January 17, 2005

CLAC weighs in on proposed Bill 144:

Legislation skirts some key issues but restores balance to industry

By Grant Cameron

staff writer

The Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC) maintains that labour legislation proposed by the Ontario government skirts some key issues, but for the most part it will restore balance to the construction industry.

Ed Bosveld, Ontario provincial director for CLAC, one of the largest independent unions in Canada, said the changes will allow the Labour Relations Board to more effectively address serious violations of the law.

“If I was a devious employer lawyer, not that there’s a lot of those out there, but I would tell an employer: ‘If you really want to defeat the union, fire a bunch of people or whatever and in the end they’ll get reinstated but you’ll get the message out and you’ll end up defeating the union.’

“That’s what was happening, not all the time, but the law was very, very unbalanced.”

The legislation, officially known as Bill 144, or the Labour Relations Statute Law Amendment Act, was tabled in the Legislature recently by Labour Minister Chris Bentley.

Among other things, it would re-establish a card-based certification system for the construction sector, allowing automatic union certification if more than 55 per cent of employees sign cards to join a union.

'If I was a devious employer lawyer, not that there's a lot of those out there, but I would tell an employer: "If you really want to defeat the union, fire a bunch of people . . . " '

Ed Bosveld

The amendments will also repeal the one-sided requirement that union workplaces must post information on how workers can decertify a union.

In addition, the legislation will give the Ontario Labour Relations Board the power to remedy the worst labour relations conduct by either side during an organizing drive. The board would be able — as a last resort — to grant union certification when an employer violates labour laws, or dismiss a certification application when a union violates the law.

Bosveld, who works out of the CLAC office in Chatham, Ont., said the union is pleased the labour board is being given more power.

“We’re quite happy that that’s going to come back, not because we think the labour board is going to have to use it much, but just because of the fact that it’s there and the board has the power to make employers act a little bit better during an organizing campaign.”

According to Bosveld, employers faced little real consequence under the present law for violations when opposing a unionization effort.

In one instance, he said an employer hired criminal gang members to oppose a union drive and the employees voted against the union because gang members threatened to harm or kill the employees if they supported one.

Though the employer’s misconduct was proven, the labour board was not allowed to certify the union.

Bosveld said the proposed amendments will cause employers to think twice before breaking the law during a union drive.

Meanwhile, CLAC is also pleased that information on how to decertify a union won’t be posted in union workplaces.

Bosveld said CLAC wasn’t necessarily opposed to such postings, as long as there were equivalent postings required in non-union workplaces explaining how to unionize.

“It was just so incredibly unbalanced. We would support posting information in all workplaces that says: ‘This is how you bring in a union, this is how you change unions and this is how you get rid of a union.’

“I think that would be great and we would support that, although I’m not sure all labour organizations would agree.

“The concept of just telling unionized workers how to decertify and not telling non-union workers how to join a union shows this incredible bias by the government that’s been recognized now.”

Though CLAC maintains the labour law amendments are generally good, the union does have some concerns. It was disappointed that card-based certification will be applied only to the construction industry.

Bosveld said CLAC would like to see it applied to other industries as well.

“The employer side of the industry is recognizing that and saying: ‘Why just our industry?’ and quite frankly we have the same question.

“We’d like to see it extended to all sectors and all employees and, of course, they’d like to see it covering none.”

The labour law amendments also do not deal with the issue of replacement workers, Bosveld said.

“There are a number of issues that, quite frankly, I think they skated around. For example, we’d like to see them deal with the issue of people working in the agricultural sector and we’d like to see them deal with replacement workers.

“So what they’ve done is certainly good but we see these as almost urgent things that they’ve done but they haven’t addressed some of the bigger picture issues that are out there and we have no indication that they’re going to address them.”

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