So, given carte blanche, name five changes that you would make to Canadian labour laws that you feel would make Canada a better place to work.

Prohibit management from communicating at all to workers during a union certification vote, OR allow both management AND union people to communicate freely with workers on company time. Said certification vote to take place within seven days, not the current 21 or 30.

Allow secondary strikes in related industries.

Prohibit management from terminating employees when on strike or who have advocated for union formation.

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Ok, there are two primary ways for workers to improve their well-being. One, which gets talked about here a lot, is to organize into unions. The other is to get various levels of government to change labour (or labor-related) laws. I have no problem with either, although I submit that across-the-board labor laws are more effective at helping everyone and not just those who are lucky enough to either belong in a union or work in a heavily unionized industry.

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I have a few iedas, but before I do I just wanted to get a definitional point out there.

Some people distinguish between "labour" laws and "employment" laws.

When people make that distinction, they are usually referring to "labour" laws as the laws which regulate the relationship between employers and organized groups of employees (such as unions). "Labour" laws define how workers can get together to talk about their working conditions and pressure managers to address their concerns. "Labour" laws also define the duty that managers have to negotiate with their workers, and may or may not prohibit certain bad faith negotiating tactics like firing union supporters or hiring scabs during labour disputes. Basically these sorts of "labour" laws make it either easier or harder for workers to form unions, but they don't say a lot about what the workers actually negotiate in terms of working conditions. The idea is to put workers on a more equal bargaining position with employers, but the actual things they bargain for is more "deregulated."

"Employment" law, on the other hand, is a term usually applied to laws that govern individual workers and how they can be treated. Some employment laws set minimum conditions such as minimum wages or maximum hours or basic safety requirements. Other "employment" laws (which are sometimes grouped in a third category) deal with discrimination.

Quebec
Signing an application for membership, duly dated and not revoked, and personally paying at least $2 in union dues within the 12 months preceding the application.

Representation vote: 35%.

Certification without a vote: more than 50%.
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Making it a criminal offense for management to sack, lay-off or otherwise intimidate workers involved in union organising drives.
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Making certifications portable and transferrable: if ownership of a business is transferred, the union goes along.
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Provisions to facilitate certification of clusters of unions in a given industry (I'm thinking of things like retail firms, restaurants, etc.) Must find the proper wording ...

Edited to add: I was thinking of laws governing labour (trade union) and management relations. Here in Québec the distinction is clear as we would be discussing matters covered by the Code du travail (Labour Code) and referred to the administrative tribunal Le Tribunal du travail (Labour Court). Not Labour or Employment Standards. The administrative tribunal dealing with those is La Commission des normes du travail. (Employment Standards Commission).

I'd have lots of ideas about the latter too - mostly greater penalties for unjustified sacking, reducing the period it takes to be considered a permanent employee covered by the provisions of the Commission and act, and four weeks of paid holidays (as is pretty much a minimum in European countries).

[ 03 May 2005: Message edited by: lagatta ]

My first suggestion is a "labour" law point. One of my biggest beefs with Canadian and U.S. labour law is it is based on the presumption that workers want to bargain individually with employers, unless those workers take positive steps to try and organize and bargain collectively.

I think we've got that backwards. Somebody pointed out on one of the right-to-work threads that the modern labour market is characterized by pervasive, collectivized capital. Most people who work for a living are not employed by an individual, they are employed by a company. The company may be small or it may be large, but in either case, its usually organized into some sort of corporate form that helps multiple "owners" pool their capital and limit their personal liability.

I think that if capital is organized, our default assumption should be that labour be organized, too. I think that if anyone sets out to form a company that will hire employees, that company ought to be obligated to establish a bargaining relationship with a representative of their workers as a collective group. It doesn't have to be a union, in many European countries this is done through mandated "works councils" in all employers over a certain size. In Germany they call the system co-determination. (Here's a link which helps explain it, starting from the second paragraph).

Under a "co-determination" type system, the role of unions is changed. Instead of spending much of their time trying to organize workers to establish a right to bargain in different workplaces, rather the bargaining relationship is presumed. Unions, then, can act more like political parties, competing to be the most effective representative in annual or otherwise regular elections for the works council or other representative body.

I'll be back with more ideas later.

[ 03 May 2005: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

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1, automatic and immediate certification with 50% plus one of workers signed up

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You're probably more familiar with the European models than I am, but does the concept of workplace "certification" of a "bargaining unit" even exist when you have mandatory works councils and widespread industry-wide bargaining? Or do the latter two take the place of the former?

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4. Serious jail time for any employer who fires a worker for union activity

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I tend to think that an immediate injuntion for reinstatement and severe financial penalties are usually sufficient to dissuade firing employees for union activity. I suppose for extreme cases I could see jail time for corporate officials. Or we could simply revoke the corporate charters of habitual union-busting corps like Walmart and auction off the corporate assets (with the proceeds going to the victimized employees).

I would, however, most definitely support serious jail time for criminal health and safety violations that endanger or harm workers. Reckless disregard of health and safety laws that lead to worker injury or death should be treated just as severely by the criminal justice system as aggrevated assault and murder.

[ 03 May 2005: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

2. Final offer arbitration.

2. Legislated minimum of three weeks paid vacation per year. (Its been at two weeks in most jurisdictions since the 1940's).

3. Legislate that all workers have the right to one year of paid education leave for every ten years in the work force with the right to return to their former job.

4. Legislate that over a ten year period phase in a reduction of the work week from five to four days without loss in pay.

5. Restoration of "regular" EI benefits back to where they were in the early 1970's.

It's a secret ballot for a reason.

Not to retract from your very good points, radiorahim.

[ 03 May 2005: Message edited by: AppleSeed ]

One of the areas that I think the NDP has it right is to develop some sort of nationalized daycare program. I don't know how I'd set it up exactly, but I understand that the current plan, as it is currently proposed, only provides for 9 to 5 care. I'd much rather see a more comprehensive plan for those people working odd or unpredictable shifts and the like so that everybody could access the system. I'd argue that the folks working the weird hours may have even more serious daycare problems, especially single parents. Maybe tax deductions or something like that would work-- at least for the off hours where it might not be practical to have a state-run 24 hour shop in every city-- I don't know.

I'd like to see servers' minimum wage gone and force employers to pay regular minimum wage to those employees. True, many of them make tips, but a lot of people get stuck on dead shifts or doing non-selling stuff where they earn jack for tips.

[ 04 May 2005: Message edited by: Dex ]

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If you want to go to work, can you do so without some guy breaking your jaw?

It's a secret ballot for a reason.

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I'm not sure what you're referring to Appleseed.

If you're talking about strikebreaking it should be outlawed. That way there are no picket line confrontations.

I recall during the brief period of strikebreaking being outlawed in Ontario during the NDP government.

1. If 10% of the workers in any workplaces sign union membership cards the labour boards should usually conduct union certification votes within 5 days.

2. Union certification applications should not be allowed less than 4 months before the end of collective agreements.

3. Labour laws should make it illegal for employers to hire scabs during strikes and lockouts.

4. All of the labour laws should include union's duty of fair representation.

5. Union membership meeting attendance rules for nominations to union offices should be illegal.

[ 04 May 2005: Message edited by: CUPE_Reformer ]

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4. All of the labour laws should include union's duty of fair representation.

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Certainly the Ontario Labour Relations Act already does. I'm sure other jurisdictions' labour relations acts do as well.

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5. Union membership meeting attendance rules for nominations to union offices should be illegal.

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I'm not sure I want the state to decide union electoral rules. Besides, if your union has attendance rules that you don't like its simply a matter of campaigning inside your union against them.

Basically these sorts of "labour" laws make it either easier or harder for workers to form unions, but they don't say a lot about what the workers actually negotiate in terms of working conditions. The idea is to put workers on a more equal bargaining position with employers, but the actual things they bargain for is more "deregulated."

I appreciate the differences in distinctions as well. I was confused by the bold.

IN a workplace environment, standard sets of contractual opinions rules the relationship. In this context, a shop steward or grievance procedures would follow the inherent right of language in that contract. So would deregulation refer to this, or the actual content of the bargaining procedure?

Not to detract from the original poster.

I would need time to think about this.

1. That some process or consultation is taken before any labour law is changed.

2.That any attempt to interfer in negotiated contracts is forbidden by government.

3. That barring all attempts arriving at stalemate in negotiated processes, no back to work legislation be imposed. Lockouts or strikes, remain as options, to further negotiated efforts.

4. No threat to shutting down organization/corporation in face of negotiated process or unionized efforts be accepted as a tool of a corrupt corporation to move their agendas to cheaper environments for slave labor. They never wanted to do business, just push their agenda

5. That business orientated governments not be allowed to change labour law or impose contracts.

I.e. the government sets a minimum wage of $7 per hour for all workers. That covers unionized workers as well. But the union can negotiate a higher wage, say $14 per hour. When I said that the bargaining was "deregulated," all I meant was that it was up to the union to decide how much it wanted to ask for and up to management to decide whether to agree or not. The government doesn't come in and order the employer to pay a certain wage as long as the agreed-upon wage is above the minimum.

Over the last decade at least, I've seen a big surge in the number of my friends "self employed". Companies would no longer formally hire an employee, you were now some kind of sub-contractor. This was to avoid varies taxes and benefits, avoid paying vacation etc. It's long been practiced in a number of industries, especially some construction trades and couriers. I've seen it spread to others, and I have a number friends in IT and graphic design that do all their work for one employer full-time for years, and yet are considered contractors.

I'd like to see laws, taxes and benefits pertaining to self-employment equal to those of full-time employment to first of all remove the motivation of companies to hire "contractors", and also to bring many of the legitimatly self-employed into the fold, where they can receive the same benefits and protections as other jobs. An example, if you are self-employed, good luck getting any maternity benefits, much less paternity. Basicly by law things like vacation time, maternity leave, etc would have to be included in any contract, or a cash equivalent for a short term contract.

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Over the last decade at least, I've seen a big surge in the number of my friends "self employed". Companies would no longer formally hire an employee, you were now some kind of sub-contractor. This was to avoid varies taxes and benefits, avoid paying vacation etc.

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I understand that there have been some legal rulings of late that these folks are in fact employees by virtue of the fact that they only have one "customer" who sets all of the terms and conditions of this so-called "self-employment contract".

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I think the attitudes of a lot of the "working class right-wing", like the letters to editor in the Toronto Sun for example, might change if the kind of benefits available to unionized workers were also there for those working under contracts or in small businesses.

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I would agree. Its much easier to generate envy against folks that you see every day of the week then it is to get folks to turn their anger against folks that they never see...like CEO's.