Ottawa's Bill C-377 undemocratic, unconstitutional, critics say
The revival of union-busting Bill C-377 in Ottawa is ruffling some feathers.
"What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If the labour movement has to be governed by Bill C-377, so should the prime minister’s office," said Unifor’s national president Jerry Dias. "I’m challenging Stephen Harper. Unifor will comply with Bill C-377 when his office does. He’s got a lot more to hide than the labour movement."
The challenge comes as the Senate prepares to revive debate on Bill C-377, a controversial federal private member’s bill that would force unions to disclose details of their spending. It would require unions to publicly disclose any spending of $5,000 or more and any salary of $100,000 or more.
Simultaneously, a bid is being made by a Conservative-dominated committee to cut short the debate surrounding private member’s business, in what some critics see as an effort to avoid the scrutiny that prompted senators to effectively gut the bill the first time it came before parliament.
Bill C-377 — initiated by Conservative MP Russ Hiebert — has been called undemocratic, unconstitutional and an invasion of privacy.
In June 2013, the Senate sent Bill C-377 back to the House of Commons with extensive amendments. The amendments included raising the spending disclosure to $150,000 and raising the salary disclosure to $444,000.
Parliament was prorogued before the House of Commons could consider the proposed amendments, however, and the bill found its way back in the upper chamber in its original form.
Recently, it was indicated debate surrounding the bill would be restarted while at the same time a report was issued recommending private member’s business be subject to time allocation in order to prevent any single senator from delaying debate indefinitely.
"This isn’t about whether or not we’re transparent," Dias said of the bill. "The labour movement is the most transparent organization, period. This is about somehow disengaging the labour movement from the discussions that affect working-class people."
The federal government, however, has thrown its support behind the bill. Kevin Sorenson, minister of state for finance, told the House of Commons on Sept. 22 the government believes Canadians and workers deserve the right to know where their mandatory dues are being spent. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) feels similarly.
"At a very high level, employees at virtually all unionized workplaces are required to pay full union dues regardless of membership or their preferences. In most other major economies, including Europe and most of the United States, workers actually have a choice of whether or not they want to belong to a union, and as part of that, whether or not they want dues to be deducted from their paycheques," said Satinder Chera, vice-president of communications for the CFIB. "Our view is that requiring unions to publicly disclose would provide transparency and accountability."
Chera said unions have been given a great privilege in the form of dues deducted from workers’ paycheques, regardless of whether the worker wants to belong to a union or not, and because of this additional safeguards are needed to ensure that privilege is not abused.
He went on to say if unions have reservations about disclosing their financial information, they could instead make dues voluntary, thereby rendering the requirements under Bill C-377 unnecessary.
"Our views are that the bill should pass or, at the very least, that unions should be given the option of making their dues voluntary," Chera said.
And while the bill’s requirement for unions to disclose financial information has raised concerns about privacy, some are also taking Bill C-377 to task as unconstitutional.
"This bill, obviously, is being touted as financial transparency for unions across the country," said Hassan Yussuff, president of the Canadian Labour Congress. "But unions are regulated at the provincial jurisdiction for the most part. This bill imposes provisions on the provinces that will essentially override provincial jurisdiction in terms of regulation, which is clearly unconstitutional."
These fundamental issues inherent in Bill C-377 are likely the result of limited resources, Yussuff said. Private members lack the resources and ability to research that the government enjoys when tabling legislation in the House, he said, and as a result private member’s legislation requires more scrutiny.
"Quite often what they produce, while it may be well-intentioned, is completely flawed," Yussuff said, arguing exhaustive debate for private member’s bills is incredibly important and any efforts to minimize debate surrounding private member’s business misguided.
Like Dias, Yussuff sees Bill C-377 at its core as an attack on unions in an effort to stifle the labour movement’s representation of workers in the broader public realm of society.
"Our responsibility is to defend our members in a variety of areas including challenging the government in the courts when we feel legislation is having a detrimental effect on our members. This bill is trying to stifle that type of union representation," he said. "All of this has little to do, in my view, with transparency. This is really a fundamental attack on the labour movement and this government’s desire to use whatever methods it can to weaken and destroy the labour movement in this country."
"You would think," Yussuff said, "with all the issues facing this country right now the government would have much more pressing issues to deal with than to pass a draconian piece of legislation whose interest is to try to weaken and undermine unions."
