New labour minister, new labour landscape

Call it what you will — a red tide, a crimson wave — but when the Liberals swept Parliament with an overwhelming majority this fall, they brought with them a new vision for labour and the future of work in Canada.

Enter MaryAnn Mihychuk, minister of employment and workforce development, who has been tasked with handling the country’s labour file.

That includes repealing two hotly contested private member’s bills, C-525 and C-377, which were passed by the previous Conservative government. The former introduced a secret ballot vote during the certification process in federal jurisdictions, and the latter would require unions to publicly disclose financial spending beyond $5,000, as well as publish salaries of top union brass.

Introduced by Tory backbencher Russ Hiebert, Bill C-377 was intended to improve transparency and accountability from trade unions.

When the legislation passed the Senate in June, Hiebert said, "The whole purpose of the bill is to allow the public to gauge the health and effectiveness of these institutions."

Not surprisingly, unions rallied hard against the legislation, calling it an ideological attack on organized labour.

The Liberals campaigned on a promise to repeal both laws, which Mihychuk restated in an interview.

"Both cases were direct attacks on organized labour; a political maneuver," she said. "These were bills that made it more difficult for unions to address openness and transparency."

The government is looking to revert to the old system — which means that in order for a union to certify in a federal workplace, it will only require 50 per cent of employees plus one to sign a card.

Mihychuk said unions won’t have to worry about the costly administrative burden of preparing financial statements for the Canada Revenue Agency as the government also intends to repeal C-377, which would have come into effect in early 2016.

"We want (unions) to know that we will not be requiring them to do this," she said. "However, to repeal bills is going to take some time. So this can’t be done very quickly — but it will be done."

From a labour perspective, any new face in the employment minister’s seat is better than the previous system — unions campaigned aggressively to oust the Conservatives, feeling they had diminished labour relations on several fronts.

Mending that relationship, and understanding the changing workforce, are top priorities for her department, Mihychuk said.

"It’s not an issue that came up from citizens that I met on the doorstep, this call for a kind of clamping down on trade unions," she said.

"The work environment and social conditions have changed in Canada and the number of people that are involved in organized unions is dropping dramatically — that’s just the evolution of the workspace — which is what I’m trying to deal with, trying to understand. I’m listening to Canadians about how we’re going to change it to make it more relevant."

Also part of Mihychuk's mandate are employment insurance and youth unemployment and underemployment.

Mihychuk’s plans were greeted with optimism by organized labour.

"It’s interesting, people who made the argument (for Bills C-525 and C-377) also fundamentally opposed workers joining unions. I think it’s hypocrisy at the highest level," said Hassan Yussuff, president of the Canadian Labour Congress. "If a worker signs a union card, what business is it to anyone else unless they oppose the worker doing so."

The 50-per-cent-plus-one certification rule is just as effective as a secret ballot vote — only without a lull period during which an employer has opportunity to participate in union-busting or intimidation tactics, he said. Thus, the responsibility and power should lie with the workers.

"If you don’t want to join a union, you don’t sign a union card," he said. "Most members are very aware that if they do sign the card, they’re willingly expressing their support for the union."

Yussuff, who called Bills C-525 and C-377 "draconian" measures, added that a return to the old system would restore labour relations at federal workplaces.

Moreover, federal unions would be spared potentially astronomical administrative costs to provide the financial information that would be required by the Canada Revenue Agency.

Yussuff added that he has chatted with Mihychuk over the phone and has plans to meet with her in mid December.

But Charles Lammam, director of fiscal studies at the Fraser Institute, said the proposed changes — which would revert labour laws in federal workplaces to the old certification and disclosure system — belittle the democratic rights of workers.

He called the secret ballot vote a cornerstone of modern democracy that allows workers to express their opinions anonymously.

"The process for establishing a union should empower workers to freely express their true desire to form a union or not," Lammam said. "A mandatory secret ballot vote provides that for workers."

Financial accountability is another important part of any democratic process, he said.

"Union financial disclosure rules should make the process easy and anonymous for dues-paying workers and interested third parties to find out the financial health of a union and basic facts about how unions spend money," he said.

And because it’s the workers who pay the dues that allow the unions to function, in part, they are the ones who should see how and where there money is spent, said Lammam, with the main concern being that monies might be spent on political or social movements that might not align with the values or beliefs of that individual worker.

"This is especially important because unionized workers can be forced to pay full union dues as a condition of employment, even if they disagree with the political and social causes the union is funding," he said.

Ultimately, the proposed changes would mean workers will not be ensured the democratic right of a secret ballot vote during the certification process and regulations that help workers hold unions financially accountable will be removed, said Lammam.