because it is or will be necessary for the safety or security of the public.” It would also give employers “the exclusive right to designate the positions in a bargaining unit that include duties that, in whole or in part, are or will be necessary for the employer to provide essential services, and the employer may exercise that right at any time.”

These changes would most certainly reduce the ability of federal public servants to strike. Bill C-4 also amends the process for dispute resolution under the act. It says bargaining units in which 80 per cent or more of the employees are designated as essential may not strike and must resolve their disputes through arbitration. Furthermore, bill C-4 would bolster s. 194(2) of the act that prohibits an employee organization such as a union from declaring or authorizing a strike, the effect of which would be to involve the participation of employees designated as essential by the employer.

Also, under bill C-4, no officer or representative of an employee organization would be able to counsel or procure the declaration or authorization of a strike with respect to an essential bargaining unit or counsel or procure the participation of those employees in a strike. Given that an employer would be able to designate employees as essential at any time, the change could very well make it significantly more difficult for employee organizations to secure strike votes in the future.

After having restricted the ability of employee organizations to engage in concerted labour action, the amendments would also rewrite the rules involving arbitrations and conciliations before the board. Before, under s. 148 of the act, the board had a broad spectrum of factors to consider in making an arbitral award as well as the ability to look at any other factors it deemed relevant. The new amendments strip the board of these broad powers.

Now the considerations take the form of preponderant and other factors. The term preponderant factors contains new elements, including consideration of whether the compensation levels are a “prudent use of public funds” and “Canada’s fiscal circumstances relative to its stated budgetary policies.” Likewise, the term “other factors” is a category to which many of the former considerations under the current act have been relegated. There have also been similar amendments to the conciliation provisions set out in the new s. 175 of the act.

And bill C-4 goes even further. If passed, it would allow the chairperson, either by fiat or on the application of either of the parties, to direct the board to review the matter if, in the chairperson’s opinion, the decision does not represent a reasonable application of the s. 148 factors highlighted above. This new mechanism can force the board to reconsider decisions it could have made, without internal review, under the current act where it has considered the s. 148 factors but failed to do so in a “reasonable” manner.

There’s no doubt bill C-4 will have an impact on federal public servants. Although the act was not a perfect piece of legislation regarding the collective bargaining rights of federal public servants, it did afford reasonable protections. The amendments incorporated within bill C-4 have definitely watered down employee powers and protections and, in the process, effectively removed many of those rights.

Barry Goldman is a partner at Shibley Righton LLP and a member of its labour and employment law group. Matthew Scott is a litigation associate in the firm’s Toronto office and is also a member of its labour and employment law group.

Scrap proposed changes to federal labour legislation in Bill C-4.

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Less than a week after reconvening Parliament, the Conservative government introduced Bill C-4, an omnibus budget bill that proposes to radically change our rights as federal public sector workers, and, by extension, is an attack against the rights of all Canadian workers.

Bill C-4 takes away the democratic rights of federal public sector employees and seriously undermines the health and safety protections in the Canada Labour Code covering workers under federal jurisdiction.

Bill C-4 is all about making it easier for the government and Treasury Board to come after federal government workers in the next round of bargaining and to strip away our long-standing negotiated rights.

Bill C-4 proposes amendments to federal labour laws that will not modernize the public sector. Rather, they are regressive and set back rights 30 years.

Bill C-4 is past second reading in Parliament and has been referred to the committee stage.

Please take action now. Email your MP and ask them to oppose these unfair and radical changes to labour legislation that affects Canadian workers.

http://psacbc.com/bargaining/email/scrap-proposed-changes-federal-labour-legislation-bill-c-4

Turning Back the Clock 50 Years: Bill C-4 and federal workers

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Larry RousseauLarry Rousseau Regional Executive Vice President, Public Service Alliance of Canada

Posted: 11/23/2013 7:39 am    http://www.huffingtonpost.ca

Stuffed into the 309-page Conservative budget implementation act, Bill C-4, that was tabled last month, are a slew of drastic changes to the federal labour relations system, which will affect the health and safety provisions, human rights protections, and collective bargaining rights of federal workers. As its number suggests, Bill C-4 is truly explosive.

On the health and safety front, the government is changing the Canada Labour Code to limit the rights of workers to refuse unsafe work, and also doing away with independent health and safety officers, relegating their responsibilities to political appointees of “the Minister.”

Meanwhile, another part of the bill will alter the Public Service Labour Relations Act (PSRLA) to prevent federal public service workers from accessing the Canadian Human Rights Commission and Tribunal over workplace discrimination complaints. Workers facing discrimination will instead have to file their complaint directly with their employer, which would have the power to promptly dismiss it for “being trivial, frivolous, vexatious or made in bad faith.”

Bill C-4 also guts public service collective bargaining by further modifying the PSLRA to allow the government to unilaterally determine which workers are essential and therefore forbidden from striking, without recourse to third party review. (At present, when the government and the union disagree on who is essential, either party can refer the matter to the Public Service Labour Relations Board, which ensures that neither side can exaggerate their assessment of who is essential or non-essential, a sensible system that has worked well over the years.)

Furthermore, Bill C-4 denies unions the right to refer a dispute to arbitration, unless more than 80% of workers are deemed essential. This means that the government would be able to declare 79% of workers in a bargaining group as essential, deny arbitration, and then force the remaining 21% minority to strike, in a classic attempt to divide and conquer workers in a given bargaining unit.
Arnold Heeney, the renowned Canadian diplomat and civil servant who led the Preparatory Committee on Collective Bargaining in the Public Service way back in 1963, noted in his memoirs that prior to free collective bargaining “there was great and growing dissatisfaction among government employees generally with the arbitrary and paternalistic system which continued to prevail…” As a consequence of this dissatisfaction and the stunning 1965 wildcat strike by postal workers, the government under Lester B. Pearson was forced to pass in 1967 the Public Service Staff Relations Act, which first codified the right to free collective bargaining as well as the right of public service unions to choose between strikes and third party arbitration to resolve disputes. And as Heeney further observed, though a number of politicians and labour leaders at the time predicted an explosion in the frequency of strikes, “the majority of civil servants chose the former route” of arbitration to resolve their disputes with government.

Indeed, the historical record has shown that major public service strikes have remained rather infrequent, but that the right of recourse to a strike has been critical to balancing the overwhelming power held by the government over public service workers. After all, the government not only has inherent power as the employer, it also has the power to set the rules of the game through legislation.

Yet today, we find ourselves with a government intent on turning back the clock almost 50 years by attempting to rig the labour relations playing field to the point where public service workers will be thrown back to that “arbitrary and paternalistic system” Heeney wrote about. And it would seem, of course, that the government couldn’t care less that the proposed changes to the PSLRA will effectively undermine the right to free collective bargaining under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which was affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2007.

Together, the dangerous, undemocratic and retrograde changes contained in Bill C-4 will directly impact some 800,000 Canadian workers subject to the Canada Labour Code in industries as diverse as rail, air, broadcasting, telecommunications and fisheries, in addition to well over 200,000 federal public service workers who fall under the PSLRA–approximately a million people in total.

Yet, the Conservatives have moved to limit debate in Parliament in an attempt to ram the bill through in the next couple of weeks. In fact, it has now emerged that labour changes in the bill were drafted secretly, without consulting law professors or labour-management experts (and certainly without consulting any of the unions representing federal workers).

It’s hard to imagine a reason for the callous health and safety changes, which needlessly endanger workers, but it’s clearly evident why the Conservatives are frustrating the collective bargaining process currently spelled out in the PSLRA.

Led by Treasury Board President Tony Clement, they have spent the last two years repeatedly attacking the pay and benefits of federal public service workers, claiming that these are out of line with the private sector. They say these workers, who deliver important quality public services like Old Age Security and food inspection to Canadians, are paid too much, but ignore that the Parliamentary Budget Officer recently reported that in the last decade–the latter part of which was shaped by the Conservative agenda–wages of federal workers have mostly just kept up with inflation. They also absurdly claim at every opportunity that federal public service workers take over 18 days of sick leave each year, again ignoring research from Statistics Canada demonstrating that this is simply not true.

The repetition of such claims–false as they are–serves the goal of creating a political atmosphere conducive to squeezing out from federal public service workers non-monetary benefits they negotiated over previous decades, often in lieu of their requests for raises that were said to be unaffordable, and therefore rejected, in the context of deficits during the Mulroney years, followed by pressures of debt repayment during the Chrétien years.

We’ve been down this road before. Just this past year, the government repeatedly overreached and tried to undermine free collective bargaining with public service workers only to be forced back to the table following action by unions. It did it with technical inspectors, whose many bargaining positions were later validated by a Public Interest Commission. It did it with foreign service officers, who then won a bad faith bargaining decision. And it did it with border services officers, who also won a court injunction against a forced vote. Bill C-4 undoubtedly presents an unprecedented assault on workers and the middle class, aimed at rewriting the very rules of the game. However, one at a time, the abusive sections of this law will be defeated.

Follow Larry Rousseau on Twitter: www.twitter.com/larryrousseau