CANADIAN MANUFACTURERS' ASSOCIATION
UNION OF INJURED WORKERS OF ONTARIO
CANADIAN COUNCIL OF RETIREES, LOCAL 1
LABOUR COUNCIL OF METROPOLITAN TORONTO AND YORK REGION
FEDERATION OF TEMPORARY HELP SERVICES
GUELPH AND DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL
EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS WORK GROUP
PARKDALE COMMUNITY LEGAL SERVICES
CONTENTS
Monday 31 August 1992
Labour Relations and Employment Statute Law Amendment Act, 1992, Bill 40
Canadian Manufacturers' Association
Ralph Edwards, chairman, Ontario division
Ian Howcroft, employee relations policy adviser
Paul Nykanen, vice-president
Union of Injured Workers of Ontario
Phil Biggin, executive director
Canadian Council of Retirees, Local 1
S. William Punnett, board member and chairman, labour relations committee
Murray Cottrill, secretary
All Business Coalition
Paul Nykanen, chair
Larry Dworkin, government relations officer, Packaging Association of Canada
Labour Council of Metropolitan Toronto and York Region
Linda Torney, president
Federation of Temporary Help Services
Don Braden, senior public affairs officer
Derek Osler, chair, government and labour relations committee
Steve Jones, national president-elect
Women for Labour Law Reform
Janet Maher
Daina Green
Guelph and District Labour Council
Terry O'Connor, president
Dave Fairfull, first vice-president
Larry Leisti, treasurer
Employment Standards Work Group
Gayle Lesbans, representative
Parkdale Community Legal Services
Sheila Cuthbertson, staff lawyer
STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT
*Chair / Président: Kormos, Peter (Welland-Thorold ND)
*Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Huget, Bob (Sarnia ND)
Conway, Sean G. (Renfrew North/-Nord L)
Dadamo, George (Windsor-Sandwich ND)
Jordan, Leo (Lanark-Renfrew PC)
Klopp, Paul (Huron ND)
*McGuinty, Dalton (Ottawa South/-Sud L)
*Murdock, Sharon (Sudbury ND)
*Offer, Steven (Mississauga North/-Nord L)
Turnbull, David (York Mills PC)
Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay/Muskoka-Baie-Georgianne ND)
*Wood, Len (Cochrane North/-Nord ND)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants:
*Coppen, Shirley, (Niagara South/-Sud ND) for Ms Murdock
*Cunningham, Dianne (London North/-Nord PC) for Mr Jordan
*Hayes, Pat (Essex-Kent ND) for Mr Klopp
*Hope, Randy R. (Chatham-Kent ND) for Mr Dadamo
*Marland, Margaret (Mississauga South/-Sud PC) for Mr Jordan
*Phillips, Gerry (Scarborough-Agincourt L) for Mr Conway
*Ward, Brad (Brantford ND) for Mr Waters
*Witmer, Elizabeth (Waterloo North/-Nord PC) for Mr Turnbull
*In attendance / présents
Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes: Fletcher, Derek (Guelph ND)
Clerk pro tem / Greffier par intérim: Decker, Todd
Staff / Personnel: Fenson, Avrum, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1400 in room 151.
LABOUR RELATIONS AND EMPLOYMENT STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI A TRAIT AUX RELATIONS DE TRAVAIL ET À L'EMPLOI
Consideration of Bill 40, An Act to amend certain Acts concerning Collective Bargaining and Employment / Loi modifiant certaines lois en ce qui a trait à la négociation collective et à l'emploi.
CANADIAN MANUFACTURERS' ASSOCIATION
The Chair (Mr Peter Kormos): It's 2 o'clock and we're resuming these hearings into Bill 40. The first participant this afternoon is the Canadian Manufacturers' Association. Will those people please have seats in front of the microphones and tell us their names and titles, if any, and proceed with their submissions. We've got your written submission, which will of course be made an exhibit and form part of the record. Go ahead, sir. Please try to save at least the last half of the half-hour time frame for questions and exchanges.
Mr Ralph Edwards: Good afternoon, Mr Chairman and members of the committee. My name is Ralph Edwards and I'm chairman of the Ontario division of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association. Personally, I am president and general manager of the G. H. Wood Co. With me are Paul Nykanen, vice-president, Canadian Manufacturers' Association, and Ian Howcroft, CMA's employee relations policy adviser.
The Canadian Manufacturers' Association appreciates this opportunity to present to you our views and concerns regarding Bill 40. Before I address the issue, I would like to take a moment to mention a few things about our association and about the importance of manufacturing to Ontario.
The CMA was founded 121 years ago and today is Canada's oldest and, we believe, strongest industrial association. The CMA is unique, representing companies of all sizes from all sectors of manufacturing and from all regions of the province and indeed the country. Our members produce approximately 75% of Ontario's manufacturing output.
Manufacturing is often described as the engine of our economy, and with good reason. In Ontario, the sector directly employs 864,000 people and another one million jobs are indirectly dependent on manufacturing. Furthermore, these jobs in manufacturing are among the best-paid jobs on average, and these well-paid jobs allow workers in our sector to enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world.
However, the changes proposed to the Labour Relations Act in Bill 40 we believe threaten these jobs, the manufacturing sector and the prosperity of the entire province. We believe it is harmful legislation, and opinion polls indicate that it does not have public support. The employer community also opposes the changes, leaving only organized labour in favour.
A number of independent studies have already demonstrated that if Bill 40 passes in its current form, there will be a loss of jobs and investment in the province. Companies are currently making investment decisions for future expansion and Bill 40 is a major deterrent to attracting these dollars to Ontario. A decision not to invest in Ontario will not be something that most companies announce publicly. Rather, our economy will continue on a slow and steady decline through attrition if Bill 40 is passed.
Rather than contemplating harmful legislation, government should be focusing its efforts and limited resources on igniting Ontario's economy. It must first convince investors that Ontario is open for business and that investing in Ontario is a sound economic decision.
Bill 40 works against this because it is geared to benefit a select group of senior trade unionists at the expense of individuals, employers and the greater public interest. The bill is a result of cherry-picking parts of other labour legislation in Canada to create a bill completely out of step with economic reality. The government must work at improving our competitive position, not undermining it.
The CMA has long recognized and promoted the importance of labour and management working cooperatively to improve a company's, and hence the province's, overall competitive position. The manufacturing sector has a great deal of experience in labour relations and in most situations there are mature bargaining relationships. It is also important to note that many companies have excellent relations with their employees without the need of a union.
It is to no one's advantage to have acrimonious and confrontational labour-management relations, but we feel this will be the result if Bill 40 is passed in its current form. The government states that the bill will improve labour and management relations, but we believe this is wishful thinking. The situation will worsen if the rights of one party are removed and the power of the other party enhanced and increased.
Time will not permit me to address all areas of the bill where we feel changes are required. However, I will provide you with CMA's position and concerns on some of the major issues and request that you include our proposed changes in your recommendations on Bill 40.
Purpose clause: We do not feel it necessary to have a purpose clause, as the current preamble appropriately and properly sets out the tone and tenor of the act. This proposed purpose clause dramatically alters how the act will be applied and would recognize only the rights of organized labour, enhancing its bargaining position and making it easier for it to organize. It goes far beyond the promotion of harmonious labour relations and into the realm of determining results and deciding what will be included in the collective agreement.
While we have strenuously opposed the addition of a purpose clause, we find this particular clause objectionable. It would be used by the labour board, first-contract arbitrators, rights arbitrators and others in discharging their expanded responsibilities. It would convert what are supposed to be level adjudicative playing fields into processes which would be raised by unions when their persuasive and/or economic powers do not achieve their desired goals. The result would be to create a shortcut or alternative to collective bargaining. The changes will not promote more harmonious labour relations, as they are solely for the benefit of unions. The act must always maintain neutrality and should strike a balance.
Certification process: The CMA fully supports the principle that if a majority of employees wish to join a union, the union should be certified. However, the democratic principle of majority rule should not be sacrificed in order to make organizing easier. If the government sincerely wanted to ensure that the true wishes of employees are determined and acted upon, a government-supervised secret ballot should have been proposed. The process would allow employees to receive all the information they need to make an educated choice, free from any possibility of intimidation, pressure or coercion.
How can a government argue against the basic underpinning of our democratic system? It is neither logical nor is it equitable to prevent employees from democratically exercising their free choice. The secret ballot vote should be the required means to determine whether the union should be certified.
I must also raise a point which CMA finds particularly untenable: the change with regard to automatic certification. In no situation should a union be certified if there is not adequate membership support. The proposal to remove the requirement of adequate membership support could allow for automatic certification even if a majority of employees oppose the union, where the act has been contravened. This is inequitable and ignores the rights of individual employees. Changes must be made to correct this, especially if no vote is put forward.
Replacement workers: The proposal regarding the prohibition of using replacement workers has had the highest public profile, and with justification. To put it succinctly, the rights of individuals and employers have been stripped away to further the interests and unfairly increase the power of trade unions. In its current form, this restriction would seriously damage many employers that need replacement workers to ensure the continued viability of their operation.
Ontario's economy relies heavily on just-in-time suppliers and this law jeopardizes the continued operation of these businesses and other businesses with whom they deal. Furthermore, if a company is prevented from operating, the needs of its customers will be filled by another company. The business would probably be lost for ever, and so too would the jobs.
The committee should not overlook the blatant unfairness of this proposal. Collective bargaining is about negotiating and compromise. If the hands of one party are tied, then you have legislated an unfair advantage in favour of the other party. You have effectively removed the incentive to bargain, which is contrary to the intent and raison d'être of the OLRA. Striking workers would still have the right to seek other work during the strike, so why should the employer be starved economically?
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The current proposal places far too many restrictions on who an employer can use. At a minimum, an employer must be able to transfer employees in from other locations or facilities. In the true sense, these are not replacement workers, but only temporary transfers that are necessary to ensure the company is able to maintain essential and necessary aspects of the business. Companies must have the flexibility to transfer in other employees if Ontario's economy and the public are not to suffer. This is especially true if the products relate to the provision of food, energy, power etc. The right amendment here will result in strikers' jobs being saved.
The Ministry of Labour has said that changes were made to make this section more palatable to the business community -- to wit, the 60% strike vote requirement. However, this is a fallacy, because in most collective bargaining cases the strike vote almost always exceeds 90%. Often the strike vote is taken at the initial stages of the bargaining process. In other words, the 60% requirement is of no effect. It is not a mandate for a strike and, in most cases, it only demonstrates support and thereby enhances the union's bargaining position.
The first-contract arbitration issue: The changes that would make first-contract arbitration easier are also contrary to the premise of collective bargaining. Everyone agrees, and I believe the minister has even stated, that the best agreement is one that the parties freely agreed to. Legislation must promote the free collective bargaining of an agreement rather than promoting artificial agreements that are imposed by third parties.
Under the current law there must be an impasse in bargaining before resorting to first-contract arbitration. There is still the recognition that the parties are the ones who can best determine the terms and conditions of employment. Under the proposed new law, first-contract arbitration could be applied for after the parties have been in a strike or lockout position for only 30 days. Again, this is another example of providing an undue advantage to the union; it removes completely the union's incentive to bargain realistically. Arbitrated first contracts will become the norm. We therefore recommend that the principles of collective bargaining be supported and maintained by preventing such easy access to first-contract arbitration. It takes time for a bargaining relationship to mature; it simply cannot be legislated.
The OLRB's -- that is, the arbitrator's -- expanded powers: Increasing the powers of the OLRB and of arbitrators is again contrary to the principles of collective bargaining and positive employee relations. It is axiomatic that the parties involved should be the ones to determine what will be included in the collective agreement. Under no circumstances should the OLRB have the authority to determine or impose the term or terms of a collective agreement. Furthermore, an arbitrator should apply the terms of a collective agreement. To allow him or her to apply his or her brand of justice and use total discretion would create instability in the collective bargaining relationship.
As Bill 40 would result in more hearings being conducted by the chair or a vice-chair sitting alone, it is essential that appropriate non-partisan, neutral persons be appointed. The perception of their neutrality would also be of prime importance, so it is necessary that a public process be established to identify and determine who should be appointed to these positions.
Consolidation of bargaining units: On a related topic, I would like to raise our concern about the consolidation of bargaining units. Under the current law the OLRB determines what constitutes the appropriate bargaining unit by ensuring that there is a requisite community of interest to support a viable bargaining relationship. Once it has done this, it has no authority to consolidate two or more bargaining units at a later date.
Bill 40 would disregard the requirement of appropriateness of the bargaining unit to ensure that unions could easily organize small groups and then later apply for consolidation. The result would be the loss of the essential community-of-interest component in determining what constitutes the appropriate bargaining unit.
It also fails to recognize the rights of individual employees and could lead to difficult, if not impossible, labour relations. The legislation must recognize internal differences companies may have, based on numerous criteria such as geography, profit centres, product lines etc. Allowing for the consolidation of units that do not have the same community of interest will hamper labour relations and impact negatively on production.
Third-party property: A final issue relates to the rights of the third-party property owner, someone whose rights are being ignored completely. This is another example where long-protected rights are being sacrificed to promote and increase the rights and advantages of trade unions. This applies in both organizing and picketing and would result in third parties being detrimentally affected because of a labour dispute or campaign in which they neither play a part nor have any involvement. This change will also impact the general public, as it too would be brought into contact with a labour dispute or campaign to which it is not a party.
One cannot help but ask, how could this happen in a jurisdiction that has always been viewed as one that promotes the rights of individuals and supports the equitable treatment of all parties? Changes are necessary if Ontario is to retain its reputation and to ensure that all persons are treated equally, with no super-rights or special preferences being granted.
Our conclusion: In our opinion, Bill 40 in its present form will result in much inequity and would cause a dramatic decline in the province's economy. The OLRA should and must ensure that the rights of all are recognized and protected. It should also promote labour relations. It should not have as its principal purpose to be the guarantor of easy certification and increased bargaining power for trade unions.
If Ontario is to succeed and thrive in the future, there must be workplace harmony, where workers and management work together for the common goal of prosperity. Bill 40 works against this goal and will make labour-management relations even more acrimonious. Ontario cannot operate in an economic vacuum. We must be cognizant of the internal and external pressures we face. Bill 40 should be abandoned, but at a minimum it must be dramatically amended to reflect the issues and concerns I have just discussed.
Given that the government has scheduled five weeks of hearings to discuss and debate this bill, we are confident that the potential for real change exists. If the hearings are proven to be nothing more than a public relations forum to allow parties to state their views, it will create mistrust and demonstrate that the government does not care for the opinions of employers.
Mr Chairman, my colleagues and I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
The Chair: Thank you. Four minutes per caucus. Mr Offer, please.
Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): I have just a short question to begin. Thank you for your presentation. I'm looking at page 4 of your presentation, under the certification process, and I note at the very bottom you talk about allowing employees to receive all the information they need in order to make a choice, again, free from coercion and intimidation. As you may guess, we've heard a number of submissions where there have been suggestions that there have been intimidation and coercion in an organizing drive from both sides.
One of the things I would like to hear from you is, would you be opposed to the legislation being changed in so far as there be mandatory notice of an organizing campaign, that notice being delivered to each employee in the workforce, outlining his rights under the Labour Relations Act, in order to ensure that his choice is one which is free from any coercion or intimidation and, as a result, moving this organizing from the shadows into the open?
Mr Edwards: Personally, I'd agree with you. I'll refer to my cohort here, Ian, who's our policy adviser.
Mr Ian Howcroft: We would support the providing of more information to employees if it would help them to make a decision on something that's going to affect them. We feel the best way to do that would be to have a secret ballot vote, allow the employee to have information from the union that he can get on his own, from the labour relations board and from the employer and then, free from any intimidation by any party, allow him to make a secret ballot decision as to how he is going to be affected.
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Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt): My question really is to help us a little to put a dimension on how serious this situation is. I happen to think that many of the things you talk about in your brief will in fact happen. That's just because I probably talked to a thousand business people about it, each of whom has indicated his concern. But I think the government members would say: "That's just the business community blowing air again. If anything comes along that they don't particularly like, they say that thousands and thousands of jobs will be lost." Can you be at all helpful to us in terms of quantifying in a more specific way what the outcome of this might be in terms of jobs and investment?
Mr Paul Nykanen: If I might respond to that, as you are probably aware, there were a number of independent, third-party surveys that were conducted. One in particular that I would refer to would be a separate Ernst and Young study which was sent out to 300 businesses across Ontario representing a broad spectrum of small and large businesses, as well as geographic considerations. In questioning these people who are actually making the investment decisions, the results came out that there would be an estimated loss of 295,000 jobs and about $8.8 billion in investments.
It's true that this particular survey made reference to the discussion paper and that there have been minor changes that have been incorporated in the bill itself, but essentially we're dealing with primarily the same principal concerns, and that number, we would expect, would be somewhere in the order of 250,000 to 275,000, at a minimum.
Mrs Elizabeth Witmer (Waterloo North): Thank you very much, Mr Edwards, for your presentation. I appreciate the constructive suggestions that you have made and, like you, I believe the government should abandon this bill. But if it is not prepared to do so, I hope that it will very seriously consider the amendments that groups such as yours are bringing forward.
You talked a little bit about the economic decline in the province, and I would certainly agree. The other concern you raised was the rights of the individual employees, and that's an issue I have certainly been concerned about since the outset.
If we take a look at the consolidation of bargaining units on page 9, you indicate in the second paragraph that again, in this particular issue, it fails to recognize the rights of individual employees and could lead to difficult, if not impossible, labour relations because it doesn't recognize the internal differences that companies have. Could you expand on that point, please? How could that happen?
Mr Howcroft: If you have a union apply for consolidation of two bargaining units, it's not necessarily going to be that all the employees in those proposed bargaining units or the proposed consolidation agree with that, so their rights are going to be ignored and sacrificed if the union decides it wants to go and have the bargaining units consolidated. There's nothing requiring a union to take into account the wishes of the employees. Again, it's just another example of where the rights of the individual employee are being ignored to further the rights of the trade union movement.
Mrs Witmer: The other area is, in your conclusion, you indicate that this is certainly going to make labour-management relations more acrimonious. I'd just like to hear from you again, what is it within this bill that is going to contribute to that type of situation?
Mr Nykanen: One of the areas could be with regard to the expanded powers of the Ontario Labour Relations Board, and if you take the expanded powers, along with the change of the preamble into the purpose clause, this would force the board to make decisions which would facilitate organizing. Also, it would be able to determine and impose the terms of a collective agreement. We feel that collective bargaining is exactly what it means, and that it should be the workplace parties that determine it. So if some external body, a third party if you will, imposes the terms of that, it will lead to acrimonious relationships.
Mrs Witmer: The manufacturing sector obviously has unique concerns with this Bill 40. Which provision within this piece of legislation would you say is the most frightening, or which provisions are the most frightening and certainly could have a very serious economic impact on this province?
Mr Edwards: In my opinion, personally, I think the preventive point of not being able to operate or to prohibit the employer from operating at all is the most draconian. I don't like much of any of it, but that, to me, would be the worst. So much of the automotive sector, just as an example, is on the just-in-time program and so much of our supplied product is perhaps a commodity in its nature and is not terribly difficult to substitute. The business could easily be lost and, as I said, given to another supplier and possibly never to be returned. That other supplier could easily be a foreign company, especially in the milieu we're in here with the North American free trade agreement.
Mr Brad Ward (Brantford): Gentlemen, I'd like to thank you for your fine presentation on behalf of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association. I think there's general consensus, and I'm sure you will agree as well, that the workplace and the workforce have changed dramatically since the mid-1970s, the last time the act was significantly updated. Part of the overall objective of the reason why we are proceeding with Bill 40 in however final form is to reflect that changing workplace and workforce.
When you talk about investment, I have to relate to my own community of Brantford. Over the last little while, since labour reform has been discussed -- I think it was more in the news, in the media, in late winter or early spring than it is now; a really heightened discussion back then -- we had a number of plants in Brantford. KeepRite -- I'm sure you're aware of KeepRite, Inter-City Gas, Canadian-owned -- announced the decision to close an American plant and expand production at its local plant in Brantford, anticipating doubling the employment levels over the next few years.
Gates Canada: We had a presentation from the director of Canadian operations. They invested $4 million into the operations and now it's my understanding that an additional $8 million is coming in because of the success of that original investment, all done during the labour reforms being discussed.
BASF invested $6 million, a German company. Local investors purchased an American plant, all this during the discussion of labour reform. I don't pretend to say that these investments occurred because of labour reform; neither do I say that the plants that did close closed because of labour reform. In fact, they closed because of corporate restructuring or because of the economy and went into receivership.
The question I have, gentlemen, if I have time, is if a plant in your sector has good employee-employer relationships, and generally I think they are favourable, there is cooperation between employees and employers -- not, I recognize, during an organizing drive because that means something has broken down in that relationship, but under existing circumstances -- what aspects of Bill 40, and I know you alluded, Paul, to the fact that during an organizing drive, you feel Bill 40 would create a little bit of a wedge, but if the relationships are good --
The Chair: Mr Ward, you had time but you're quickly using it up.
Mr Ward: If the relationships are good, union and non-union, what aspects of Bill 40 are going to change that relationship?
Mr Nykanen: I think I might ask a question in response to that. The Ontario Labour Relations Act, as it exists today, seems to be working quite well. It is reasonably fair and balanced. We don't have the same problems as some other provinces have such as, let's say, Quebec, which is used as an example frequently. So if it ain't broke, why fix it? With the examples that Mr Edwards provided earlier, these are all areas that are going to cause concern to those who are going to invest from within and without the province.
I would suggest that even though it's often said that it's perception rather than reality, I would suggest that the perception of what would be the competitive position is certainly affecting those investment decisions today. I would say that there are six or seven key items within the proposed amendments that are particularly difficult to come to grips with.
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The Chair: Mr Hope, 60 seconds please.
Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): Gee, I thought he was going to run it out.
Dealing with replacement workers, you brought up the issue of just-in-time theory. In talking to a number of the small business communities in my area, I don't think they've been really paying a lot of attention to the labour relations reform because -- you talked about meeting supplier demand -- one of the biggest issues that is facing a lot of the manufacturing sector right now and doing just-in-time is dealing with the banks more so than dealing with the labour relations laws. They've lost more productivity because of traffic tie-ups or by the banks coming in and pulling their notes on them or by equipment breaking down than any replacement worker legislation will ever cause. I'm just wondering why you're paying more attention to legislation of this nature, when collective agreements happen once every three years, instead of dealing with something that is more relevant, like the financial institutions drawing operating costs.
Mr Edwards: I think most labour agreements are successful. Most businesses with an organized workforce are not on strike; they're operating successfully. I guess Paul's point is, why introduce legislation that could upset that process by giving the investor, which in many cases is not necessarily a Canadian company, an insecure feeling about investing in Ontario? You're adding a component that could potentially create acrimonious relations. We're not saying that today's relationships are all that bad. So why don't we leave it alone? It's working pretty well.
Mr Howcroft: To use your logic, why is the government focusing so much attention and so many resources on this bill if it's not that big a problem?
The Chair: No, you don't have time to reply. Canadian Manufacturers' Association, we're grateful to you for coming here this afternoon and performing an important part of this process. Thank you. Take care.
UNION OF INJURED WORKERS OF ONTARIO
The Chair: The next participant is the Union of Injured Workers of Ontario. Please come forward, have a seat, tell us your name and titles, if any, and proceed with your comments. Go ahead, sir.
Mr Phil Biggin: I'm Phil Biggin, and I'm the executive director of the Union of Injured Workers of Ontario. I'm just going to read a brief statement, and then I will make comments and answer questions as appropriate.
The Union of Injured Workers of Ontario is pleased to appear before the members of the standing committee on resources development of the Ontario Legislature to discuss our views on Bill 40, the government's proposed amendments to the Ontario Labour Relations Act. We believe this type of reform is long overdue and anticipate its passage into law.
The Union of Injured Workers represents injured workers and their families from across Metropolitan Toronto, Peel and York regions. We are an affiliate of the Ontario network of injured workers' groups and work closely with other injured worker groups throughout Ontario to protect and defend the interests of injured workers and their families. The UIW has been representing injured workers since 1974. We deal every day with the Workers' Compensation Board, the income security branch of National Health and Welfare, the Ontario Human Rights Commission and social services or welfare.
It has been our experience that workers who are members of unions fare much better than those who are unorganized. With the recent reform of the Workers' Compensation Act in Bill 162 whereby employers with 20 or more employees are obligated to reinstate the injured worker for two years following an injury at work, the right of workers to be members of a union becomes even more important. Every day we see people coming into our office from non-union shops who have been injured on the job, and no reports have been sent to the Workers' Compensation Board. People are put on sickness and accident benefits, and of course you know what happens if you don't have some kind of collective agreement at your workplace and you're on a sickness and accident benefit and then a long-term disability results: You're not going to have any protection after the sickness and accident benefits expire.
Under Bill 162, as far as injured workers whom the employer has the obligation to re-employ, when these workers go back to the company, essentially, they go back without representation if they're unorganized. It is impossible for me as a representative, or for a representative through the office of the worker adviser or a legal clinic or any other injured workers' group, to go into that factory in most cases. There are some exceptions where we are accepted, but in most cases the worker does not have representation and oftentimes problems develop which lead to a very unfortunate result.
We're convinced that the issue of Bill 40 is clearly an issue of workers' rights. Workers who believe they are treated unfairly by their employer and believe they cannot, as individuals, obtain relief join with other workers to seek representation. This legislation stipulates that it must be a majority of workers who feel they require relief through representation prior to an alteration of the status quo. When a majority of workers feel relief is necessary they must, in a democratic society, be granted the same right as employers to join together in the pursuit of their common interests.
These are challenging times for all of us, and both labour and the employer community must find ways to cooperate and work together. It's unacceptable, considering the global reality, that certain employers continue to operate in ways which clearly discriminate against workers, particularly those who need help most: women, visible minorities and youth. We should look to western Europe for more insight to labour-management cooperation. If we fail in this regard, we'll sell all the citizens of Ontario short.
In conclusion, we support the initiative of the Ontario government to move things forward in the area of labour relations, we endorse the submission of the Ontario Federation of Labour and, finally, we urge the timely passage of this legislation, which we believe will benefit all Ontarians.
I thank the committee for permitting the opportunity to present these views.
The Chair: Thank you, sir. Seven minutes per caucus. Ms Witmer.
Mrs Witmer: Thank you very much, Mr Biggin, for your presentation. In the second paragraph you indicate, "It has been our experience that workers who are members of a union fare much better than those who are unorganized." Are you saying that in the ideal world, in Ontario, all workers should be unionized?
Mr Biggin: If you want my opinion I would say yes, I think I would like to see most of the workforce unionized. Of course, I guess there would be those who would prefer to stay without. But again, I said look at western Europe over the past 50 years, and look at the climate of industrial relations which has been developed there. If we examine what has been done, we will see that it is much more in the interests of the common good -- I'm talking not just about workers' rights but employers and small business people and everybody in the country -- if there is labour-management cooperation. I think that can best be effected if the workers are represented by unions of their own choice and, of course, if the employers have their own associations as well.
Mrs Witmer: You should come to my riding office. As you know, the biggest load of work any MPP has is workers' comp.
Mr Biggin: That's right.
Mrs Witmer: I can tell you that many of the cases we're presently involved with involve people who are members of unions, and I don't see them having any better experience than those who are not members of unions.
You talked about Bill 40; however, you have simply said, "Bill 40's great and we support the position of the OFL." You haven't indicated anywhere in here what it is about Bill 40 that you like other than to say it's good. What is there about Bill 40?
I believe that many employers and employees in this province have excellent relationships, both in unionized and non-unionized workplaces. How is Bill 40 specifically -- I want specifics -- going to improve the workplace environment?
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Mr Biggin: First of all, workers will have the right to organize a union without harassment. They will have the right to form their own association.
I do want to go back to what you said before, that many of your cases were people who were represented by unions already. That is a problem of workers' compensation; that's not a problem of whether you're a member of a union or not. In fact, if you looked at the statistics and you broke it down, you would see those who are represented, either by their unions or by a representative, are much better dealt with at workers' compensation than those who are not represented.
Going to back to your point about the benefits of unionization --
Mrs Witmer: No, the benefits of Bill 40.
Mr Biggin: -- of Bill 40 in allowing workers to unionize -- I think that the right of people to form their own associations and to be represented is a more advanced position than to have people out there working as individuals. When persons are out there as individuals, they're all by themselves. They don't have the opportunities that they have if they have an association which can assist them in fighting whatever problem they encounter.
Mrs Witmer: But they already have the right to organize at the present time. How's Bill 40 going to make it different?
Mr Biggin: There are many things in terms of organizing that are very difficult. You have to meet certain quotas, you have to do certain things, and in many companies, if you attempt to unionize and that comes to the management's attention, you're fired.
My main purpose in presenting support for Bill 40 is the fact that I believe very strongly -- and I think most workers do -- that if workers have the right to organize, the situation in terms of workers' rights and in terms of labour-management cooperation will move more smoothly. It doesn't necessarily mean that there's going to be more labour strife because Bill 40 is passed.
Mrs Dianne Cunningham (London North): Thank you, Mr Biggin. I'm going to take advantage of your position and ask you a couple of questions that may help us in our work. But I did want to say that almost unanimously, people who have come with suggestions for improvements to the bill or opposition to the bill have said that this isn't a matter of anybody being against unions or the ability to unionize.
Mr Biggin: That's right. I realize that.
Mrs Cunningham: I hope you understand that that's the position.
Mr Biggin: I know that.
Mrs Cunningham: The replacement worker is the one that is of greatest concern, I think, from what we're hearing. I was going to ask you about that, but I'd rather ask you another question with regard to workers' compensation, if you don't mind.
If you had an opportunity to give us three concerns about the operation of the Workers' Compensation Board -- because we hear them here -- and about appeals, both the board and the appeals, what would you say, in your position, your greatest concerns would be with regard to the injured worker?
Mr Biggin: I think our concerns are quite clear. One is that a worker, when injured, has the knowledge and has the opportunities to be covered under the Workers' Compensation Act. In many instances, and more so in unorganized plants than organized plants, the situation is that the management will direct the worker towards other forms of benefit which cut them out of rights that they would have had under the Workers' Compensation Act.
Mrs Cunningham: No, I'm asking you about the board itself. All of us, in a non-partisan way, are very concerned about the Workers' Compensation Board operation because of the time it takes. Whether they're unions or not unions, I don't really care. I don't even know half the time when people come into my office; that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about how they can get through the system. As members here, we're all here to listen to you. I'm asking you: What advice can you give us?
Mr Biggin: Concerning workers' compensation?
Mrs Cunningham: In a word, yes. We wouldn't tell you it was our full-time job, almost, if we weren't concerned about it. We hire sometimes one and two full-time staff on this issue. So tell us what you think should happen. We've got you here; we're going to ask you the question.
Mr Biggin: There has been a task force on vocational rehabilitation and service delivery which was tabled recently, and I would like to see the results of that task force seriously considered and the recommendations implemented.
The Chair: All of that having been said, we now move to Mr Hope.
Mrs Cunningham: Maybe you can answer another question in that regard, because I know my colleagues are interested in it.
Mr Hope: It's good to see the Conservative Party now starting to pay attention to workers' compensation.
Now for my question. I'm glad you come from a perspective dealing with workers' compensation as a representative of union and non-unionized workers. Your presentation is very clear to me. We heard a presentation before you came today that said it's an unfair balance, that we're all leaning towards organized labour. I know that in your work you deal with people in social assistance, you deal with people in union and non-union workplaces and you also deal a lot with health and safety, because you try to prevent the accidents from happening in order to make sure people are not on workers' compensation.
Just out of your own experience, dealing with both unionized and non-unionized workplaces -- they always think unions are after big bucks -- what do you think? Is it not true that most unionized workplaces have a safer environment for working people to try to eliminate workers' compensation? I just ask your views because you see both ends of the perspective.
Mr Biggin: It's the same thing. If you're looking at the Occupational Health and Safety Act, for instance, and the health and safety committees within workplaces, it's much easier to form a health and safety committee in a unionized shop than it is in a non-unionized shop. Those committees work very hard to ensure that health and safety are in fact carried out.
My concern is -- one of the speakers referred to the fact; I think it was Mrs Witmer -- that a lot of their cases, their clients, were members of unions. I think this is very much a question of education. If you have the structures, you have a much easier job educating the membership in terms of knowledge of workers' compensation, health or safety or whatever other factors are involved. That is why I very strongly support the idea of a unionized workforce. I think a unionized workforce is going to lead to more educated, better-educated, more knowledgeable workers, and the result will be a better situation for Ontario as a whole.
If I was an employer, I would rather have an educated, knowledgeable workforce than one which was going to make a lot of mistakes and lead me into very high penalties with workers' compensation or a fine for health and safety. So it's really basic common sense, I would think.
Mr Hope: A little bit more than that, I think.
The other area I'd like to talk on is replacement workers. You talk about people on social assistance, and if there are job opportunities available when they're doing their job search, if they don't go to take that replacement worker job, they get cut off social assistance. I'm just wondering about your support of replacement worker legislation. Is it to the perspective that you can stop recurrence of injuries or stop victimizing the victims that are currently being hurt?
Mr Biggin: I think that's all part of the package. I'm still just a little bit bewildered -- I'm sorry to divert from your point -- about the extent of the employer hysteria, for lack of a better word, around Bill 40.
When you see employers in Italy or France or Germany or England who will form councils with their workers, it just doesn't make sense to fight something that seems to be appropriate for its time. As I said, it's overdue. I think we have to move forward and implement this kind of thing. If it's been done in Europe, and there's a certain strain of thinking even in the United States, which has less inclination towards unions than Canadian employers do, then I would think the employers should re-examine their consciences and figure that in fact we're going to have to solve this problem together in the long run, and the sooner we get down and work at it without beating each other to death, the better off we'll be. We all recognize we're in a severe economic crisis, but the only way we're going to get out of it is if we can pull together and work as a team, and I don't see that.
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Mr Pat Hayes (Essex-Kent): Thank you, Mr Biggin. You certainly bring a different perspective here to these proceedings, especially when you mention the struggles of injured workers with sick and accident benefits along with the compensation. I don't think anybody's going to argue that there aren't problems with compensation. Whether unionized or not, there are still problems there.
But I do believe the unionized workers, for example, do have representatives, benefit representatives and placement representatives, and there is an avenue for the injured workers to go to. Do you find there may be less struggles when they have representatives who are right in the workplace who are unionized than you have with the people you represent who are not unionized, as far as even rehabilitating people, getting people off the injured list or off compensation and back into the workplace? Can you tell us, in your experience, the benefits of being unionized or not being unionized?
Mr Biggin: Recognizing today's problems, we know workers' comp is a mess, and we hope soon we'll be able to get some control over this beast. But recognizing that and having said that, I've been told myself by many people at the Workers' Compensation Board, adjudicators, they're much happier to deal with somebody like myself or somebody from the office of the worker adviser or an MPP's office who can act as a facilitator, because what is the problem we face at workers' compensation?
If you want to talk about the problem, it is undereducated, undertrained employees, because of the upheaval that's gone on for the last five or six years. Many times the representative is the one who is providing the key to the answer to the adjudicators or whatever decision-maker we're dealing with, and that's extremely beneficial to the worker.
I can't underline; it's not just a bias, it's a reality. It's a reality you can see day after day. The unorganized worker does not have the benefits. We're not saying, "Bring a union in and we've got heaven, we've got Camelot." What we're saying is that you stand a better chance to have your rights defended when you're a member of a group than if you're an individual. That's the simple reality of it.
Mr Dalton McGuinty (Ottawa South): Thank you, Mr Biggin, for your presentation. I've got to comment at the outset that at one point you mentioned that we all have to get out and pull together and work as a team. My concern is that this very process in fact is acting counter to that goal.
I'll tell you what's happening in British Columbia at this time, and maybe you can tell me whether you think it is a preferable approach. There the NDP Premier Harcourt decided that he was going to amend their labour relations law, and he decided that if there are two objectives in mind, first, to come through with the amendments and, second, to bring about some kind of reconciliation between business and labour, what you should do in terms of a process is get three groups involved in bringing about those amendments. In other words, you're going to try for a consensual approach. So he's got government, business and labour working together to come up with some kind of a draft. Unfortunately, we don't have that kind of a process here.
You made reference to the hysteria of business. I don't agree with the hysteria description, but certainly some of that is due to the fact that they were part of the process culminating in Bill 40. If we had to do it over again, wouldn't you agree that Harcourt's process is better?
Mr Biggin: I don't know whether I would make a judgement saying that it was better. It's a different way of approaching it. I've been through a couple of experiences in Ontario, one on the green paper committee, which was an attempt to form consensus, the bipartite committee on regulations for Bill 162. I think it's a healthy approach when in fact the government goes to the public and holds public hearings and then goes back and re-examines the document after public scrutiny. I'm not sure I would say one was preferable to the other. It might be an interesting experiment. But we're here, we're faced with public hearings, and I think we have to deal with what we have here.
Mr McGuinty: If one of the objectives here, and we've been told by the government that it is in fact one of those objectives, is to bring about an improvement in relations between business and labour, do you think this is going to accomplish that end?
Mr Biggin: I would hope, at the end of the road, that would be the case. There are certain things the employer community and the labour community can certainly agree on and I think how they come to further agreements is a matter of hard work and opening up and trying to understand each other. I don't think this is an attempt of the government to sledgehammer something that favours one group over another. For certain, we're trying to realize adjustments because for many years the pendulum swung in the opposite direction. But if everybody is intent on the goal being to make this province work for all of the citizenry, then I don't think we will end up with both groups on opposite poles. I think there has to be a coming together and a working together.
Mr Offer: Thank you for your presentation. On your first page you say you're convinced the issue of Bill 40 is clearly an issue of workers' rights.
Mr Biggin: Yes.
Mr Offer: I agree with you, except, as we go through these hearings, I think it's clear, certainly to me, that Bill 40 takes away in many ways workers' rights and the freedom to choose. One of the things I am most concerned about is attempting to move these organizing drives we've heard of from out of the shadows and into the open here. One of the ways in which that could be accomplished, as a starter, is if an organizing drive is commenced with a notice to each employee that an organizing drive is being started and these are the rights that you, the men and women in the workplace, have under the Labour Relations Act.
Would you be in favour of that type of notice being mandated in the legislation?
Mr Biggin: Would that notice guarantee the workers the right to organize without retribution, without harassment, without the fear of being fired?
Mr Offer: The impetus behind that is exactly to stop that.
Mr Biggin: If in fact you're talking about a contract being worked out, I'm certain that would be quite an acceptable thing, as long as the workers' rights were enshrined. It's been my experience where workers have tried to organize in an unorganized environment that a lot of blood has been shed; many people have lost their jobs. So I would have to be convinced that there were airtight guarantees that those workers would be protected, whether or not the vote went their way.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Biggin, appearing today on behalf of the Union of Injured Workers of Ontario. Your organization has always been ready to share its views and provide helpful criticism with not only this legislative initiative, but others historically. We are grateful to you for your participation and we appreciate you and your membership for their interest.
Mr Biggin: Thank you very much.
The Chair: I remind people, of course, that Hansard transcripts of any or all of the submissions are available by writing to the clerk of the resources development committee.
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CANADIAN COUNCIL OF RETIREES, LOCAL 1
The Chair: The next participant is the Canadian Council of Retirees, Local 1. Would those people please come forward, have a seat, tell us their names and titles, if any, and tell us what they will. Go ahead, gentlemen. The clerk is going to distribute your submission. Please try to save the last 15 minutes for questions and exchanges.
Mr S. William Punnett: Mr Chairman, I'm Bill Punnett from the seniors, and originally a director of the United Rubber Workers. Murray Cottrill is with the seniors as our secretary and was with the United Steelworkers of America for a great many years, as far back as 1937. Joe Jordan, who was with the Service Employees International Union, is the assistant secretary of the CCR, and Ernie Arnold is our treasurer.
Thank you for a chance to present our views on the government's proposed amendments to the Ontario Labour Relations Act.
Our council of retirees is composed of retired union members from a wide spectrum of industry and occupations. As retirees, we no longer have anything to personally gain from changes in the act. We do have a lifetime of personal experience with employer-employee relations in Ontario and the Ontario Labour Relations Act.
We have made a point of choosing as our presenters on this occasion retirees who were full-time union officers and representatives in their working lives and who have a great deal of firsthand experience with employee-employer relations and with the Ontario laws affecting such relations.
There are a number of proposed amendments to our labour laws before you which can be better addressed by those now working daily in the industrial relations arena. We want to concentrate on what our experience tells us is the most dangerous flaw in the industrial relations legislation. That flaw is legally permitted strikebreaking.
Our experience with employer-employee relations goes back to the time before certification of unions by law and before collective bargaining became widespread in larger bargaining units. That was the time when we employees had little or no protection under law and the only way we could help each other in the workplace was by risking our jobs, stopping work, going without pay and impeding our employers' ability to make a profit unless and until they were willing to work out reasonable compromises with us.
Those were the days when many members of the business community considered a union to be some sort of unpatriotic, probably communist, cabal, when many politicians were all in favour of calling in more police to make more, not less, confrontation, and when few editors mused maudlinly about the need for greater labour-management cooperation.
Nowadays we gather from political spokespeople from all parties that everyone believes in collective bargaining as the ideal form of employer-employee relations, and no political spokesman would dare say that employers and employees should not bargain in good faith. However, as the current debate in the Ontario Legislature shows all too clearly, when the chips are down, many legislators are still not sure collective bargaining for all is a good idea, and their ideas of bargaining in good faith are still quite fuzzy.
We think that the time has come for some plain talk. Like democracy, collective bargaining has its flaws. Also like democracy, no better system of employer-employee relations has yet evolved. Like all human relations, collective bargaining can be helped by mutual goodwill, but collective bargaining works because both employers and employees know full well that unless they can hammer out mutually acceptable compromises they will both risk a loss of income.
Any time only one side risks loss of income, there is no mutual incentive to work out compromises, and collective bargaining cannot take place. That is why collective bargaining now operates where employees have skills that are in short supply or where the mix of employees is so complex and so large that it cannot be replaced. That is why, despite all of our labour act procedures and all the speeches about non-confrontation and labour-management cooperation, many employees who need collective bargaining desperately can never enjoy that privilege.
We should remember that many employees in complex, hard-to-replace industrial bargaining units were often able to win voluntary union recognition in the past by taking strike action. In fact, it was because so many Canadian workers had been forced to engage in government-disapproved strikes for union recognition during the Second World War that Ottawa reluctantly adopted the idea of union certification from the US. Ottawa's law, upon which most provincial laws were later based, was a law designed to make striking over union recognition unnecessary, while keeping them illegal for as long as possible.
Our present generation of labour acts still require the government to make sure that employees really mean it when they sign applications to join a union, by comparing names and signatures and by conducting a secret ballot if necessary. After all the tests have been passed, the government still has to assure the employer that a majority of his employees want a union to bargain for them and admonishes both sides to bargain in good faith. However, if the certified employees dare to refuse an inadequate employer offer and use their right to force the employer to risk losing money by stopping work, the law permits the employer to replace all of those expensively certified employees with uncertified strikebreakers who are willing to accept unnegotiated employer terms. Under these circumstances, where is there any incentive for the employer to work out a compromise?
As time has gone on and as collective bargaining has become more acceptable, more realistic procedures for union recruitment, employer counterthrusts and government intervention have evolved and have been written into legislation. But because, up until now, no government has dared to tackle the problem of legal strikebreaking, the labour act still fails to properly protect the majority of the province's employees. The only employees who can take advantage of the rights outlined in the Labour Relations Act are those employees who, because of their skills, are in short demand or because the size and the skill mix where they work is too large or too complicated to permit easy replacement. The rest -- and the majority -- of Ontario employees, who work in easily replaceable bargaining units, are in practice, as distinct from theory, still denied the benefits of collective bargaining.
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The fair solution to this problem is a simple and honest solution. The law must insist that the employment bargaining must be negotiated between the designated employer and the members of the certified bargaining agency, and that no employment deals can be made with outsiders while such negotiations are going on.
Unless and until we tackle this inequity, we will keep on developing a socially explosive two-level structure of employees in our province. One large group will have won a say in their own economic welfare; the rest will be doomed to accept one-sided decisions.
We can't help but notice that in the debate over the government's proposed anti-strikebreaking law, opposition from employers who are used to bargaining with their employees has been tepid. This is not surprising, since the proposed law will ensure that when determining the cost of employees, employee standards, all employers will, henceforth, have to compete on a level playing field.
Most of the serious opposition to the government's proposed anti-strikebreaking law comes from employer spokespeople with no practical experience in collective bargaining, who seem to believe that employees cannot be trusted with bargaining power, and that any law which prevents employers from replacing employees with strikebreakers will ruin business and scare off potential investors.
This, of course, is the same sort of argument that the same sort of people have used to oppose laws restricting child labour, setting decent minimum wages and industrial safety standards, and establishing unemployment insurance, universal old age pensions, universal medicare, and more recently, pay equity and environmental protection. Anyone who has heard this argument time and time again only assumes that the PR people working for this union-fearing section of the business community have run out of new ideas.
As any study of business growth in Ontario will show, these perpetual prophets of doom have always turned out to be false prophets. There is no proven connection between investment growth and the enactment of pro-employee laws. In fact, instead of discouraging investors, these improvements seem to have provided investors with a growing pool of purchasing power in good times and a steadier pool of purchasing power during slumps.
Let us catch up with Europe's progressive societies, where almost all employees and employers have been practising collective bargaining for some time and where a universal acceptance of employers and employees as equals has resulted in greater social stability and successful economic self-planning.
Here in Canada, anti-strikebreaking laws are already in effect in Quebec. In the US, anti-strikebreaking legislation has passed through the US House of Representatives twice, and should the political balance shift after the next presidential election, anti-strikebreaking will likely become the law in the land below the border.
As veterans of Ontario's organized employees who no longer have any personal stake in the issue, we urge you to support this long-needed essential improvement in our industrial relations laws and make it operative as quickly as possible.
We urge your committee to ignore the doomsters and those who advocate delay as an answer to injustice. We urge you to join with the government in correcting this dangerous flaw in Ontario's employer-employee relations law at long last. Our experience tells us that once the law is passed, you will not repeal it even if you get the chance. Why not bite the bullet and do it now?
The Chair: Thank you. Ms Murdock, please. Five minutes per caucus.
Ms Sharon Murdock (Sudbury): Thank very much for taking the time to put this together and coming in and speaking to us.
It runs through your entire presentation and it's the whole concept of particularly the right of the worker when on strike. We've had a number of presentations made to us over the past four weeks, where they basically have asked us the question, if you're preventing an employer from operating his business, why should the legislation then allow a worker to go out and get a second job when the strike is on? I would like your views on that, as I'm sure at one time in your life you must have been on a picket line.
Mr Punnett: I wish it were only once.
Frankly, the striker has a family to support, rent or a a mortgage to pay and car payments to make, so it's pretty tough to expect a union to have sufficient funds to pay him the same as when he's working. Therefore, he is expected to do his share of picketing, and he can go out and get a job if he can get one.
Mr Murray Cottrill: I think the question is a little biased. The truth is that when there's a strike, the shareholders may lose money but very seldom the managers. They usually continue to get their paycheque regularly. In fact, a great many of the strikes are caused, frankly, not because of concern for the shareholders but because of the egos of management and its reluctance to share power.
A union can raise a strike fund. If they raise a strike fund, I think a striker who tries to take advantage of the situation and make more money than necessary should probably be hauled up a bit. Now, this is a personal opinion on my part.
On the other hand, if you're really concerned, you could always arrange for them to get unemployment insurance and welfare, two things which you will not grant them now. You make sure they starve while the employer continues to draw his paycheque. So that's why I don't think the question is very valid.
Ms Murdock: Okay. There's another point I noted that has also been raised here. You mentioned that there is a secret ballot vote. I think it needs to be stated a few times that there is a secret ballot vote for anything under 55%, at least under the present legislation. Again, what has been suggested by both employers and by the opposition is that in all instances, or after a certain threshold number -- in the act right now it's 45% and we're suggesting 40% -- there be an immediate secret ballot vote to vote for a strike. Even if you got 55% it wouldn't matter; you'd still have a secret ballot vote. What do you think of that?
Mr Punnett: I wonder if that should take place with the doctors and the lawyers when they join their organization, whether they have to vote for that or not. But leaving that aside, you'll notice we said "if," and that was referring to that 40% you're now asking for in the proposed amendments. We think if we get the 50% signed cards, we should get automatic certification. A certification vote, many of you may --
Ms Murdock: You mean 50% plus one rather than 55%?
Mr Punnett: Yes. But as far as a secret ballot vote is concerned, there is too much pressure from the companies and there are various aspects. There are promises made and it's all done legally, I guess, because we have trouble getting at who starts it. But the companies have stooges who can start these rumours, and if they turn the thing down they'll get increases, and there are other promises made. There are also some threats made that if they get a union, they're going to lose their jobs. This is the kind of stuff that goes on during a secret ballot vote.
So a secret ballot vote is not really as secret and as upright as management would like to have us believe. They've been asking for a secret ballot vote in every case ever since I can remember, on that basis, and we think the whole thing is a farce. I'm glad to see they're going to get rid of the petitions, because since 1951, those have given us a really tough time; they can get petitions through the plants to force us into a secret ballot vote. Do you want to add to that, Murray?
Mr Cottrill: Yes. In my experience I've been through a number of major strikes. I know of no big strike in big industry where there hasn't been a secret ballot vote of the employees first. There may be some show-of-hand votes and some spontaneous things in smaller bargaining units, but not in the big ones.
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Ms Murdock: You're talking strike votes.
Mr Cottrill: That's right. Now, are you talking strike votes or certification votes?
Ms Murdock: Certification votes.
Mr Cottrill: During a period of certification, you are dealing with two groups of amateurs: You are dealing with employers who probably have never dealt with a union, and you're dealing with employees who have never belonged to a union. During that period of time, you've got to be very careful because the employees are easily frightened; it is easy to scare people.
Of course, the question was raised earlier about whether we should notify everybody there's an organizing campaign going on. Any employer who hasn't found that out hasn't been hiring the right detective agency. This is a pious question, frankly. I remember meeting with a committee when we used to say, "I'd like to welcome you all to the meeting: members of the party, members of the Mounties and members of the employer's detective agency," because I knew perfectly well that there would be at least one of every group on the bargaining committee in the early days of a union. Frankly, they could have got all the information they're being charged for by picking up the phone and asking for it, but they liked to go through this thing.
But certainly during the early stage, employees are scared and frightened and rumours take place. When you're talking about secret ballot votes, there's nothing wrong with them in a stable relationship. It's just a signal for a fear campaign when the situation is very new, very tense and both sides don't know much about what they're doing.
Mr Phillips: Thank you very much for the presentation. It was most helpful. To follow up a little on what we've just been talking about, I'd like to get your thoughts on the two issues. One is that you've indicated that the hardnosed employer -- if I might put those words into your mouth -- already knows that the organizing campaign's going on and has hired detectives and that sort of stuff, and that in most situations involving employer-employee relationships which have been good, there is a secret ballot which takes place on a strike vote.
Mr Cottrill: In big units.
Mr Phillips: Yes. Would it be helpful in dealing with the fair employer if in every situation there was a notice posted that a campaign to organize was going to take place and, "Here are your rights as individuals," to avoid any pressure and what not, to avoid these hardnosed employers going out and hiring detectives and that sort of stuff? You know, just to get that out of the road.
Secondly, if a vote normally takes place anyway, help me a little bit on why in every certification situation a vote supervised by the Ontario Labour Relations Board wouldn't be the final step in certification to avoid any of this concern in the workplace about intimidation on either side; well supervised, the union fully confident in the supervision of the vote and fully confident that it is a secret ballot. Could you help me on those two?
Mr Punnett: First of all, you must be a dreamer, because this just won't happen. Under any circumstances, it won't happen. Why would you have to notify the company that you're going to go in there and organize when it won't even give you the list of employees it's got?
I've gone through some pretty rotten situations during an organization period where we had grants from the government for retraining people and grants for the skilled trades and other grants that are given. They hire in a bunch of people in the meantime so that they'll have a majority against you to win that vote. So there's nothing really fair about a secret ballot vote, as far as I am concerned and from what I've seen since 1937, and that's a good many years to see what's been going on.
Mr Phillips: But I don't understand what the problem is on a secret ballot. Could you help me out there?
Mr Punnett: It isn't the secret ballot; you can go and mark an X and put it in the box. That isn't the problem. The problem is what goes on between the time that a secret ballot vote is ordered and the time the vote is taken. In that period, as I said before, there are all kinds of rumours that go around, there are promises made and there are people frightened because of this very situation. That's what the problem is with the secret ballot vote. If we can't organize, sign up any more than 40% or 45%, then we'll just have to take a chance on the thing. But if 50% plus one sign the card, then I think those people want the union and therefore should get automatic certification.
Mr Cottrill: I don't know whether there are similar rules for shareholders at meetings, but I've always noticed that they're considered to be more trustworthy than employees anyway, so therefore you have to doublecheck the poor employees. I'd like to point out to you that one of your problems is that you visualize some great big union entering an employer's premises and saying: "Aha, we're going to get this guy. We are about to organize your employees." That's not the way it works. What happens, whether you like it or not, is that the employees are mad at the employer and want to do something about it. They look around for things to do and find out that one of the things other people have done successfully is to join a union -- or form a union is really the right word, because they don't join it as much as they form it. They form their own union, which may belong to a larger organization, but it's their union.
During that stage, there's a lot of uncertainty and fear. As I told you before, any employer who hasn't got his stooges out telling him what's going on is not too good. I would assume he doesn't have to be very hardnosed to do that. All he has to be is normal to find out what's going on in his business. So when you talk about the union coming in, the answer is that during that early period no union is going to send out a notice, "We are about to organize your employees." We have to find out whether we believe a majority of the employees honestly want a union. We have to find that out. So what's the point in us telling some employer, "We are about to do something to you"? We've got to find out from that employer's employees what they want.
What will probably happen is that some people will sign a few cards. They may come to the office and say, "Look, I don't think the majority of people here are for this thing." Usually they're giving him advice: "Then don't stick your neck out. Relax." Once she's moving, I don't know of any company that doesn't know there's an organizing campaign on. There are usually union organizing leaflets being put at the front door. In fact, I know some companies that have religiously kept all of them in their archives and we've pulled them out later in negotiations and chuckled about them.
The secret ballot is the same thing. I said this before and I repeat it again: Secret ballots are fine, but I do think that in the first stage, with a small group of employees, half frightened and half mad about what's going on, there's no point insisting on that formality. Surely to goodness if you went to a shareholders' meeting and somebody came in with a majority of signatures of the shareholders, you'd pay some attention to it. Whether you would suddenly take them to court and require them to have a secret ballot, I don't know. But I don't know why it is you look at employees as if they were -- sure, some of them are not as erudite as you. Some of them are frightened; some of them are not only frightened, they're scared stiff. Why you don't give these people a little breathing space at the beginning, the first time they're organizing -- I don't know why you insist on all this formality. Don't worry: The employers have got most of the eggs in the basket to start with, and any the employees get from them, even through collective bargaining, are usually the small eggs.
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Mrs Witmer: Thank you very much. I appreciate you people, who are, as you've said, retirees who used to be full-time union officers and representatives, coming forward to share your experience with us. However, I have the impression that what we're looking at in Bill 40 is maybe an economic scenario that is somewhat changed from the scenario in which you were involved.
We've heard that the thrust of this legislation really is to expand unionization into the retail, the financial and the service sectors. If that's the case, we're not dealing just with the large companies; we're now starting to look at the little family-run operation. As you indicated, employees have mortgages and families to feed. Certainly these individuals do too. They operate very close to the bottom line. They have indicated to us, for example, people in the hospitality sector, in the tourism and the retail sectors, that the replacement worker section is going to have grave consequences for their operations. If they are forced to close their operation even for a weekend, it could effectively bankrupt them.
I'd like to ask you, if that's indeed the case, what type of compromise this government can make, because I don't think you can have one section to apply to everybody in the province. I think you have to take into consideration the unique needs of different business operations and different employers in this province. What compromise can this government make?
Mr Punnett: I don't think they need to make any compromise. Quite frankly, it would be the employer and the employees who would make the compromise.
I've heard it said too often that "The union is going to put us out of business if they give us this kind of an increase." The workers are interested in the job they are doing. They're interested in the company they're working for. If there's cooperation there, then that's what happens: they get good cooperation.
As far as putting them out of business because of higher wages or benefits is concerned, if you look at all the agreements, you'll find that not all the people are paid, in the industrial end of it, on the same basis. Just because you're a sweeper, you don't get the same wages sweeping in a store as you would get in one of the large plants. Therefore, this is all taken into consideration.
They're not there to put the employer out of business, because the minute they do that, they have no job themselves. So it's all done on that basis. If the employer can pay it, then he should give them a decent wage on which to live. That's about the way it has operated in the past and will continue to operate just because more people have a chance to organize.
I've had many small plants and small groups -- you go and get certified and then you've got a first agreement. Before I retired it was just coming into effect. Now they have a first agreement, but they'll kill you on a second agreement when it comes to bringing in strikebreakers to stop an operation. All I can see happening out of this strikebreaking that is now permitted is just a bunch of ill feeling that has crept up between the employer and the employees because of bringing in a third party who is making a damn good salary out of this.
If you look at some of these consultants who are heading up these strikebreaking things, you'll see what kind of moneys they've been making. They don't give a damn what they do, because all they're going to do is collect the money. The employer loses and the employee loses out of that deal.
The other thing that happens, and this is the biggest heartbreak I had in being a union representative, is seeing people lose their jobs either in organizing or at strike time. We've got places in Toronto here -- I had a crown attorney tell me in one place, "Bill, if I had known that this management was like this, I wouldn't have been so rough on you during the strike." In that case, we had the chief of police call his constables in and tell them: "Look, we want you to go out on that picket line and create problems and arrest the two representatives and anybody else that you can get on that picket line. But start the problems." This is from the police force.
In other cases where they have these consultants come in, they hire their strikebreakers, bring them in in vans, get the police to let them in, and then they try to start some riots so they can get an injunction against you and try to break your strike on that basis.
In the end a lot of people just lost their jobs. They just won't take them back. This is the problem. You won't get any cooperation this way, if this is what's going on, because everybody's afraid and they're just going to look after themselves on this basis.
We're talking now about this free trade deal --
Mrs Witmer: Mr Punnett, I'd like to ask you a question about the replacement worker section.
The Chair: I've got to tell you that we're well into the time period for the All Business Coalition, who might not be too pleased about having their time taken away.
I want to say to you gentlemen, thank you for appearing here this afternoon. You bring with you a wealth of expertise and experience, and the response of the committee members demonstrates the interest they have in your comments today. Murray Cottrill, Joe Jordan, Ernie Arnold and William Punnett, this committee says thank you. We're grateful to you and we appreciate your taking the time to be with us this afternoon.
Mr Punnett: Thank you.
ALL BUSINESS COALITION
The Chair: The next participant is the All Business Coalition. Mr Nykanen, I'm glad the clerk was able to schedule both your appearances for the same day.
Mr Nykanen: Mr Chairman and members of the standing committee, we're pleased to have the opportunity to present our views on the proposed changes to the Labour Relations Act. My name is Paul Nykanen and I am vice-president of the Ontario division for the Canadian Manufacturers' Association and Chair of the All Business Coalition. With me is Peter Simpson, executive vice-president of the Greater Toronto Home Builders' Association, and Larry Dworkin of the Packaging Association of Canada.
The All Business Coalition was formed in the spring of 1991 by a group of business associations that shared common concerns over the economic impact of the proposed changes to the Labour Relations Act. Over the past year, ABC has grown to 66 associations whose members represent over 75% of the private sector jobs in Ontario. ABC maintains close linkages with other coalitions, such as Project Economic Growth and the More Jobs Coalition, which share similar concerns about the impact on investment and jobs should the bill proceed as proposed.
ABC has participated throughout the established process following the release of the Burkett report, the policy analysis and cabinet submission, the discussion paper and the tabling of Bill 40. We have met with government officials at all levels, made presentations at the regional hearings and presented written submissions on the concerns of the business community as a whole.
The general concerns of ABC centre around two points.
First, there is ample evidence these changes will discourage investment and lead to huge job losses. For example, an independent third-party survey on the economic impacts of the proposed changes has been totally disregarded, even though the results indicate Ontario could lose over $8 billion in investment and cause a further loss of almost 300,000 jobs.
It is business that creates jobs when there is a potential return on investment and this will only happen when businesses can compete on a level playing field. The OLRA changes will place a package of constraints on business that are unprecedented anywhere and would force Ontario businesses to consider alternatives such as closing, downsizing or relocating.
These comments are not simply rhetoric or idle threats; they are based on the judgement of those who must make investment decisions. How can such an important consideration on the future of this province be totally disregarded, especially at a time when the economy is so fragile and joblessness is so high?
ABC has repeatedly called upon the minister to conduct a government-sponsored economic impact study to verify or disprove the survey results. No survey has been commissioned.
Second, the proposed amendments will bring about negative management-labour relations in Ontario. The citizens know this, yet the government has refused to seriously consider other views. There have been numerous other surveys and public opinion polls on random selections of Ontario citizens which have indicated that jobs are the number one worry of the people of this province. They have also indicated that Ontario citizens believe the proposed changes will have a negative effect on employment and will harm labour-management relations.
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There has been no acknowledgement that there could be a direct relationship between jobs, investment and the public policy environment. Why is the subject avoided? Why has the government refused to pay attention to these valid, widespread concerns?
Although there have been numerous statements on the extent of the consultation process, there is no evidence that the principal concerns of the business community have been seriously considered. The process that we have been involved in has been mainly cosmetic and ineffective in addressing the issues. Minor changes from the discussion paper have been incorporated, but the major issues remain.
ABC has repeatedly called on the government to bring the workplace parties together to work through the issues in a spirit of cooperation and to develop policy options acceptable to all parties. No such opportunity has been allowed, and the result is a bill that favours one of the partners at the expense of the other.
We have reached an important stage in the process, and there is still an opportunity to effectively consider the alternatives and to do what is best for Ontario. I would like to highlight some of the principal concerns that we have identified.
The purpose clause: The preamble in the existing act acts as a guide to encourage harmonious employer-employee relations. The proposed purpose clause goes far beyond the existing preamble, can be expected to unfairly influence the board's decisions and would act as a mandate to direct the board to take positions which could make it extremely difficult to permit employers an equal opportunity on bargaining positions. It could also influence the board to rule in favour of unions in organizing and unfair labour practice complaints. Fairness and balance are clearly lacking in the purpose clause.
Expanded powers of the labour relations board: Throughout Bill 40, the proposed changes to the act enhance the powers of the board to play a more active role in future labour relations, leaving less to be determined by the workplace parties in the process. In addition to the basic theme contained in the bill, an example of added powers includes authority to grant automatic certification where the act has been contravened during an organizing campaign without any evidence of trade union support. Such powers allow certification of the union even if the majority of employees are not in favour.
Board members, including the powerful positions of chair and vice-chair, are currently appointed by the Minister of Labour. The bill should include a public process for board appointments, which would ensure that a balance is struck to take into account union and employer perspectives in both unionized and non-unionized workplaces.
Easier organization and certification: The overall effect of the proposed amendments is to facilitate union certification at the expense of the true wishes and the rights of the employee.
For example, the bill prohibits petitions after the union has filed for certification. This amendment removes the right of the employee to change his mind about support for a union even though he or she may have decided otherwise. Respect for a person to change one's mind exists with the cooling-off period in normal door-to-door sales, yet would not be allowed by law in the certification process defined by Bill 40.
To ensure that the will of the majority is assured without any external pressures, the only democratic decision-making procedure is to conduct a supervised secret ballot vote after ensuring that the workplace has all the relevant information from both employers and unions in order to make an informed decision.
Restrictions on the use of replacement workers: Bill 40 places severe restrictions on the ability of a company to operate during a strike. New hires, employees from other company locations and contractors are prohibited from performing struck work. Industrial businesses today must provide uninterrupted services or deliveries in a highly competitive marketplace which demands reliability of supply in order to retain contracts.
For example, if a parts supplier fails to deliver goods on a just-in-time contract, the customer will be forced to source elsewhere, and the struck facility will likely lose the business permanently. Similarly, many small businesses are dependent on a limited number of core customers, and an unreliable source of supply or service quickly leads to a permanent loss of customers and cancellations of orders. The end result in these cases is a significant downsizing or a permanent shutdown. In either case, there is a loss of jobs, and the workers suffer along with the businesses. Nobody wins in these circumstances. The bill should provide for recognition of the right of the employer to maintain operations and to protect the economic viability of the business.
The bill legislates a serious intrusion into employee freedoms, in that it would be an offence for an employer to use the services of a striking employee even if the employee wishes to cross the picket line in order to provide for personal financial needs.
There is concrete evidence that similar legislation in Quebec has resulted in longer strikes and forced Quebec businesses to find alternative sources of supply without any contribution to economic progress or stability within the industry.
It has been stated that picket line violence would be prevented if it were an offence to use replacement workers to keep a company financially secure. Laws currently exist which make violent acts on the picket lines or anywhere else an offence. The solution is to strengthen the enforcement of current laws to protect the safety of our citizens. Surely we are capable of adequate law enforcement in areas where potential problems exist. The solutions suggested by Bill 40 would be similar to legislating the closure of banks because we're incapable of preventing bank robberies.
Consolidation of bargaining units: The act, as it currently exists, empowers the board to determine the unit that is appropriate for collective bargaining but cannot later change the description of the bargaining unit in order to consolidate two or more bargaining units. Bill 40 would allow the board consolidation power of two or more units during certification or during the life of the existing agreement. This would allow unions the dual advantage of organizing on a smaller basis, a single store or a single branch operation, and later increasing the bargaining power by combining a group of stores or branches.
In addition, the board would be empowered to combine both part-time and full-time units, which frequently have different interests, and consequently employees would end up in a unit to which they do not want to belong, as it would not necessarily be in their best interests. The legitimate interests of employers relating to the efficient operation of their businesses is also disregarded. Both employees' and employers' rights are compromised purely in the interest of strengthening the union powers.
First-contract arbitration: Arbitration, by definition, is intended to settle differences between two parties after it has been determined that the parties are unable to resolve their differences. The current act provides for first-contract arbitration when bargaining fails due to lack of effort, refusal to compromise or to abandon an extreme position or if an employer refuses to recognize the bargaining authority of the union.
Bill 40 provides for first-contract arbitration based solely on application 30 days after the parties are in a legal strike or lockout position, without any further requirements such as unreasonable conduct. Such a provision removes any incentive for the union to bargain seriously, and indeed would even allow a weak union to bypass the collective bargaining process automatically.
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If the law is intended to encourage collective bargaining in a fair and balanced way, then this provision clearly contravenes the intent. The one-sided shift of power to unions not only destroys serious bargaining for the first agreement, but will likely result in long-term adversarial bargaining relationships.
Access to third-party property: Bill 40 permits access to premises which the public normally has access to for the purposes of both organizing and picketing. The amendment overrides the Trespass to Property Act and has the potential to cause irreparable harm to unrelated third parties whose businesses in these surrounding areas could suffer from disrupting public or commercial access in industrial or commercial properties or in shopping centres. With the economy in such desperate shape, neither employers nor employees can afford such disruptions.
The allotted time does not allow for anything more than a general overview of some of the principal concerns of business. However, member associations of the ABC, other reputable business coalitions and numerous individual companies have provided extensive evidence as to how the proposed amendments will impact on a broad range of business sectors. We'll comment on these a little later. The common concern is the economic viability of businesses in Ontario after the passage of Bill 40. The price to be paid by Ontario is a loss of investment and a loss of jobs.
As mentioned earlier, there is still an opportunity to objectively consider alternatives which would be best for Ontario and acceptable to all parties. There is no need to gamble with our future prosperity. We admit that the business community is worried about the consequences of being legislated into a position which would make it difficult to survive in a fiercely competitive market. The economy is already suffering from unacceptable joblessness, rising welfare rolls, declining profits for many companies and huge losses for numerous others. Reduced government revenues threaten our social programs and standard of living.
We respectfully submit to the committee that the only solution is to get the economy moving by restoring the confidence of investors within Ontario and out of the province. Ontario is a good place to live and work, and has the continuing capability of returning to prosperity. We need a level playing field which includes laws that are fair to all parties and balanced so as to achieve harmonious workplace relationships. To date, we have been unable to achieve that balance in Bill 40 because our concerns have not been seriously considered.
We hope that the members of this committee will have the courage, the strength and good judgement and the political will to ensure that Bill 40 will not result in irreparable harm to Ontario, and that your final report will incorporate the major concerns we have presented.
I would now like to turn this over to Larry Dworkin, who has some examples of what I am speaking of.
Mr Larry Dworkin: Thanks very much, Paul. As Paul mentioned, I am with the Packaging Association of Canada. If you don't know, we represent everybody from suppliers of raw materials, such as glass and plastics, wood products and paper products, to printers, converters and end users of packaging. We sell about $10 billion a year and employ about 60,000 people, the majority of whom are here in Ontario.
On February 5, we made a presentation to the minister. He has a copy of that so I don't want to go back and say all the things that happened before, but it is available through his department.
However, at that time we noted that a number of our companies had left Canada. They were firms like Bic Canada, Newell Industries or BASF, which had either left or relocated part or all of their manufacturing operations. They did it because they found themselves less competitive in Ontario. It was for a wide variety of reasons; it wasn't just the Ontario Labour Relations Act that we are studying here today. It was in fact a cumulation of all of these things of which the act was considered as part and parcel of the final decision-making process.
Of concern to us today, as this rolls down the road -- and if you go to the Buffalo Chamber of Commerce, you will find that more than 800 companies from southern Ontario currently have inquiries with it. That's up almost double over the past year and a half. There's got to be a reason for it, and part of it has to come back to what we are talking about here today. It's a major concern.
Some of those people are members of our packaging industry. We don't want to lose them. We're not in the business of, is this right or is this wrong? We're in the business of economics: "Can I compete with the United States" -- or what have you -- "or do I have to move my plant?"
Along that line, I think you may have heard from Dare Foods, for example. It is a fairly major member of our association. As you know, they employ about 700 people here in Ontario. They have one plant in Kitchener and they recently opened a new one in Milton. That plant in Milton was to be expanded, but because of this particular act, and for their own reasons, because of the economics they saw, Dare Foods said: "No, we're not going to expand our plant. Rather, we're going to open one up in South Carolina."
As we sit here today, we have lost. Dare Foods has lost. But for the packaging industry, it's more than just Dare Foods. We have lost the suppliers to that particular company. The people who supply the plastics packaging, the paper packaging, all of us have lost -- the converters, the printers and so on down the line.
As Graham Dare, who is with the company, said, one of the problems he had was that he found out when he talked to the government that it's as though we've isolated this particular bill from all the other economic factors in the province. I find that quite true. In fact, on a number of occasions -- and this is not the first time I've been before a committee of this nature; Bill 143 is another example where I've been involved before -- there seems to be an isolation between what one government department is doing and another one, and nobody is measuring the economic consequences of those moves. In that case, I have to concur with the findings of the Dare people, that they have not found the climate to be as economically attractive as they wanted.
But Dare isn't the only company. R.W. Packaging was based in Manitoba, but expanded to Ontario with the premise and hope that they could use Ontario as a major base to reach the US marketplace. Their president, Dave Baldner, recently wrote to the Premier stating that the company could not maintain its business in Ontario with legislation which would prevent it from providing maintenance service to its customers during a strike. That's a very important thing because R.W. Packaging, like a lot of companies in the Canadian packaging industry, is either a small or medium-sized company; in other words, under 300 or 400 employees. To them, they cannot withstand the costs of a strike.
There are a number of other examples. What I want to say is that we cannot isolate this piece of legislation; it has to be looked at in the entire context.
I would like to reiterate support for something Paul has already mentioned, and that is the notion of an all-stakeholder group to be formed to consider the bill, much in the same manner as the drafting of the environmental bill of rights. If you remember, with that it was industry, it was the environmental groups, it was government all together at the table, and we came up with what we thought was a reasonable solution. It is our opinion that the same kind of solution can be brought together with this. Only then will a more comprehensive and, I believe, well-thought-out initiative ensure our future here in Ontario. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you. We have 60 seconds per caucus.
Mr Phillips: We very much appreciate the last comment, the recommendation. We've tried, both ourselves and the Conservative Party, to make that one fly, and it just won't. This government won't do it.
My question to you is that some of the members of your business coalition are, I think, the vehicle manufacturers. What we get thrown back at us is the point I made earlier to you, Paul, that the government members think the business community is just exaggerating the problems. They say: "Ford just put a billion dollars into Canada. Chrysler's just got its new line working in Bramalea. There are examples of industries that are investing here, and that puts the lie to the fears of the business community that we'll see a large job loss here in the province." How do you answer that?
Mr Nykanen: First of all, any decisions for major projects such as you are describing are made years in advance. In other words, the commitment has to have been made from an engineering standpoint, a procurement standpoint, two, three or four years ago, perhaps. It's equivalent to taking off in an airplane: Once you get started and you get past the point of no return, you must continue on. I would suggest that under no circumstances should there be any credit taken that this Labour Relations Act has encouraged that; on the contrary. This was well under way, and it is proceeding because it's uneconomical, it's impossible, to turn back.
I would suggest that there would be perhaps some other questions that would be asked if that same decision were to be approached now for a project three or four years down the road.
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Mr Dworkin: I wonder if I could add that the other part of the equation is that the economics for, say, the packaging industry or the hardware-housewares manufacturing industry is a lot different from that of the automotive industry, and I think you have to look at the size of the players involved. In those industries, the last two, hardware-housewares and packaging, you have a lot of small, family-sized companies of under 100 employees. They're very important employers, but they're small in comparison to the automotive industry.
Mrs Cunningham: I just wanted to relay something that happened in London last week. The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology, the ministry personnel in every community, is visiting the different members of this Legislative Assembly. I was very dismayed to learn that in London there is very little new investment or expansion planned, and you caught me by surprise today when you yourself said we should be looking to the future. The dates were 1994-95, 1995-96, because the projections of the industry in that community and surrounding London are for that time frame.
I wonder if you have any specific information, because I know the ministry office does. It's not something they're publicizing, of course, because it isn't what they want to hear, but when I asked the ministry representative if in fact the minister knew, he said yes.
Mr Nykanen: I'm not aware specifically of precise data such as you're talking about, but I do, over the course of business, hear a lot about these decisions and so on.
I would say that type of information generally is relatively hard to come by because, first of all, these are strategic decisions and for competitive reasons a company isn't going to announce necessarily that five years from now, "I'm going to put in a facility." A lot of that work goes on in the overall analysis and that decision is made based on: Is there going to be a return on investment in that location?
I think it is significant that with the economy the way it is, and certainly there are other reasons why companies are not expanding, really everything has been put on hold for quite some period of time. But I think even more significant, and perhaps tying in with what you were saying, is the fact that companies, when they were asked, and they didn't have to identify themselves, actually came out and offered -- those people who were making those investment decisions said that they would not invest in the province. I think the $8 billion plus, or whether that be $7 billion or whatever, is indicative of what the future plans are if the act goes forward as proposed.
Mr Bob Huget (Sarnia): Thank you for your presentation. I would like to speak just briefly on the points of the survey of your members, I believe in February 1991, that you mentioned. Was that correct?
Mr Nykanen: Yes.
Mr Huget: I guess some positions were taken by your members then in terms of responding to a survey in February 1991. In February 1991 we would have been referring to the Burkett report and not the draft legislation, and I think it's unfortunate that perhaps that process unfolded.
I noticed that in several locations during the presentations we've had over the past few weeks there has been much erroneous information in terms of what's in the bill and in some groups' positions that they've taken, based on what is information in error. Indeed I would suspect that some of the surveys may have in them some error in terms of opinion of what's in the bill and what's not.
I guess what I'd like from you is, do you think that some of these opinion surveys and some of these research-type questionnaires and guesstimates based on information that is not factual about the bill would have had any impact on people's decision-making processes?
Mr Nykanen: The surveys that were conducted, it's correct they were not specifically on Bill 40. I would say the number of changes from Bill 40 compared to the discussion paper are relatively insignificant. The major concerns are still there, so that whether the number is 295,000 or 250,000, I really do believe it's immaterial.
The other thing is that we have conducted these because we felt it was a responsibility of the business community to get some independent study to show what would happen in the event of these laws going through, and we have continuously called on the government to have its own government-sponsored study. No such study has been forthcoming.
I understand there have been some studies made and I would like to know why those studies are not being made public. They would either prove or disprove the results, and I would suspect that no matter what that study is, if it is taken today or whether it was last February, the results would be in the same order of magnitude.
The Chair: I want to say thank you to the All Business Coalition for its interest in this matter and for its participation in this process. Take care, people.
LABOUR COUNCIL OF METROPOLITAN TORONTO AND YORK REGION
The Chair: The next participant is the Labour Council of Metropolitan Toronto and York Region. Please have a seat, tell us your name and your title. Try to save the last half of the half-hour for exchanges and questions. Go ahead.
Ms Linda Torney: My name is Linda Torney. I'm here representing the Labour Council of Metropolitan Toronto and York Region and I'm pleased to present our views to this committee on the government's proposed amendments to the Ontario Labour Relations Act.
The labour council represents approximately 180,000 trade unionists in this region. They are members of more than 400 different local unions, working in every industry and every sector of our economy. This labour council has been in existence since 1871 and was formed when Toronto unions came together to support the typographical union's fight for such basic rights as a nine-hour day and an end to child labour.
We are fighting for the same basic principles today -- for justice and equality in the workplace and in society. Labour law reform is about basic rights of workers but particularly for the most exploited groups of workers -- immigrant workers, women and workers of colour, those in the service sector and those who now work in the home.
The business community has been whipping up hysteria around Bill 40 and ranting about the dangers of "tipping the delicate balance in favour of workers." Let us be clear that there is no delicate balance. When workers have no union, bosses have all the power. Even when workers are unionized, they are treated as mere units of labour by employers. As one business representative was quoted in the Toronto Sun as saying in June of this year, "Labour is a commodity, like a can of beer, an automobile or a refrigerator."
We have been disgusted at the campaign to discourage foreign investment in Ontario and the threats of a capital strike if the legislation goes through. It is amazing when one realizes that all of the pieces of this legislation already exist elsewhere in North America and many other productive economies throughout the world. Identical labour reforms have not led to any mass exodus of business from the provinces or states in which they are enacted.
What is foremost in our minds are the working conditions and wellbeing of all working people in this province. In Metropolitan Toronto we are often the first point of contact for workers who are suffering abuse from their employees. The calls to our office and to places like the Workers' Information and Action Centre of Toronto have been on the increase since the onslaught of the recession. But these are workers who, for the most part, know where to access information and call for assistance. Thousands more suffer in silence and in fear. The abuse has been documented at the Ontario Labour Relations Board, Workers' Compensation Board and the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Workers are forced to work without statutory compensation, disciplined and fired for no just cause, suffer sexual harassment, assault, injury and death at the hands of their employers, and these must be stopped.
Our labour council has a proud history of working on behalf of immigrant workers, women and workers of colour in this region. Even when workers in these groups are unionized, we have to constantly fight and struggle for equal treatment. Immigrant women forced to do the boss's personal laundry, women suffering sexual assault and threatened with losing their job, racism and discrimination as normal operating procedures -- these are the conditions we are fighting every day. How much worse it is in non-unionized workplaces, we can only imagine.
What we do know is that the relatively few women who are unionized, about one fifth, earn 26% more than unorganized women. We also know that part-time work is one of the reasons women are poor, and part-time workers rarely get benefits. Women account for two thirds of all those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time jobs.
We could go on about the injustices suffered, but what we are interested in doing is beginning to correct this imbalance. By supporting these amendments, as well as pay equity and employment equity initiatives, we will be assisting in the struggle for justice and equity for all workers. Broader-based bargaining is essential to assist the most vulnerable groups in this province.
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We're not going to go into details on all of the proposed amendments. I want to go on record as saying we have read and support the brief prepared by the Ontario Federation of Labour, but we have selected some areas that particularly impact in Metro Toronto, with its large proponent of workers of colour and immigrant workers.
We want to first state that we concur with the Ontario Federation of Labour on the purpose clause. We think there should be a purpose there. However, we believe it could be stronger and we think the words "to recognize that effective trade union representation is necessary to advance equality between employees and employers" should in fact be part of that purpose.
We wholeheartedly support the extension of the right to organize to a number of groups currently excluded. We have worked very closely with Intercede, and I want to focus our remarks on the domestic workers in particular. We know well the exploitative conditions of work suffered by these workers. Most workers are isolated in separate workplaces, work for separate employers and their job security is very tenuous. We believe that mechanisms must be put into place so that they can engage in collective bargaining. At present there are none, and therefore the amendments will be meaningless.
Subsection 6(1) of the act, which requires that there be more than one employee in the workplace before workers can organize, must be amended. As well, some kinds of organizational structures need to be devised so that domestic workers can be represented and can negotiate for their particular interests and concerns. In general, we need provisions for broad-based and sectoral bargaining if women workers in one-person, two-person and other small workplaces are actually going to be able to exercise their right to unionize and have any power in collective bargaining.
We support the extension of the right to organize to the other groups listed. We would still support the right of supervisory employees to organize if they choose to do so, although we recognize they are excluded currently.
A major barrier to successful organizing drives is the routine practice on the part of employers to act on the advice of management lawyers and to knowingly violate the act by committing unfair labour practices. The objective is to intimidate workers and prevent them from exercising their rights under the act by disciplining, usually without cause, workers who actively and openly participate in an organizing campaign.
This practice is well known to any labour relations practitioner in the province, and we support measures to stop this flouting of the law by employers. The amendment is a step forward, but it differs significantly from what the trade union movement recommended. We are, quite frankly, not confident that it will be strong enough to deter anti-union employers from committing unfair labour practices.
Denial of access to third-party property has in the past led to the frustration of organizing drives and the prolongation of strikes. We support the new amendment which extends the right of access for purposes of organizing on the premises to which the public normally has access and from which a person occupying the premises would have a right to remove individuals. However, union organizers cannot go on to the employees' workplaces, and the board can limit the right of access further as it considers appropriate.
With this limitation, we are not sure whether union organizers will have greater access to private property to which the public has regular access. We still believe firmly that the union representatives should have access to specific parts of the employer's actual premises where no production is taking place, such as parking lots and cafeterias.
There is no amendment in the area of lists of employees for organizing and we feel this is a serious omission. The recommendation from the labour representatives at the labour law reform committee is, we believe, reasonable and also consistent with the right of freedom of association under the charter. They recommended that "an obligation be inserted in the act requiring an employer, upon an application for certification, to immediately forward to the trade union a copy of the list which must be provided to the board."
These are some of the issues of greatest concern to the labour council. We are also supporting the restrictions on the role of post-application anti-union petitions in certification applications and would like the government to go further and eliminate pre-application revocation petitions as well.
Regarding the structure of bargaining units, amendments which make it easier for part-time workers to organize are in our view a very positive step towards labour relations in Ontario.
We are very pleased with the suggested amendments to section 6 of the act, which directs the board to find a single union of full-time and part-time employees "shall be deemed by the board to be a unit of employees appropriate for collective bargaining." Part-time employees can help strengthen a single bargaining unit, and the combining of bargaining units can facilitate better benefit and compensation levels and better job security for this increasingly large group of workers.
As for the consolidation of bargaining units, we do not see any justification for a legislative measure which permits an employer to apply for consolidation of bargaining units. The choice as to whether or not to consolidate two or more bargaining units is a choice to be made by workers alone.
We also challenge the language in subsection 7(4) which speaks to the consolidation of units at different locations. The board is directed not to combine units of two or more geographic locations where it will "interfere unduly with the employer's ability to continue significantly different methods of operation or production at each of the places."
Most new applications for consolidation of bargaining will involve geographically separate places of operation. One would hope that the process of collective bargaining is flexible enough to accommodate within one collective agreement different methods of production and operation. It will be women and workers of colour employed in the retail and service sectors who will benefit most from consolidation of bargaining units, so it is crucial that the language be strengthened in this section.
Regarding the use of scabs, this reform is really a second pillar of Bill 40 and we support a strong anti-scab reform for Ontario. We also maintain that anti-scab rules ensure that the parties focus their attention on real bargaining issues that divide them during a labour dispute.
Using scab workers only creates new obstacles to reaching an agreement. Picket lines become emotionally charged and hostile confrontations take place. We would also point out that many recent labour disputes have been brought about by concession bargaining being forced on workers, while at the same time scabs are being brought in at often much higher rates of pay.
The provisions in section 32 of Bill 40 are, in our view, not strong enough. First, the provisions allow for workers of the same employer at the same workplace who fall outside the specific striking or locked-out bargaining unit in question to perform struck work. The pressure applied to non-bargaining-unit workers to choose to do struck work will obviously lead to a very tense and divided workplace.
Second, the anti-scab rules are only applicable to the workplace where a strike is occurring. An employer is, therefore, free to shift bargaining unit work to another geographic location or to another contractor who, in turn, will hire scabs to perform struck work in another location, and this must be corrected.
Section 32 of the bill does not establish an effective, expeditious and workable enforcement mechanism. Procedures offered in the current OLRA are too slow and ill equipped to deal with a complaint that struck work is being performed illegally. We must be assured of a speedy enforcement procedure with respect to these amendments in section 32 of Bill 40.
Successor rights: Under this amendment, a successor employer will now be obliged to take the place of a former employer in relation to the trade union in an expanded number of situations. This represents a step forward for workers in this province and especially the most vulnerable group of workers, again women, immigrant workers and workers of colour.
With these amendments, the successor employer will adhere to statutory obligations and the grievance provisions of the pre-existing collective agreement and any terms of settlement already negotiated.
There is still a concern around sale of assets, however. The definition of "sale" in the act may not extend to circumstances where there has only been a sale of assets. This would appear to occur even when the purchaser proceeds to engage in similar business activities on the same premises. An extension of the existing provisions could include a significant sale of assets to an employer where employees are engaged in similar work at the same premises as the vendor of assets conducted its business. I would just point out that we have in fact seen that happen in Toronto, particularly in the garment industry.
The amendments also fail to provide adequate protection to employees in circumstances of plant relocation. An amendment is required to ensure that employees' collective bargaining rights are maintained, including their wage levels, benefits and job security, when an employer relocates the business.
Contracting in and contract tendering: Section 64.2 of the act further extends successor rights to situations of contracting in in the contract service sector. The provisions apply to services that are provided by a building owner or manager, such as building cleaning services, food services or security services, but not construction maintenance or production.
Under the proposed legislation, if a successor employer provides essentially the same services as the previous employer, the bargaining rights and collective agreements held with the first employer will apply to the successor employer.
This is a major breakthrough for building cleaners and cafeteria workers who have in the past been stripped of their rights every time there has been a change of ownership. Once again, it will provide for better job security, wages and benefits for some of the most exploited workers in this region.
The amendments fall short, however, because they fail to apply to the contracting in of general maintenance and construction and to the contracting out of work.
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Duty to bargain an adjustment plan: I would say that this is an area in which we have had a great deal of experience since we run major labour adjustment programs in our area. The free trade agreement and the current economic recession have dealt a tremendous blow to workers and their families in Ontario, in particular in this region.
Over 317,000 full-time jobs were lost in Ontario between March 1989 and March 1992 and in the month of July 1992 alone the Canadian economy lost 129,000 full-time jobs, the largest monthly drop in full-time employment ever recorded. If we allow the federal government to barrel ahead with the North American free trade agreement, there will be even further mass layoffs, plant closures and devastation of people's lives.
The amendments on plant closures and adjustments are extremely weak. There is no enforcement mechanism but merely guidelines for the content of adjustment plans.
Subsection 41.1(5) states that such a plan "may include provisions respecting any of the following: 1. Consideration of alternatives to terminating the employees' employment. 2. Human resource planning and employee counselling and retraining. 3. Notice of termination. 4. Severance pay and termination pay. 5. Entitlement to pension and other benefits including early retirement benefits. 6. A bipartite process for overseeing the implementation of the adjustment plan."
At the very least, the bill should be amended so that the act reads "An adjustment plan shall include the above provisions," and minimum standards for each of the provisions need to be established.
In conclusion, it is time the myths about labour law reform were laid to rest. Quite clearly, unionization and economic progress and productivity go hand in hand. Even more important, unionization and equity and justice for workers are directly connected.
We believe that the moderate reforms proposed by Bill 40 will allow the most exploited and vulnerable groups, women, immigrant workers and workers of colour, to reap the benefits of collective organization and collective bargaining and therefore to be more equal participants in this society.
We commend the government for introducing Bill 40 and hope that our concerns and the concerns expressed by the rest of the labour movement will be taken into account when preparing the final draft of the legislation.
The Chair: Thank you. Four minutes per caucus.
Mrs Witmer: Thank you very much for your presentation on behalf of the labour council. You indicated here that you're concerned about the campaign that's been lodged in this province and you've indicated that all of the pieces of legislation are present elsewhere. I'd like to just share with you the fact that the third-party property proposal, the first-contract arbitration proposal, the full-time, part-time combination of units in one bargaining unit, the purpose clause, and I could go on and on, are not part of any other province in Canada.
Also, you've indicated that identical labour reforms have not led to any mass exodus of business from the provinces in which they've been enacted. I can tell you that in Quebec, when the replacement worker section was introduced, it did lead to some companies moving south of the border and to other provinces, it did lead to some closings and it did lead to the establishment of another plant where they could keep their operation going to make sure that they could fulfil their contractual obligations. I think you have to be very careful when you make blanket statements to make sure that you know the facts are there.
I guess my question to you is this: We're involved in a process now that has seen polarization on both sides and probably half of the presentations have been similar to yours and have indicated that the reforms are on target; in fact they probably haven't gone far enough. However, the other half of the presentations have indicated great concern, have indicated that there's going to be job loss as a result of this legislation and some of the other legislation that's being presented by this government.
If we're truly involved in a consultation process and if we truly want to have a win-win situation in this province where everybody at the end of the day feels good and we truly are going to improve the labour climate in this province, which is critical, what are you willing to compromise on, which points in this Bill 40?
Ms Torney: There are three or four parts to that. First of all, I'm looking much farther than Canada when I point to existing labour legislation. I think you will find highly unionized countries have a great record of employee-employer relationships and a much stronger set of labour laws than we have probably anywhere in this country. You should be looking at those places as well as other provinces in Canada.
With regard to the job loss portion of your question, I get out of this that you're talking about some kind of consensual process. I think that more discussion has gone on around this particular piece of legislation than probably any other piece of legislation ever introduced anywhere. We went through an initial discussion, we're going through another discussion, and I think there are very obviously two points of view on this.
If you look back into the history of labour relations in Canada, you will find threats of job loss and pulling out every time every single piece of labour legislation has been introduced. In some senses, I don't think you can blame us in the labour movement for being somewhat sceptical about that, because we do know that it's the profit, the bottom line, that often governs these things.
Prior to any suggestion of Ontario Labour Relations Act amendments being introduced in this province, we in this city who began to experience the effects of what I now call a depression as opposed to a recession began to feel those job losses, and those job losses were nothing more than people being allowed free movement of capital because of the total removing of any economic restrictions by our federal government.
What happened as a result of that was that people went where they could make the easiest buck and where they could make it the cheapest. They did not move because of the OLRA, I don't believe, although the business community says it's because of the OLRA, that if they do close down here, that's the reason. The reason will be to take advantage of cheap labour in Mexico with the North American free trade agreement sitting and facing us.
Quite frankly, as a representative of workers in this province, I am not prepared to say that workers can be treated as shoddily as any corporation wishes for the sake of the bottom line. So I don't believe that the job loss is an issue.
In terms of whether we are willing to compromise, I think we have already compromised a great deal. I think what I've done in our brief is to commend the government for bringing forth a piece of legislation and to suggest numerous areas in which we think there should be further changes. If you compare this piece of legislation to the suggestions made by the labour movement at the time the initial discussions were going on, I think you will find that we've compromised a great deal already.
Mrs Cunningham: Just to jump in, with regard to even the research we were presented by our research department today, taking a look at the consultation process and impact studies, I think the underlying tone of this is that you need people to work together.
You can take one side or the other, but the most successful companies, as a result of this research, whether they unionize or otherwise, but especially where they unionize, are where people have worked together. That's what we're attempting to do in this committee, to get everyone's concerns.
You've been sitting here this afternoon and you probably recognize that there are legitimate concerns on both sides. But I'm just taking that for granted; maybe you don't. I'm wondering if you would comment on that.
Ms Torney: I think you have to understand that I think a lot of people, if they have never experienced a union in their place of business from the management side, operate from a great number of misconceptions which, quite frankly, may well be fuelled by some of the poor employers in this province. I am not for a moment suggesting that all employers are poor employers, but I can tell you that we've run across those who are.
Let me give you an example of an unorganized garment plant which we discovered here in Toronto a couple of years ago now, where the employer had a Christmas party for the staff each year -- sounds good so far, right? -- and in the course of that Christmas party auctioned off or drew a lottery for the two employees in that plant who would receive two weeks' paid vacation in the coming year. These were all Chinese immigrant workers and they didn't understand that they were all entitled to two weeks. So we have documented cases of poor employers.
Mrs Cunningham: I think you and I would know there are a lot of them.
The Chair: Mr Wood.
Mrs Cunningham: Mr Chairman, I was finished, but I would like the opportunity to say thank you. Thank you very much.
Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): Thank you very much, Linda, for coming forward with your excellent presentation.
I just want to follow up one of the questions Elizabeth had asked earlier, and then I'll get into another one. Do you feel the business coalition, before it launched its campaign back in February 1991, should have done an impact study to see if there was going to be a job loss as a result of its billboards and the campaign it has been carrying on until this point, from before the bill was brought forward and again during it?
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Ms Torney: Some of the statements that have been made by some members of the business community I think are appalling. I don't know that an impact study would have shown anything; I don't know how you measure that sort of thing. But there certainly have been fear tactics. The fact is that only about 5% of the labour disputes in this province end up in a strike-lockout situation. I know personally of businesses which have said that life has become easier for them under collective bargaining than it was when they were dealing independently and individually, one employee to another. I think there's an awful lot of not understanding what goes on at the bargaining table.
Workers in this province already have, by law, the right to organize. All we're doing with this piece of legislation is removing barriers that have prevented workers from organizing. If we say they have the right and that right should be there, then I can't understand what the hysteria is about. If the business community wants to say that workers should not have the right to organize, then say it up front and then we'll know. We'll have it clearly defined what the dispute is and we won't be messing around with the job loss issues and that sort of thing, which I see as smoke and mirrors to the real problem, which is that some people would like to outlaw unions in this country altogether.
Mr Offer: Thank you very much. You've spoken about this hysteria that's been whipped up, and I think you'll be aware that the concerns about the bill have not just been the monopoly of business. There have been other groups that have been concerned about the bill: children's aid societies, school boards, local hydro services, municipalities, hospitals, and the list goes on and on. I don't know that you would want to categorize those individuals and associations with concerns as falling into this catch-all you seem to have been indicating.
In your brief it's clear that you know, and it's indicated quite clearly, that Bill 40 will do nothing at all for domestics, will do nothing for home workers in this province, because of the wording of the bill.
You've also drawn a connection between part-time workers and women, and I think I understand that. The bill allows that a full-time workers' unit would be able to take over a part-time workers' unit even if the part-time workers did not want to be in a combined unit. This bill would allow that to happen, notwithstanding the wishes of the part-time unit. Do you believe, in principle, that it is fair and just that the rights and wishes of part-time workers could be superseded by full-time workers, even if the part-time workers do not want to be part?
Ms Torney: First of all, in my experience the full-time workers are usually those who have negotiated the benefits and conditions of work to which part-time units often don't have access. I'm an employer as well, by the way, and in my own staff I would phrase it exactly the opposite. You've talked about full-time units taking over a part-time unit. I happen to have one bargaining unit in my own staff in which the part-time unit is vastly bigger than the full-time unit.
Mr Offer: The principle still applies.
Ms Torney: But in my experience as a union organizer I have never once seen a situation in which the part-time workers did not wish to be part of the full-time unit -- not one. But every single time I went into an application for certification procedure with a part-time unit and a full-time unit, the employer always moved for the separation of those units. I have to ask why that is. The reason is that in fact part-time workers don't get the benefits, so as long as you do not consolidate those units, you've still discriminated against part-time workers. They are a growing number of workers, not by their own choice but because of economic necessity in our province today, and especially in this city.
The Chair: Thank you. This committee wants to thank Linda Torney and the Labour Council of Metropolitan Toronto and York Region for their interest in this matter and for your participation in this process here. You've made a valuable contribution and we're grateful to you.
FEDERATION OF TEMPORARY HELP SERVICES
The Chair: The next participant is the Federation of Temporary Help Services. Will those people come forward and have a seat, tell us their names and titles and proceed with their submissions, trying to save, of course, the last 15 minutes for exchanges and questions.
Mr Don Braden: Good afternoon, Mr Chairman. My name is Don Braden and I'm the senior public affairs staff person with the Federation of Temporary Help Services. I'd like to introduce Derek Osler, chair of our government and labour relations committee; Steve Jones, the national president-elect of the association, and Liz Tower, the national director of the federation. I should note that these three individuals also operate temporary help service firms in Ontario. Also with us is Stan Mandarich, also of the association staff. Mr Osler will make the presentation, and we will obviously be available for questions following.
Mr Derek Osler: As an introduction, I'd like to start by informing you that the organization formed in 1968, the Federation of Temporary Help Services -- which we will drop down to FTHS for purposes of speed -- is the only trade association representing the temporary help services industry in Canada. Membership is comprised of approximately 500 temporary help service offices across Canada, including some 300 in the province of Ontario.
With an annual temporary help payroll estimated in the range of $800 million, temporary help service companies are engaged in the business of supplying temporary help services in virtually every type of business and public institution. The categories of work may include but are not limited to office administration and support staff, data and word processing, industrial, marketing, technical, professional and health care.
FTHS promotes awareness within its membership and the industry as a whole of all legislation and regulations affecting the temporary help service industry and addresses employment issues as they affect both the employer and the temporary workers as employees.
The Economic Council of Canada reported that employment in the industry increased about 2.5 times in the 1980s, to reach about 82,000 in 1989. Clearly, the temporary help industry must be viewed as a major Canadian employer.
It will be useful to describe how the industry works. Temporary help service firms hire their employees through well-established application, interviewing and testing procedures. Unlike their permanent employees, temporary help employees are hired to meet the temporary help service firm's demands from its clients. This demand is based upon skill sets required at certain times in the marketplace. A successful firm will develop a roster of temporary employees which best meets the demand of its clients. The permanent employees of the temporary help service firm are hired to fill the firm's internal staff requirements.
Temporary help employees are sent to the client's place of work to meet specific client requests. A typical request would include the skill required, the duration of the assignment, location of the assignment and the cost range. The temporary help service firm then goes through its roster of temporary workers to find the best-suited and available individual to send to the client. The employee can either accept or choose not to take the assignment. If the assignment is not taken, the employee is placed back in the roster for another assignment.
It is important to note that there is a definite distinction between temporary work and part-time work. The following is the federation's definition of temporary work:
Temporary work means the full-time performance of a task, although of limited duration. The employee of the temporary help service company normally works full-time at the client's place of work, until an assignment has been completed.
Temporary help employees are assigned to all sectors of the economy, both private and public. The typical assignment lasts three weeks, although the period can range from hours to several months.
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The source of a flexible and multiskilled workforce has considerable benefits to the economy. Temporary help is an effective buffer to swings in the performance of the economy. As the economy grows, temporary help provides a safe ramp up for a business, which can move to permanent staff as the growth is sustained. As the economy turns down, temporary help permits employees to stay in the workforce until the cycle rebounds. Temporary help is also a major entry-level avenue for immigrant workers or workers returning to the workforce after an absence. These new workers are eased into the workforce in a professional manner, often with the benefit of job-specific training.
It is also important to understand that the temporary help service firm is the employer of record of the temporary worker. This position meets all the usual common-law tests of the employer of record. The temporary help service firm makes all the payroll deductions of the temporary worker and issues the payroll cheque to the employee. The client pays the temporary help service firm's invoice for the provision of the temporary worker.
FTHS members have taken joint action to improve the work conditions and compensation for temporary help workers. Education on the workplace hazardous materials information system and a clear policy on the shared WHMIS responsibility of the temporary help service firm and the client have ensured safe work conditions for the temporary workers. FTHS members also work to ensure that all occupational health and safety criteria are met. A pay equity manual and education courses have assisted members in complying with this legislation. The federation works extensively with the Workers' Compensation Board to ensure that employees are adequately protected under that program. The federation has also instituted a flexible benefits plan for all employees, thereby providing temporary workers with benefits similar to and in some cases exceeding permanent employees in other industries.
Federation members acknowledge that their temporary help employees are their key business asset. Significant strides have been taken by the federation and individual members to ensure that they maintain a roster of excellent and motivated temporary help employees. The federation makes these submissions as a significant and responsible employer group in Ontario.
Summary of the FTHS position on Bill 40: The goals of enhancing international competitiveness, improving labour-management cooperation and improving labour conditions do not require increased union activity. The proposed reforms will not help the government achieve its stated goals. The temporary help industry has specific concerns over successor rights and unintentional union certification. The application of general labour legislation and long-term cooperative arrangements are alternatives available to more appropriately meet the government's goal.
The purpose of Bill 40: The government set out the main purposes of the legislation in a discussion paper in November 1991. Following a series of presentations to the ministry, the legislation as we now see it was tabled. These broad purposes are now found in a new proposed purpose section in the bill. Generally, the purpose is stated as being to facilitate union organization and encourage improved labour-management relations. The legislation will purportedly contribute to the broad economic goals of making Ontario's economy stronger and more competitive.
Fundamental to the proposed legislation is the position that strengthened trade union development will ensure success in meeting the economic goals set out above. The government's support of the needed growth of trade unions in the economy stands in contrast to the declining levels of union participation in the workforce and the lack of general public support for unions. A recent Decima poll indicated that a majority of the general public feels the proposed reforms will not increase investment or jobs, and over 80% feel the government should abandon the reforms.
Deficiencies of the bill:
1. Worsens labour-management cooperation: It would be hard to argue with the position that improved cooperation among government, labour and management will enhance Ontario's ability to create jobs and successfully compete internationally. Both Canada's and Ontario's reputation of lost hours to strikes is not enviable and has undoubtedly reduced the level of business investment in this country.
However, the federation is not aware of any evidence on the positive impact of unions on productivity and on workplace harmony. The broad analogies with several economically successful nations which have strong trade union movements do not point out the significant cultural and political differences between these countries and Canada.
In our view, there are several aspects of the proposed legislation which will worsen labour-management cooperation. This legislation would increase the level of strikes both in terms of the extension of the workers affected by a strike and the profile of the strike lines. As strike activity is the most damaging to labour-management cooperation, any increase in strike activity will work against cooperation and generally worsen the economy as the strike continues.
First, the bill would extend the impact of a strike beyond the affected parties to prohibit the use of new hires, employees from other locations and contractors, as well as employees on strike who want to cross their union picket line. Not only is this a significant intrusion into employee freedoms, it eliminates the balance at the negotiating table that compels both parties to stay and seek agreement. If companies are unable to maintain their supplier commitments to their customers, the business and the jobs may be lost for ever. This proposed reform effectively extends the bargaining unit's negotiating power at a particular firm to all other unions with similar clauses in their agreements.
The federation notes that its members have nothing to gain by objecting to this reform. The federation has had guidelines in place for a number of years which recommend that members do not supply labour during a work stoppage. Replacing the struck workforce is not a common practice in Ontario industry. Even if new hires have been the cause of conflict, this problem can be addressed by prohibiting the hiring of new employees without depriving the employer of the flexibility to carry on basic operations with the remainder of its existing workforce.
Second, the bill would permit employees to picket on property of a third party where the public also has access. The expansion of pickets into areas of general public traffic, even if limited to entrances and exits of workplaces, is bound to increase the tension of the picket line and lead to inflamed reactions. The expansion of the picket line would also interfere with non-affected employees and management, and accordingly not generally enhance labour-management cooperation.
In conclusion, FTHS does not believe that the legislation as written will enhance management-labour peace. On the contrary, the specific amendments discussed above will worsen relations and should be changed.
On a more general level, it is clear from the public debate surrounding this proposed legislation that the very process and the content of the legislation have already worsened management-labour cooperation and weakened the government considerably.
2. Worsens Ontario's competitive position: The discussion paper described changes in work, the workplace and the workforce, concluding that there is an increasingly vulnerable group of workers with poor wages and job conditions and few benefits. Concerns about the changes include shifts from full-time manufacturing jobs to part-time, semi-skilled service jobs and disproportionate adverse effects on women and ethnic minorities.
The bill places complete reliance on the notion that increased levels of trade unionism will enhance the economic strength of Ontario, increase labour-management cooperation and extend benefits to disadvantaged groups. Of great concern to FTHS is the complete lack of analysis to support this key proposition.
The federation agrees that trade unionism will increase wage rates, although not automatically increase the long-term income of workers. We also agree that higher wages are not the sole reason for Ontario's lack of competitiveness. However, the bill does not deal with the serious non-wage constraints caused by collective bargaining. The formal grievances, seniority versus performance promotions, elaborate work rules etc, are burdens for large corporations. To place this level of workplace rules on smaller firms will cause irreparable harm to the Ontario economy.
The expanded scope of strike activity will cause special hardship in today's new industrial organizations. For example, just-in-time inventory is increasingly the rule in many industries. Delays in production today will cause serious problems throughout the economy as the implications ripple through industries. Struck suppliers may never recover from losses as customers move to competitors for supply.
The international scope of economic activity has also created interdependencies which increase the adverse effect of work stoppages. Multinational firms cannot afford to have weak links in the firm's component operations. Furthermore, strategic partnerships between large corporations require confidence in supplier relationships. These international operations will simply bypass areas which cause weaknesses in the links.
Accordingly, the federation submits that the incentives in the legislation for increased trade unionism have gone too far. FTHS is aware that the committee will be hearing detailed submissions on these portions of the bill. We urge you to give them careful consideration in your deliberations.
Specific temporary help issues: The basic position of the federation is that the legislation, as written, should not proceed. We've indicated above in broad terms why the federation has come to this conclusion. There are two areas specific to the temporary help industry which also demonstrate that the legislation needs improvement.
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1. Successor rights: The federation must comment on the proposal to apply successor rights to the contracting in of work in the contract service sector where building cleaning services, food services and "related" services are performed on an owner's premises. The bill excludes construction, maintenance and production or manufacturing operations from the obligation. The understood purpose of successor rights is to protect the vested benefits of permanent employees in the contract sector where work is retendered and continues to be performed on the premises by a different employer.
Temporary help employees are not permanent employees and have the right to work or not work on any assignment. Should a temporary help contract be transferred from one contractor to another, the original temporary help service firm will keep the employees on its roster and will attempt to find new temporary assignments for its employees. This process would also be followed in the case where the temporary help employee was on assignment with a contractor who lost a tender. The vested benefits of the temporary help employee remain safeguarded with his employer, the temporary help service firm.
We are concerned that in future the catch-all term "related services" may be interpreted to apply to temporary help services. We propose that the bill be amended to provide for an explicit exclusion for temporary help services from the obligations related to contracting in of work.
I'd like to ask Mr Jones if he can take over and continue with a voice a little clearer than mine for the balance of this submission. Thank you very much.
Mr Steve Jones: It's a ploy to wake you up.
The federation is concerned that its temporary workers could become unionized while assigned at a client's premise. Although employees of the temporary help service firm, the temporary employees could become involved in the certification process during a lengthy assignment. Specifically, we're concerned that the Ontario Labour Relations Board could find that our employees are actually employees of our clients for labour relations purposes in the event that a union began an organization campaign at our client's premises and made an application for certification.
As well, the temporary help service firm might be deemed to be the employer in the certification process. The end result would be unfortunate confusion for the temporary help employees and the union organizers. The validity of the bargaining unit could be in question. Temporary help service firms would face confusion over wage rates and effectively have their wage policies overtaken by a third-party bargaining unit.
The lack of precision in the definition of "employee" in the current Labour Relations Act, coupled with the lack of overall definition of "employer" in the bill, has created further general uncertainty for our industry. If the temporary help worker became a member of the client's bargaining unit, which became involved in a strike, would the worker be prevented from accepting a new assignment from the temporary help service firm? The proposed prohibition of striking workers crossing picket lines may create a problem in the temporary help worker's relationship with the temporary help service firm beyond the specific assignment with the struck client.
The definition of "employer" in section 32 of the bill creates specific difficulties for our industry. Would the reinstatement provision only apply as long as the temporary help service firm maintains a relationship with the client whose employees are on strike? Would the temporary worker be eligible for reinstatement with another client of the temporary help service firm? If so, would temporary workers already on assignment be removed in order to allow the striking worker to be reinstated? The federation respectfully submits that the legislation or regulations need to address these very specific issues for our industry.
Alternatives: Amendments to the bill to redress the imbalance towards unionism need not to be seen as a loss to any part of the economy. The government and Legislature have several alternatives to ensure that the goal of increased management-labour cooperation is achieved.
Use laws of general application: As a society, we have all been concerned about the disadvantages and vulnerabilities in the workplace. The government is correct to describe these issues as serious matters for government attention. However, it is a significant jump in logic to assume that increased union activity will resolve these issues. It is our view that numerous social activist groups have become more innovative and effective in putting forward solutions.
It is clear that laws of general application can address these issues without all the downsides of increased unionism. Laws such as minimum wage, occupational health and safety, WHMIS, pay equity, employment equity and human rights are all focused on solving the social problems identified above. The announced reform of the labour standards legislation will also deal with these issues. By focusing government's attention on laws of general application, all employees will benefit rather than only those affected by the bargaining units.
Need for tripartite long-term consultation: As noted at the beginning of this submission, the federation agrees that greater cooperation between labour and management will enhance Ontario's economy. It is our view that this cooperation cannot be forced through legislation or by focusing on traditional labour-management friction points. Without underestimating the difficulty in achieving this cooperation, the federation is encouraged by several examples in Canada.
The federation has been involved with the Canadian Labour Market and Productivity Centre and has been very impressed by the serious cooperative efforts of management and labour participants. One concrete example of the work has been the establishment of the Canadian Labour Force Development Board to coordinate training policy. Notably, CLFDB has included social activist groups with the traditional business-labour-government partnership.
The federation submits that concrete cooperative efforts as described above will enhance labour-management relationships. These examples are closer to the labour-management relationships to which we all aspire. This is the positive direction for ensuring all employees have a meaningful occupation. The federation believes that the current government is well positioned to bring the employee groups into this process. As a major employer group in Ontario, the federation would be pleased to work with the government and Legislature to improve the long-term labour relations in Ontario. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you. Ms Murdock, two minutes, please.
Ms Murdock: Actually, this is the first time, even in the consultations that the minister and I did in January and February, that we have heard from a temporary help employer, or at least that I have, in the consultation process and then through this process. I want to thank you for bringing that perspective.
Throughout the presentation I had the sense that you're working on the premise that unionization will mushroom should Bill 40 pass. From the sound of it, you have a benefits plan with your employees and they're your employees as per common law, so I can't imagine the distinction being included under your client group kind of thing. But if they're happy now and are capable of organizing, why would Bill 40 change that?
Mr Jones: Our concern is not so much that a group of employees who are specifically employed by a temporary help service firm attempt to create a collective bargaining unit inside the firm. I suppose that's possible, and our concern isn't that. We think that our employees are happy and we believe that our employees are given substantial benefits and opportunities, specifically in the training areas and in fair wages, so that we're not going to see it happen specifically in our industry.
I don't interpret our presentation to say, "We don't want our industry to be unionized intentionally." Our concern is more when one of our employees is on an assignment with a client and there is an effort to have our employee sign a certification card and become involved in the certification process and we are involved as a third party.
This has happened. For example, I believe one very specific one was either the Liquor Control Board or the Liquor Licensing Board of Ontario. This goes back several years. But that was the first most significant effort in the province, and what happened was temporary employees who were there for a fixed term were involved in what should be considered the long-term-benefit negotiations on behalf of the employees when they didn't have long-term interests. That issue was settled. However, there have been several other instances over the past few years where organization is taking place and the labour groups are attempting to draw in the temporary employees to participate with them. Under the definition of the employee or employer within the act, this clearly -- I shouldn't use the word "clearly" -- can become ambiguous. It's possible that if there isn't specific wording that will define the temporary worker -- we've offered one definition in our paper today -- in the future these workers can be drawn in. So we're more concerned about the unintentional certification than the intentional certification.
Mr Offer: Thank you for your presentation. It is touching upon an area from yourself that we have not yet heard in the public hearings. I do thank you for bringing that forward.
On page 11, you speak about the need for a tripartite long-term consultation. I think you will know that this type of tripartite consultation has been asked for for almost a year by business groups and the government has not set up such a group to look at these changes, not only looking at the changes, but also with a view to the impact that these changes may or may not have, as the case may be. So unfortunately, though I very much agree with that need, I'm a little saddened that the government hasn't seen fit to agree with you.
I understood that your concern was that your employees would be swallowed up or find themselves in the centre of some organizational campaign. Do you believe, as a result, that there is the need for a definition of the employer and employee so as to meet your concerns?
Mr Braden: That's correct. For instance, in section 32 of the bill, we think the word "permanent" in the definition there would help us in that particular one. The broader issue is, there is really no common definition of employer throughout the bill. Again, we think either through regulation or the act that there is a need for one and that it would reflect our unique concerns.
Can I just say, if I may, Mr Chairman, that Minister Haslam actually just concluded a fairly in-depth consultation with labour and management and government in the area of telecommunications. She's about to table a report. I think there is some opportunity to build on that. Hopefully, that was a useful exercise, and I think if we could keep doing that it would be great.
Mrs Witmer: Thank you very much for your presentation, as has been already echoed by the other two parties. I really do appreciate this new perspective and I would hope the government would give very serious consideration to the two specific concerns you do have in order to address the problems that could result if the legislation does proceed as suggested.
You indicate here that you are concerned that there's not been any analysis done to support the fact that this will enhance the economic strength of Ontario or that it will indeed increase labour-management cooperation and extend benefits to the disadvantaged groups.
At this point in time, we know that the government has consistently refused to conduct an economic impact study and in the process has tended to indicate that the studies that have been done independently are not accurate. Are you still suggesting at this stage, before the government does implement Bill 40, that it should first do an economic impact study?
Mr Osler: If I could answer that question, yes definitely. It's like forming a company. You don't form a company without presenting a business plan and doing a study: Is your product going to be serviceable or required by the market? Industries have shown that their studies have indicated it is going to economically adversely affect this province both in investment and in job loss.
I think that if the government is refuting what industry is saying, then the government should itself do its own study and come up with figures and come up with statements as to why this legislation is not going to do what industry says it's going to do. One has done a feasibility study and finds it unfeasible. The other refuses to do a feasibility study and says it's feasible.
The Chair: I want to say thank you on behalf of the committee to the Federation of Temporary Help Services for bringing a novel perspective to this issue. We appreciate your interest and your eagerness to participate in the process. Thank you, people. Take care. We are recessed until 6:30.
The committee recessed at 1705.
EVENING SITTING
The committee resumed at 1830.
WOMEN FOR LABOUR LAW REFORM
The Chair: It's 6:30 and we're going to resume these hearings. The first participant this evening is Women for Labour Law Reform. Would they please come forward, have a seat and tell us their names and titles, if any. We've got your written submission and we're eager to hear what you have to say. Try to save at least 15 minutes for exchanges and dialogue. Go ahead.
Ms Janet Maher: Sure thing. My name is Janet Maher. I'm with Women for Labour Law Reform. With me is Daina Green.
I just want to take a minute or two to tell you who Women for Labour Law Reform is, and then Daina will go through the body of the presentation. We do hope to be able to engage you in some conversation over the issues that we raise.
Interjection.
Ms Maher: Okay. I'm advised we should go a little bit slower for the interpreters.
Women for Labour Law Reform came together just about a year ago as the discussion paper was coming out and there was a concern being expressed in the women's community about how much actually would come out of this round of labour law reform that would be of specific help to women. We did quite a detailed evaluation of the discussion paper, we've been having meetings throughout the year since then, and I think it's fair to say that this coalition, which represents a lot of women really at the margins and at the bottom levels of the working structure, home workers, domestic workers, child care workers -- women who are generally in those sectors which are not easily accessible to labour unions are the women we talked with the most.
I want to give you now to Daina Green, and I'll come back and talk in some detail at the tail end.
Ms Daina Green: A woman shouldn't have to be a hero to achieve union representation. That might sound like an odd statement, but under the current Labour Relations Act a woman and her coworkers need great courage and personal strength to succeed in a campaign for a collective voice.
When women decide to get together in a workplace and they say, "We really need a union here; we need to form a union," there's no shortage of coworkers who will immediately tell them, "Oh, we'll never get a union in here; the boss will never let us," or, "He'll fire us all."
We found that in fact many employers find ways to alarm workers about retaliation if they become involved with a campaign to form a union. This might appear subtle. Employers are usually aware of the limits of the law and just how much suggestion they can make that won't be considered intimidation at the labour board. But there's a general sense of, "You'd better not do this; you'd better think twice, ladies; it's a bad market out there, girls," and this kind of stuff.
Enough times, these employers make good on their threats. We know personally of cases, and the women who are in our group know of cases, where employees who have been involved in a drive to organize a union find themselves demoted, getting transferred to more unpleasant duties, laid off or discharged without cause. Usually one or two of these actions is symbolic and enough to get the workers really scared, and then they say, "Well, maybe we shouldn't rock the boat."
When workers do manage to get enough of their coworkers signed up to certify a bargaining unit, then comes the often charade at the labour relations board. Employers go through tiny details on the cards and use many technicalities to delay the process of certification. "The date on this card doesn't match the date on this card." "What do you mean?" "Well, this one says August, A-U-G-U-S-T, and here it says A-U-G. That's not the same," and the card will get thrown out. This is a process that goes on and on. Anyone familiar with the labour relations certification process can tell you about this.
If employers resist the negotiating of a first contract, even once the workers are allowed to form a union, then you get the situation where the employees have turned over by then and many of them weren't even on the payroll at the time of the original organizing drive. These are precarious employment situations we're talking about. Once the move to resist the first contract comes up, the workers may just give up in frustration and move to decertify the union. This has happened a lot.
There's a tremendous power imbalance. This is a very important point to me, because in the papers what we're seeing is this need to balance the power so workers don't have too much power, as if even unionized workers had anywhere near the same kind of ability to control outcomes that their employers do. We're talking about women in low-paid, precarious and especially part-time employment.
Our coalition believes that the proposed amendments will help eliminate the gap that exists between the right to association and the freedom to exercise that right. This gap, in our experience, is very, very real. A large number of women who don't belong to unions in their jobs are very discouraged about being successful and overcoming intimidation and bureaucracy. If you talk to them about forming a union, they'll say: "Oh, it wouldn't work here. A few of us tried that two years ago and someone was fired." They all have these stories about how it wouldn't work. They're very intimidated and they're discouraged. They know of organizing attempts where employers were able to break up a drive for union representation by firing or demoting the suspected or actual leaders, disciplining the workers the management believed were involved in the campaign or sending home a lot of very frightening, official-looking papers and letters that have been written by lawyers that are all within the margin of the law of what you are allowed to say. These are interferences that block women workers who desperately need their jobs from their access to the right to association.
The workers we think are most likely to benefit from the proposed changes to the Labour Relations Act, which reduce the barriers to union organizing for women in these precarious jobs -- there are a few of them, but I want to emphasize that there isn't anything in these proposed changes that would put pressure on workers to join unions. There is nothing in these proposals that would cause any amount of force to be put on workers to organize against their collective will. These amendments are simply barrier removal, and these are also women who find it very difficult to be heard by society, which is one reason why we thought it was very important to come forward as a group and speak to your committee.
The measures we think are going to be most helpful to these women are the five that are listed here.
Fast-tracking the resolution of unfair labour practice complaints: In a drive, someone gets demoted, but nothing happens. It can be drawn out. The person's demoted or the person's fired. That person will probably get her job back six months later, but meanwhile what happens to your organizing drive? It's been successfully defeated. We think fast-tracking those complaints -- as soon as you find out that the boss is spying on what's happening in the washroom or any of those things that are patently against the Labour Relations Act, there should be a fast resolution to them.
We support the consolidation of bargaining units. We think this would be especially important -- I'll say a little bit more about this -- in trust companies and in retail branch outlets.
Better provisions to make sure that workers get a first contract once they certify: Even if you have a perfect certification process, if it doesn't lead to a collective agreement, people will say: "Why should we bother? We'll just be out on the bricks. We'll just be on strike for our first contract, or waiting for months and months and months, so why bother?"
Restrictions on replacement workers: In those very few cases where there is a strike, where there needs to be a strike -- and right now over 90% of all contract renewals are settled without a strike. First contracts are a different matter in this province because it's so stacked against workers and sometimes they have to strike in order to get a first contract. But you need to make them short, and the way to make them short is to make sure that both parties are receiving the impact of the strike in the same way at the beginning. That means the work stops. You don't bring in a lot of people to draw it out and use the employer's larger capacity to hire people against the workers' will to just get their basic rights.
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The last one is the increased access to third-party property. Because of our changing situations about where stores are located, since it's not on Main Street any more but in Dufferin Mall, the proprietor doesn't own the premises where the operations are, and it's important to have access to that mall to be able to get in there and do the organizing work.
These are very modest changes, and they will help to reassure women who wish to form a union in their workplace that their efforts won't be thwarted, and it means they won't automatically be defeated by employers who'd rather put money into defeating the drive than into improving working relationships.
We have read and we have heard employer groups making overt threats before your committee and in the press that modifications will deter business owners from establishing and maintaining their enterprises in Ontario. We don't think the demographics of employment conditions bear this out. We're talking about the people who are most likely to be affected, who are clearly the ones who are not already organized. These are small workplaces, often fewer than 20 employees, and some of these workplaces, like homes and home work situations, have only one or two workers.
Under the current rules, these units are so small that most trade unions find it a real challenge to provide services. That's one reason why there are relatively few organizing campaigns under way at any one time, and fewer still that result in a long-term collective bargaining relationship.
The trend towards smaller and smaller workplaces is an indication that even these significant modifications of the rules for organizing new units will not likely result in greatly increased rates of unionization. What we're trying to do is remove barriers so that the mechanisms we have now for collective bargaining will be opened, especially to women in small workplaces. But that isn't going to really, drastically change the situation of unionization for these groups.
The changes of consolidation of bargaining units will give some workers, like trust company employees and retail store workers and other branch employees, more opportunities to bargain for improved conditions of work. But for many other sectors, like home workers, child care workers -- I'm sure Janet can think of a few other sectors -- we need new and broader models for bargaining that extend beyond individual workplaces. That's the only way we're going to make a real change, and these are the new models that will need to fit the realities of changing workplaces in the 1990s.
So while we find that these labour law reforms are urgently needed, they need to be strengthened by other legislative changes to improve the situation of the working poor, women and men, who are most vulnerable to unfair conditions. The extension of the pay equity law, for instance, to cover women in all-female workplaces will significantly increase the market value of traditional women's work. The recently introduced employment equity bill must include strong measures to apply to unorganized establishments so that barriers to hiring and promotion for women and members of other designated groups are removed. And, equally important, we need changes to the Employment Standards Act, because that is the main source of protection for minimum-wage workers and non-unionized workers.
We really regret that employers have chosen to portray the proposed changes as fostering conflict rather than, as we see it, promoting harmonious, productive relations and improving the effectiveness of dispute mechanisms.
Our Labour Relations Act came into being in order to take labour out of competition so that companies could compete for goods and services without having to underdo each other and save on wages. That has been very effective in Ontario and a lot of other places. We don't think that is changed substantially by these amendments.
We think the real reason the business sector has taken this position is driven more by power politics than by common sense. We haven't seen very many concrete objections to which we could make a reasoned response. Business groups are using the government's proposals for labour law change as a platform to bash the party in power. They would have disagreed with any changes, no matter how modest. This is evident by the vagueness and outright hysteria of their objections.
We would urge the government to approve these modifications and stay its course, because we feel it's the role of the government to defend the rights of the most vulnerable workers in our province, who contribute so much in relation to what they get back.
Ms Maher: I'd like to recap, first of all, the point that we see the legislative proposals you're presenting to us as a step in the right direction, but they represent a compromise, and we're a little bit disappointed at the product of that compromise, in that we think it will result in very few more women being able to organize than currently. We think it's the absolute minimum you can do.
What still is problematic and what we urge the committee really to take into account very seriously is the lack of real access for women in very small workplaces. A number of other groups have come before you to encourage a task force and serious investigation as strategies for broader-based bargaining. We want to echo and support that request.
The other thing we want to commend you to consider as you write your report is that for the many women these provisions will not help, there are other remedies. I want to remind you that we have an Employment Standards Act, we have minimum wage legislation, we have an existing Labour Relations Act, all of which have provisions which we think are only intermittently and often ineffectively enforced. We suggest that you might make recommendations through the minister and through the other processes which are available to the government to provide for more enforcement. We're a little disappointed that when this piece of legislation came forward, it didn't come forward in the context of a broader review of employment standards in all of our labour practices.
I think the other thing to say, to reiterate where Daina left off, is that it's important to maintain the current legislative schedule and to move ahead to pick up on the pay equity and employment equity initiatives, which seem to be sitting out there, as far as we can see.
We'd be happy to answer any questions you have.
The Chair: Thank you. Four minutes per caucus.
Mr McGuinty: Thank you both for your presentation. There's no doubt that you speak on behalf of a special constituency which has particular needs which have often been overlooked in the workplace.
Ms Maher: And half the population.
Mr McGuinty: One of the things I've learned since sitting on this committee is that when an organizing drive takes place, there seems to be at present a situation where it's very difficult for a worker to get hold of reliable information. There's information coming from the organizer; there's information, or hints or worse, coming from the employer. In that kind of situation, when those circumstances obtain, would it not be to the benefit of the individual worker that we impose some legislative requirement that some kind of standard notice be delivered to workers advising them that there's an organizing drive under way, telling them, "If your employer does this, this or this, they're in trouble; in fact, they could have automatic certification"? What do you think of that kind of concept?
Ms Maher: Daina may have some other things to say, but I try to speak from my experience, which is in small, predominantly voluntary sector employers. I don't particularly recognize the situation that you talk about. At a certain point, I think workers get fed up, recognize that a situation is really unfair and begin to organize. Especially in those small workplaces, it's actually quite difficult to find a union that will put the energy into organizing and so on and so forth, so it's actually a matter of two or three workers getting together and pushing this stuff on.
I don't see what the point would be of a notice requirement. Those things are available, and in any situation where I've been, those pieces of information have been made absolutely clear, even if not in the form of a registered letter or something like that, because there are labour board provisions already in effect which indicate that there are penalties and so on.
One other point about that is that usually the organizing drive isn't declared until after there's been quite a lot of information exchange; because of the need for secrecy, because of the fear of retaliation, a lot of the information goes out before the drive is declared. So I'm a little puzzled about when you would put out such a notice.
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Mr McGuinty: In your response there, you talked about two things that give me cause for concern. You talked about secrecy. I don't think we should have to have a secret drive. Workers have the right to organize, and if they want to organize it should be done above board.
Ms Green: That's why we said give us the list right at the beginning. It's exactly that. It shouldn't have to be done in secret. There should no big stick that the employer can hold over the heads of workers to say, "We'll retaliate," but that is the current condition, lamentable as it may be.
Mr McGuinty: What would be wrong, though, with simply advising workers of their rights?
Ms Green: There's nothing wrong with it. I agree with Janet that it's not particularly helpful, because they're not --
Mr McGuinty: That goes contrary to almost everything we believe in as legislators in terms of advising people of their rights.
Ms Green: Let me say this: It wouldn't hurt anybody. If we were looking to expand the protections, I don't think that would actually protect workers from retaliation, but it wouldn't hurt. I don't know if you agree.
Mr Offer: I'd like, in the short time available, to carry on. You say it wouldn't help the workers in the current situation. One of the things we have to realize is that in Bill 40, there is a new provision which says that if in an organizing drive an employer is found guilty of an unfair labour practice, has embarked on some sort of intimidation or coercion, then there is automatic certification. We have to keep in mind that proposed amendment to the bill.
But if we want to build upon that protection of the workers and the right to choose, free from intimidation and coercion, should we not expand it to not only include the employer, but to also make certain that the people who are doing the organizing do not, wittingly or unwittingly, intimidate or coerce or misinform the worker? Would you agree that in order to protect the worker, this protection should be expanded to not only the employer but also the organizer, to provide a greater protection to the men and women in the workforce?
Ms Green: In my experience, many employers -- even poor employers, even public sector employers -- will hire the strikebreaking, union-busting type of lawyers and get advice on exactly what wording they can get away with, that sounds intimidating to me but is not a clear violation of the Labour Relations Act. I've seen clear violations of the Labour Relations Act where I've said to the organizer, "We could get automatic certification on this." He says: "No, it wouldn't be that easy. You think it would be easy just because the employer followed this gal home and parked outside her door, but what kind of witnesses do we have?"
Suddenly, you see it's very sophisticated union-busting out there. There's this false notion of equality, that the union is just as likely to pressure people as the employer. It's not so. In my experience of 12 years in the union movement, I have only once or twice -- and this was with an inexperienced organizer -- seen somebody try to twist somebody's arm. We tell them right away, "You do that, buddy, we're going to lose it."
Ms Maher: When push comes to shove, the workers actually get to vote on this, so that's the other piece of the answer to your question.
Mrs Witmer: I appreciate that you are here on behalf of a certain segment of women in the province. I think it's important to make the point that certainly you don't speak for all women. I know you are sincere about your concerns.
I'd like to share with you a phone call I received on Friday of last week from a woman who had been involved in a strike situation for five weeks. During that time she felt very intimidated and coerced by the union leadership. She didn't feel she received all the information and she felt she really had no choice in what was going on.
If we're truly concerned about doing what's best -- and you talked about these people as being the most vulnerable group in society -- how can we ensure that women are protected not only from employers, who you say harass, but also from union organizers who harass? What protection can be provided for women? Believe me, it goes on on both sides.
Ms Green: What we're hoping is that with these amendments and other changes there will be fewer strikes. There's no question that there are a lot of passions involved when people are on strike, and a lot of anger in people who just don't understand that there's a strike or feel they shouldn't be on strike or feel that because they voted against it they shouldn't have to be on strike. There are a lot of people who don't really understand the whole democratic process that leads up to a strike vote.
But I don't think those particular concerns are before us, with all respect. I think the concerns that are before us are how to reduce the number of strikes; how to make those first-contract strikes, which are so ridiculously common in this province, a thing of the past so that people can form a union, get their first contract and then develop a relationship with the employer so they're not in this immediate war to the death, with antagonisms that are so hard to overcome afterwards. We're much more interested in reducing those tensions and reducing those strikes than we are in trying to figure out how we can keep people from twisting each other's arms once everybody's passions are up, with their blood pressure up past the healthy limit.
Mrs Witmer: I find it interesting that you say you believe this is going to promote harmonious, productive relations and improve the effectiveness of the dispute mechanisms, while at the same time what you have done is come here before us and beat the other side on the head. How are we ever going to have a harmonious, cooperative relationship if we have both sides behaving in that way? How is this bill going to achieve that?
Ms Green: I don't think we've beaten anyone on the head. I believe what we're doing is bringing forward examples that you may not have heard from other people. I don't say this proudly, that women are harassed and threatened on the job, and I'm not making it up. I have lots of personal experience in this. I'm not saying this to antagonize any small business. Most businesses will agree to a voluntary certification, and you don't have these things going on. We're talking about where there is a resistant employer. Maybe it's only 10%, maybe it's 15%, maybe it's 30%; I don't know what percentage of employers are really resistant to their employees acting on their right to association.
But I'm not here to bash employers. I'm just saying there are many cases where women are threatened and intimidated, and not just women, and that what we're looking for is a way that takes that all out of the picture and says, "You have a right to association; here's how you exercise it," and let's get on with the business of producing our service and producing our goods. That's our point.
Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): Ms Green, I'm just joining this committee for the first time during these hearings. Unfortunately, everybody wants to serve on this committee so our opportunities to be here are limited, which I regret because I wanted the opportunity to hear both sides of Bill 40 in this province.
You haven't answered the question posed by the Labour critic for our party, because in answer to her question about this phone call she got, which is a real example for her in her role -- and isn't it interesting that our party has a woman as Labour critic? -- your response was, "Well, those aren't the issues we're concerned with," and then you went on with your answer.
Well, we are concerned about the people who contact us, and I guess it's an irony tonight that we're both sitting here as women. I think earlier in the day Ms Cunningham was sitting here for our party. We only have three women in our caucus, and it's interesting that we all will have sat on this committee today.
What's that famous example of the postal workers with CUPW where the president wrote that disgusting letter to those two females who were grossly intimidated by the union? We are concerned about women in the workforce in this province, believe you me, but when we hear about the kinds of things that go on today without this bill in place, we really are worried about the jeopardy for the future of women in the workforce in this province.
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I want to ask you how you feel about the way there could be demanded of women, in the case of an organizing drive for unionization, where women would have to give their names and addresses. How do you feel about the security of women who have to give their home addresses?
You say in your presentation here, "There is no shortage of cases we know of where employees involved in the drive were demoted...even discharged without cause." If you have evidence of that taking place, today's labour laws in this province protect workers from --
Ms Green: They're reinstated nine months later.
Mrs Marland: The point is that if they are reinstated, then they're going to be reinstated with their back pay.
Ms Green: I'm sorry.
Mrs Marland: Well, the labour --
Ms Green: It's just not the case.
Mrs Marland: If it isn't, then effectively whoever's acting on their behalf in enforcing the labour laws that exist today -- anyway, could you answer the question about how you feel as a woman, and maybe could you both tell me what it is that you do? Are you both members of a union?
Ms Maher: I don't know whether that makes any difference. No, I am not. I have been at several points involved in union organizing and have been a member of the union. At this point I am not.
Mrs Marland: And are you, Miss Green?
Ms Green: At this point I am not. I was recently a member of a union and I've worked for several unions.
Mrs Marland: Okay. It's just that I don't know whether you're, you know --
Ms Green: I've been involved in union organizing drives many times.
Mrs Marland: Yes, okay, so how do you feel about the kind of pressure that can be put on women from --
Ms Green: I think the question particularly -- oh. Sorry. Do you want to finish?
Mrs Witmer: You're talking about the Daryl Bean incident.
Mrs Marland: Yes. How did you feel about that incident, the Daryl Bean incident?
Ms Maher: I'm not sure what incident you're referring to. On the question about lists, which I thought was what you were leading to, I guess what we find quite problematic is that employers have access to those lists, and in my personal experience it's been the employer I've had a phone call from, saying, "Do you really want to upset the apple cart here?" The risks of harassment and so on from the employer are probably as high as or higher than from other people who are organizing.
But these provisions don't provide for lists to be given to organizers or to the people who are organizing the union in the first place, so I'm quite at a loss to figure out where we're at at this point.
Mrs Marland: No, but you and I both know how it works.
Ms Green: How it works is that you try to get a list so that you can contact people. Since you can't contact them on the job, you try to contact them after work, so you go through one person and you say, "Do you have a friend?" and then you try to find that person and you say, "Will you come to the doughnut shop at 11 o'clock?"
Mrs Marland: That's a point I'm making, and you're admitting that you do have a tactic for getting their address.
Ms Green: It's very ineffective, and that's why we asked for access to lists to be turned over as soon as the drive was declared. We didn't win that. We're not even making a presentation about that today. That would be much more effective. A short organizing drive is a good organizing drive. A non-strike is much better than a strike. We're not looking to up the friction; we're looking to reduce friction and get on with the work in this province.
Mrs Marland: Are you concerned about the impact -- the group you're addressing in your brief is people who have, I would suggest, the most difficulty getting employment in Ontario today. Would you agree?
Ms Green: No. They don't have any trouble getting minimum wage work.
Mrs Marland: I'm talking about decent employment at a worthwhile wage. Would you agree?
Ms Green: Definitely agree.
Ms Maher: Yes.
Mrs Marland: Can you tell me how Bill 40's going to improve their job opportunities?
Ms Green: What we're hoping is that through collective action, even workers in low-paid wage ghettos will have an opportunity to collectively work to improve their working conditions.
The Chair: Ms Murdock, please.
Ms Murdock: Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I'm glad to see you're giving us some time tonight.
The Chair: Any time, Ms Murdock.
Ms Murdock: Just to follow sort of along the same line, except I don't want to get deeper in the mire here, I know Mrs Witmer was talking about a member of a union after they've been certified and a strike is called, but I want to get back to what Mr McGuinty was talking about in terms of the organizing drive and the information exchange you talked about.
Part of the presentations we've been hearing is that leading into an organizing drive, which eventually goes into a first contract, as we know, the information the members are getting from the union organizer, the outside organizer, is insufficient, and hence the question towards the notice, basically, is where that came from.
What kind of information, depending on whichever union you're representing, of course, do you provide to the worker when you're trying to explain why the union would be good for her or him or whatever the situation is? What kind of information do you provide?
Ms Maher: I think, basically, the information is what your rights and privileges are as a result of organizing. The main reason for organizing, at least in my experience -- and, as I said, this has been in the voluntary sector, in social service, and it has been primarily with the public sector union -- has been to get a bit of respect at the workplace. Generally, the kind of women with whom I've been involved are women who are relatively literate and so can read and write. What they want to know is where these lines come, in terms of what counts as intimidation and what does not. I'm not quite sure --
Ms Murdock: Membership dues and that kind of thing.
Ms Green: First of all, you don't make any promises, because you don't know what they're going to be able to get from their employer. You tell them what the policy of your union is in terms of when they begin to collect dues -- normally after certification -- and what percentage or what dollar amount those dues are at. If they would like to know about the structure of the union, you tell them how things work in that union. You tell them what their rights are and you find out from them what their issues are. You say, "You will be able to take these issues to the bargaining table with your employer."
There normally aren't a lot of promises made or information given about specific services. You say: "This union has a good educational program. There will be courses that you'll be able to take." You tell them about the union. A lot of times they're shopping around for a union.
In these workplaces that we are now talking about, there's no shopping around. You are shopping around for a union that will organize this group.
Ms Murdock: You're not soliciting, then?
Ms Green: No. Usually there have to be four calls to a union that say: "Please, this group has only 25 people," or eight people. "Would you come in and help them organize?" And the union says: "Well, we're really busy. We only have two organizers." But they really are ready to organize; they really want to organize.
The Chair: Sorry to interrupt, but we have gone beyond the time. It's obviously been a very lively, engaging and valuable dialogue. I appreciate that. I express my gratitude and that of the committee to you, Ms Green and to you, Ms Maher, for appearing here on behalf of Women for Labour Law Reform. You've made a valuable contribution to this process. I trust you'll be keeping in touch.
GUELPH AND DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL
The Chair: The next participant is Guelph and District Labour Council. Would those people will come forward and have a seat, and tell us your names and titles, if any.
Interjection: We've got a videotape but we don't have a video player.
The Chair: You brought the videotape. If I might inquire, is the Employment Standards Work Group here?
Interjection: Not yet.
The Chair: Please go ahead with your comments. Your written material is being distributed.
Mr Terry O'Connor: We're going to leave the tape with you. You can view it at your leisure. It's a short one.
On behalf of the nearly 10,000 workers whom the Guelph and District Labour Council represents, I would like to take this opportunity to thank this committee for the chance to present our views on the issue of labour law reform.
My name is Terry O'Connor, president of the Guelph and District Labour Council and a member of the Communications and Electrical Workers of Canada. Joining me this evening are Brother Dave Fairfull, first vice-president of the labour council and a member of the Canadian Auto Workers Union, and Brother Larry Leisti, treasurer of the Guelph and District Labour Council and a member of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union.
The purpose of the video that you will view at your leisure is to show the present concepts of the bargaining process and why we feel there is a need for change to the current Ontario Labour Relations Act in order that both parties, labour and management, operate from a level playing field to improve cooperation and reduce confrontation.
We don't believe the proposed changes will shift the balance of power towards the unions, nor do we believe the changes will drive healthy investment out of Ontario, as the business community would have us believe. Remember, business was wrong about Bill 208, the health and safety amendments, Bill 162, the Workers' Compensation Act, and the free trade agreement, so why would Ontarians believe what they are saying now about Bill 40?
When sitting down to write this brief, I wrestled with how I wanted to present my beliefs and the beliefs of the rest of the membership of the labour council. I'm sure by now the members of this committee, over the past four weeks, have heard all the arguments for and against the proposed reforms. Labour has consistently come out in favour of the reforms, and we, the labour council, concur with the rest of our sisters and brothers in the labour movement that these reforms will be good for Ontarians.
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The best way in which I can express my feelings about labour law reform is to draw on some of my own personal experiences that I have encountered over the past 16 years that I have been a union member. The two issues which I feel are important in the reforms and the two which I will be speaking about are the issue of joining a union and the issue of picket line violence and the use of scabs during a legal strike.
As I mentioned in the introduction of this brief, I am a member of the Communication and Electrical Workers of Canada. I have been a member of my union since 1976. The decision to join my union was one I did not jump into without thought or investigation. I thoroughly discussed joining with fellow coworkers and friends who were members of other unions. When I signed my union card I knew full well what I was joining and why I was joining. I did not require a cooling-off period to rethink my decision or to reflect on its implications. When I put my name on that membership card, I was finished thinking my decision out and was committed to the fact of becoming a member of CWC.
As with the rest of the proposed reforms, there is a reason for wanting the current act changed. In the case of joining a union, the reforms are intended to create a situation where, once a worker has made the decision to join a union, that individual will be able to do so in an atmosphere free of intimidation and threats, based on as much information as is available from both sides of this issue.
These reforms will give the organizers a more equal opportunity to present all the facts and information that should be afforded an individual before she or he makes such an important decision as joining a union.
As I reflect back on my card-signing, I recall having to sign my membership card behind a garbage dumpster in a parking lot adjacent to my place of employment. No one should have to feel that he is doing something wrong or feel intimidated about signing a union card due to anti-union campaigns or firings due to union activities.
The anti-scab law: I have personally been involved in two legal strikes, one in 1979 which lasted seven weeks and one in 1988 which lasted four months. I have also been on the picket line with steelworkers, auto workers and newspaper employees, and I can feel safe in saying that the majority of, if not all, picket line violence is directly related to the number of scabs used during a legal strike situation. The answer is clear to me: Get rid of the scabs and you get rid of the violence.
Now you're probably going to say: "What about the employer? How can she or he run the business during a legal strike if she or he can't use replacement workers?" The employer will still be able to use management staff to do the work. This may also help in the collective bargaining process. If the employer is unable to use scabs in a strike situation, he or she may be inclined to put a little more effort into the bargaining process in order to hammer out a collective agreement.
I support and commend the provincial government for its initiatives in changing the OLRA to better reflect the workplace and the workforce of the 1990s.
At this time I would like to turn the proceedings over to Brother Dave Fairfull to continue on with the presentation.
Mr Dave Fairfull: I'll omit a little bit of the introduction, because it has already been covered by my brother Terry. I'd like to say that I am also the president of Local 1917. Our local represents five workplaces, four in Guelph and one in Fergus, with a total membership of about 600 workers.
I believe the only clear voice of working people is that of a union. The average worker would find it difficult to keep abreast of all the changes that take place in a modern workplace. Through a union there are many resources available.
It's interesting that the chamber of commerce, which is the business community's collective voice, the builders' association, the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, the bar, the Law Society of Upper Canada, the medical profession, and the Roads and Transportation Association of Canada all belong to an organization that actively supports their goals. They also pay some sort of fees or dues for services they get. I am sure they only join these organizations for one reason: They give a benefit. So the question is, why is it okay for the professional people to have a union and so difficult for working men and women who want to join a union?
The proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act represent progress to the working people of this province. The present act takes away rights by allowing petitions, forcing workers to argue over what their true wishes are and in what circumstances the petition was signed, or whether they have paid their $1 or not. This all causes delays in workers' attempts to be organized, sometimes lengthy. This is also a needless expense to the government.
In the plant I work in, from the time we made application for certification to the time we were certified it took almost eight months. The relationship between management and employees was very strained over this time. I am sure I wasn't the only worker thinking about quitting his job. I think many workers feel overwhelming powerlessness to change things, and this feeling is the exact opposite to what democracy should be.
In early July of this year, a travelling show came to Guelph. It was called Community Talks, of the federal government's prosperity secretariat. The secretariat's job was to ask Canadians how to restructure the economy to be more competitive in the global marketplace. The participants were unanimous in the desire for business, labour and governments to work together in order to ensure Canada's international competitiveness and prosperity. Business, they said, should take steps to involve labour representatives in the management of individual companies.
I would to share with this committee a letter I found published in both the Guelph papers. It was written by a Mr Bill Hulet of Guelph, and this is how the letter goes:
"Before I get on my soapbox, let me share some of my work history. I have worked as a janitor for three contracting firms at three locations: Norm Boyd Janitorial hired me to clean city hall, Doug Tyler for Conestoga College, and Consolidated Building Maintenance hired me for the Guelph Eaton's store.
"As memory serves me, Norm Boyd paid me $4 an hour, Doug Tyler something over $5, and Consolidated $6. This was several years ago, but even then I was a member of the working poor. There was no paid vacation -- it was mandatory to take two weeks unpaid for Consolidated -- no sick days, no pension, no nothing.
"At city hall I had to sometimes carry an extremely heavy floor polisher up and down the stairs because was no elevator in the building. It's a wonder no one damaged their back doing it. When the member of the Eaton family toured our store and said we had `the cleanest store in Canada,' the store manager shook my hand -- and our hours were cut the next week. At Conestoga, women made a dollar less an hour than the men, for work of exactly the same effort.
"Because of our disgusting labour laws it is impossible to unionize small contracting companies, which is why more and more businesses are opting for contracting out. I now work in a unionized shop, the University of Guelph, and as a result make a decent living. Our late but far from lamented president once made a statement to the press that he favoured contracting out as many university functions as possible.
"I hope the above makes clear that there is a clear need for labour unions and the labour movement is under attack. The latest evidence of this is the move by the Guelph Chamber of Commerce to try and force our elected government into backing down on its long-overdue reform of labour laws.
"My questions to the members of the chamber of commerce are, how much do you pay your employees? How safe are their working conditions?" and so on.
His last line says, "It's not just labour legislation. It's people's lives."
In the 1880s, business was hostile to the laws against child labour, and recently has opposed the health and safety regulations. They have threatened that widespread closures would result. They have not happened.
I must thank this NDP government for the foresight and for the commitment you have shown to go through these consultations. As Mr Hulet said: "It's not just labour legislation. It's people's lives."
The act has not been substantially reformed for over 15 years. It needs to be brought up to date to more accurately reflect the workforce and workplace. As it is now written, it reflects the needs of the primarily male workforce employed in the large manufacturing plants. It contains many legal and practical obstacles to much of the present workforce, women and part-time workers. Parts of the act promote antagonistic relationships that make bargaining the first few agreements difficult.
I would like to now introduce Larry Leisti.
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Mr Larry Leisti: My name is Larry Leisti. I'm employed as a millwright at the Fibreglas Canada Inc glass plant in Guelph. After my probation period was up in 1984, I became member of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, Local 1305. However, it was not until 1989 that I became active within that union. At that time I became the treasurer by acclamation; nobody else wanted the job. Since that time, my involvement within the labour movement has continually expanded.
The majority of the changes in Bill 40 will not affect my working relationship with my current employer, so I do not support these reforms simply for my own benefit. Instead, I would like to illustrate what those changes have done for 20 employees who have gone through the organizing process and are currently awaiting their first collective agreement.
In the fall of 1989, a number of employees decided they needed to become organized, so they contacted the Southern Ontario Newspaper Guild, and the organizing drive out of the editorial staff at the Guelph Daily Mercury began. After a few initial meetings, an organizing plan was set up, and on January 22, 1990, the first union card was signed. My spouse, Eva, was approached to sign a union card on January 26, 1990, and did so without hesitation. Within the first week, 13 union cards were signed from a targeted 25 employees. It was quite apparent that others felt there was a need to organize.
On February 23, 1990, the application for union certification was received by the labour board. Sixteen union cards had been signed at that time. By March 12, 1990, the labour board certified SONG as the bargaining agent for a group of employees from the Daily Mercury, but it was dependent upon the resolution of the composition of the bargaining unit. A labour relations officer was appointed to assist in that determination. After a lengthy investigation, which included visiting the Daily Mercury and holding hearings in Toronto, a hearing was scheduled before the board on September 5, 1991.
Just prior to that hearing, the union and management resolved all matters in the dispute. Imagine this: waiting over 18 months to resolve whether five employees should be included in the bargaining unit and whether one other should belong in a separate bargaining unit for part-timers. The final consensus was to exclude two of the workers and have a separate bargaining unit for part-time.
This company also utilized other attempts to scare off the union. When the application for union certification was filed, the union also filed a section 89 charge against the employer for the refusal to pay out bonus moneys which had accrued in the previous year. It had been a form of revenue-sharing which employees had been involved in, but suddenly it was dropped, and management declared that those employees who were joining the union would not receive any moneys owed. Again, just prior to the hearing on May 9, 1990, the employer admitted liability and agreed to pay all outstanding moneys. The union still had to bear the costs of all the expenses incurred.
On June 1, 1990, another section 89 complaint was laid against the Daily Mercury, this time for failure to pay scheduled wage increases. During the second hearing date, the company again acknowledged liability and promised to pay the retroactive increases. Approximately 26 section 89 complaints were laid against the employer; however, only two were brought before the board, due to the considerable expenses involved. The resolution of those other changes has not yet been determined and cannot be announced because of an agreement on a publication ban which came about through the resolution of allowing first-contract arbitration.
Following my presentation, I give meeting dates. On July 26, 1990, a notice was given to bargain, and it was sent to the Daily Mercury. September 21, the first meeting of negotiations was held. The union presented the company with an initial proposal package; the company indicated it would not be bringing forward any proposals. They changed that slightly, later on.
In a full year of bargaining, from September 1990 to September 1991, very little progress was made. In fact, the company would only agree to look at the first eight articles during the entire year of bargaining. The company would not agree to meet on consecutive days or to meet any earlier than 4:30 pm each time. Most of these bargaining sessions ran until 1 or 2 am in the morning, and these were working days. The union members were expected to be at work the next morning at 7 o'clock sharp. Management representatives, however, were allowed to show up one to two hours late, and their normal day started at 9 o'clock in the morning.
It was only after the first meeting with the conciliator, in September 1991, that the union was allowed to present articles 9 through 25.
In the final days of bargaining, many issues were removed from the bargaining table. With the strike deadline having been set at November 7, between November 5 and 9 the union dropped 40 of its proposals in an effort to avoid the strike. The company responded to this effort by stalling until two days after the strike deadline to present the union with its response to wages. The company response came at approximately 2 o'clock in the morning on November 10. At this point, having seen what can only be described as an insulting wage proposal, the union decided that enough was enough, and the strike was called.
The first few weeks of the strike were basically uneventful and cold. The union members knew that scabs were being used, but they were never seen, because in the newspaper industry scabs only need sit in a hotel room, which is paid for by the company, and submit their stories by modem from portable computers. About two months into the strike, when the weather turned bitter cold, the company representatives began taunting the strikers about how tame the picket line was. Within a few days, those same scabs who were once reporting by modem from hotel rooms were suddenly arriving at the Mercury office and attempting to cross the picket line. The violence began. Video cameras suddenly appeared in the Mercury windows. Police officers were being summoned on a regular basis and pickets were being hauled off into police cars.
I walked the picket line with my spouse every chance I had. This was usually on a Saturday morning, when the picket line would be set up at 1 o'clock in the morning in subzero weather, and the shift would run until 8 o'clock. I walked that line with the various journalists and watched as they tried to hold on to their dignity and their professionalism. I walked with men over 50, 40-year-old women with aching bones, young men full of energy, single mothers worrying about their children at home. None of these people had ever been involved in a union before. None of them had ever walked a picket line before. Yet this handful of people was willing to put their lives on hold during the coldest months of the year, in the middle of a recession, to risk their health, their families, police action and their jobs.
On April 3, 1992, the labour board granted first-contract arbitration. The 20 members of the Southern Ontario Newspaper Guild returned to work over a three-day period. The then unit chairperson, who before the strike held a fairly prominent position in the newsroom as a reporter and columnist, was suddenly being told that he was now a general reporter or, as some would say, an ambulance chaser. This 40-year-old man, with a family to support, with over 10 years of service to the Mercury, who had enjoyed a stable position, because of increasing health problems found himself forced to quit. He terminated his employment only three weeks after the strike. My spouse, who was then vice-chair of the unit, then became chairperson. Eva worked at the Mercury for three and a half years as a part-time darkroom technician. She was the only darkroom technician at the Mercury and earned less than $9,000 a year. One month after becoming chairperson, Eva was permanently laid off for economic reasons. A complaint has been made before the labour board, and that was put through in June of this year. We are still waiting for a scheduled date for a hearing to be heard.
In the meantime, the remaining union members are still awaiting a first contract, while the company is doing everything in its power to punish those who had the nerve, or the guts, to stand up for their rights and to go out on strike for five months. For people such as these, the Ontario Labour Relations Act needs to be reformed, and now is the proper time.
The Chair: Thank you, sir. Ms Witmer, briefly.
Mrs Witmer: We'll pass. We've heard the presentation and we thank you for it.
The Chair: Mr Fletcher, the member for Guelph.
Mr Derek Fletcher (Guelph): Thank you, Mr Chair, and it's a pleasure to be here.
I was just wondering about the bit in here where you said you had a video which was produced through the facilities of Maclean Hunter Channel 8 on collective bargaining. There are a lot of concepts and misconceptions about collective bargaining. Some people say that the union gets a strike vote and then they go to bargain and, bang, you have no choice no matter what happens. Other people will come forward -- in fact, the Guelph Chamber of Commerce was here before you and made a presentation saying that if this law goes through, unions are going to rule the land. Is collective bargaining that way? How do you perceive the collective bargaining process?
Mr O'Connor: Maybe once the committee sees our commercial -- you've already seen it -- I think it tells the message. It takes cooperation through both parties in order to achieve a collective agreement that is fair to both parties, and I think that's what these reforms will accomplish.
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Mr Fletcher: As far as the Guelph Mercury strike is concerned, I know -- I was on the line a few times myself -- there was violence on the line. The police were being used quite frequently at taxpayers' expense. Do you see these changes alleviating that problem, where we have the picket line violence that does go on? Not to say that it's always happening, but in this circumstance with the Mercury, it did happen. Why, and do you see this law changing it?
Mr Leisti: To begin with, if this law was in effect, the strike would have lasted, at the most, only 30 days. After four months on the line, when it's cold, when you're getting tired of being pushed around by the police, because they come down quite frequently when they're called -- when you call them, they never show up if something happens to you. I personally got knocked down twice on the line. It's just not something you want to put up with for a long time. The 30-day limit --
Mr Fletcher: Knocked down by a vehicle?
Mr Leisti: No, police officers.
Mr Fletcher: By police officers.
Mr Leisti: Yes.
The Chair: Mr Hayes, did you have a short one?
Mr Hayes: Yes, very short, Mr Chair. It's quite amazing that we still have people who want to lead us to believe that these types of things, harassment and firings and violence and things, are not happening now in the 1990s, and that it's not necessary to put this legislation in.
However, there are those who are always talking about having the secret ballot and saying we should come up with a system that will make sure the workers are informed, and that should be done with unions and also with management, their employers. It's quite obvious that the workers want to get organized because of the poor benefits or no benefits, and poor wages and working conditions. I ask the question, if people are not happy with the employer and say, "Hey, we need a union to help us to get some decent wages," for example, how do you feel the corporation or the employer would be able to inform the workers, when it had the chance to do it before?
Mr O'Connor: You mean information about --
Mr Hayes: Information about belonging to a union. I think what's happening here is that there are people saying, "We have to inform the workers about what is involved in the labour movement." I know that you know what --
Mr O'Connor: I think most of the employers carry out anti-union campaigns in order not to have the union in. There's a saying I've used on many occasions and it goes like this: "You show me a company with a union and I'll show you a company with bad management." That's very true. In a lot of cases management is so strong in keeping the union out that it will go to almost any lengths to do that. I think most companies will use anti-union campaigns and firing people who are involved in those union activities in order to send a clear message to the rest of the employees.
The Chair: A rather hirsute Mr Hope is going to ask a very brief question.
Mr Hope: A point of clarification: You were making reference, to the last presentation there, to the first eight articles. Could you explain what the first articles of the collective agreement were?
Mr Leisti: Generally, you start off with recognition of the union. They had gotten up, I believe, just past the grievance process. By the way, the grievance process is well defined within the Labour Relations Act. It took these people six months to convince the company, "Yes, we have to have this; it says so in the law," and the company -- "Well, maybe not."
The Chair: Mr Offer, Mr Philip, Mr McGuinty.
Mr Phillips: Actually, it's me, Mr Phillips.
I appreciate the presentation. As I kind of look down the road, the number one issue people talk to me about is jobs right now, and particularly plant closures. As I look at the last, I guess, two years or so and right now, plants are closing at a record rate. Plant closures, the first seven months of 1992, are 30% ahead of what they were a year ago. They're about 45% ahead of what they were two years ago. I think 70% of those jobs that are being lost are union jobs -- heavily CAW, I might add, and steel. It's a tragedy.
I guess my question to the labour council is just this: I know you think the business community's bluffing on this stuff, although I can't find one single business person who doesn't tell me privately that this is seriously going to damage the economy of Ontario. But I gather the labour community thinks it's just bluffing on this, and the government members think it's bluffing. I think you're wrong, and I'll tell you that two years from now you'll find out you were wrong that they were bluffing on it.
Mr Hayes: In 1985 we asked for it.
Mr Hope: Read your research.
Mr Phillips: What research? The government won't provide any research on the jobs. My question to the labour council is this --
Interjection.
Mr Phillips: That's nonsense, that little study that was done.
Mr Huget: On with your question, Gerry.
Mr Phillips: Yes. My question to the labour council is -- I'm sure your members are desperate about jobs -- what are the three or four things in this bill that you will be saying to your members are the things that are going to help create jobs for them?
Mr O'Connor: I don't know if there's anything in this that will create jobs. I think the government's doing other things to create jobs. What this is trying to do is create an atmosphere and workplace where you have cooperation between the workers and the employers whereby you're not always at loggerheads. What happens when you're at loggerheads? The talking stops, and I think we need to continue with the talking, with finding new ways to create jobs and to hold on to the jobs that we have now.
Mr Phillips: My concern, I guess, is that I see 70% of the job losses occurring in the unionized sector. What in this is going to create the cooperation that presumably didn't exist before in those unionized job environments that will stop the job loss?
Mr O'Connor: I think there are a lot of examples where unions have sat down with employers to make hard decisions, and I think if we get more and more unionized places out there, those types of discussions will continue to go on. I'm not sure where you're coming from, but I think --
Mr Phillips: I'm just saying, if it already looks like the job losses are 70% unionized, I would just like your feeling on how more unionization is going to slow that down. That's all.
Mr Dave Fairfull: I can't see where you're saying that it's 80%, for one thing.
Mr Phillips: It's straight out of the Ministry of Labour statistics that you get, I'm sure.
Mr Fairfull: Anyway, even if it is true --
Mr Phillips: That's what it is.
Mr Fairfull: I'll give you credit for that one then. The economic policies of our federal government have a lot to do with our job loss and I don't think it's just the unions that are doing this.
Mr Phillips: I didn't say it was the unions doing it. I'm saying --
Mr Fairfull: That's exactly what you're implying.
Mr Phillips: No, no. I'm saying what's in this bill that will slow it down, not that the unions are causing it. No, I'm not saying that at all. But what is in the bill that will help to eliminate or minimize what I think, at least for my constituents, is the number one problem right now?
Mr Fairfull: If you're going to get a job at, say, $6 an hour, there would probably be a few of them or that would be the perfect scenario for everybody to move in and get $6 an hour. I can't live on $6 an hour. I bet you 90% of the people out there who are working can't live on $6 an hour.
Mr Phillips: That's right.
Mr Fairfull: Do you want everybody on welfare? Where are you coming from?
Mr Phillips: I'm coming from the point of view that says that for your members presumably job protection is quite important. I'm trying to find out in the bill where you see what I assume is your number one issue with your members.
I go down every day, I look at plant closures and I'm trying to determine if this is going to be helpful or not. The business community says it's not going to be. They say this is going to exacerbate the problem. I'm just trying to get from you people why they're wrong.
Mr Fairfull: I think that most unions are realistic. Now maybe over the years they've gotten increases, but all they're doing is sharing the wealth. If the company is in dire straits, there's no way a union's going to push it to that wall. I've been in negotiations where companies have actually said, "Oh, we're crying." Probably you're familiar with the auto workers' strike with Chrysler where it said, "A nickel's going to break us," and in the following year it made the highest profit ever.
It's going to be a work-together scenario and we're going to have to get together and work on this. We can't be fighting all the time because we're not going to get anywhere. I'm willing and I'm able to work together with the companies, and I'm sure that if the corporate decisions are made to pull out union companies, because they want to make more profits, to the southern states or Mexico, that's what will happen, but there's a lot of economic stuff involved in this.
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The Chair: We've got to move on. Ms Marland, you had something very brief?
Mrs Marland: Just briefly on your last comment there. I don't know how you can believe that business and industry and commerce are going to be attracted to Ontario if unions are going to control the profits that those businesses and industries make. You just said that when you find out how much money they have, that's more or less where you start your negotiating.
But the point I wanted to raise, and I'm glad Mr Fletcher is still in the room, is that I think it's important that the question that was asked about violence on the picket line -- in particular you mentioned that you had been knocked down by a police officer. I think, in fairness to all the police officers in this province -- who, as far as I'm concerned, have one of the most difficult if not the most difficult job in this province, men and women alike -- I would like to hear from you, when you talk about violence on the picket line, surely you're not suggesting that the violence on the picket line is started by the police officers, who are trying to protect everybody. My understanding is that violence on the picket line happens when a picket line exists and other unionized or non-unionized workers try to cross that picket line. Who starts the violence? Not the people who are trying to get into the plant or the place of employment; it's the people on the picket line who fight against the people who are trying to get in, and the police officers are called to protect everyone. I think for you to say you were pushed down twice by a police officer is -- I don't think you can leave that statement hanging there.
Mr Leisti: I will agree that the police are put in a very awkward situation. They don't want to be there; we don't want to be there. There were often nights that two officers were sent and we would chat with them all night and there would be no problems. When they sent 12 or 14 officers, yes, then there would be problems, because once your back is up, you start pushing back.
The problems occurred when the trucks were coming out with the papers. Who benefits from this occurrence? The company is the only one that wins out on this. They are getting their papers out on time. They are not suffering at all. The workers on the picket line have to put up with the abuse, the drivers going through have to put up with the abuse and the police officers have to put up with the abuse. But the company is the only one that is scot-free, and it is the main cause of this disturbance.
The Chair: I want to say thank you to the Guelph and District Labour Council and the people appearing here on behalf of the membership: Terry O'Connor, Dave Fairfull and Larry Leisti. You've made a valuable contribution to this process and we are grateful to you for your interest and for your comments and the insights you've provided.
Mr Fairfull: Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you, people. Take care. Have a safe trip home.
EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS WORK GROUP
The Chair: The next participant is the Employment Standards Work Group, if the spokespeople for the Employment Standards Work Group will come forward, have a seat and proceed with your comments. Tell us your name and title, if you have a title, or if you want to tell us your title.
Ms Gayle Lebans: All right. I don't think there will be any problem with that. My name is Gayle Lebans. I'm a community worker. I work with non-unionized workers and I'm here tonight on behalf of the Employment Standards Work Group, as you know.
The work group is a coalition of community agencies and legal clinics concerned with the situation of non-unionized workers. Within our separate organizations, our main contact and our main involvement with such workers varies --
Mrs Marland: Do we have copies of this?
Ms Lebans: No. I'm sorry, these are my notes -- from the provision of social and recreational services to advocacy, counselling, legal assistance and so forth. But whether or not our primary dealings with people are focused on their employment problems and difficulties, we've come together on this issue because it has an impact on all of those other issues and areas.
Those of us, for example, who work extensively on anti-racism, on women's issues or on immigrant settlement issues know that visible minority workers of both genders and recent immigrants of all colours are overrepresented in part-time, in short-term and in low-paying jobs with poor and often dangerous working conditions where workers are obliged to work in the city for below minimum wage or for long periods with no wage at all, and we can assure you that we see such workers every day.
We know our organizations will have to try to help them with housing problems, with health problems, with personal and family counselling and so on. We know that we can't really address the issues of racism or of sexism or of newcomer adaptation if we ignore what happens to people at work, so the Employment Standards Work Group advocates for change to employment legislation, to policies and procedures which affect how these laws are administered and enforced. We provide information on rights at work to workers and to community groups, and we support individuals and groups of workers on specific employment standards cases.
I'm here this evening on behalf of the worker to speak in support of Bill 40. As I've mentioned, the workers we see are not unionized. Such rights as they have are specified under the Employment Standards Act. If I can take a moment to explain a few things about employment standards, I think it'll be easier perhaps for you to understand why we are in favour of changes which allow workers to exercise their democratic right to join a trade union if they wish to.
An important idea behind the Employment Standards Act is that individual workers and individual employers are somehow equal parties. This idea holds that the worker is free to contract with the employer for a job while the latter is free to contract for labour. If either side is dissatisfied, he or she has the freedom to terminate the contract with, obviously, some restrictions but not many. Perhaps this idea has some validity for executives, and it's true that we don't see a whole lot of executives in our agencies, but this idea has no basis in reality for the workers we see.
The people we see, who work for $1 per hour or for 50 hours a week at straight time, don't do it because they like to, and in many cases, they don't do it because they or their employer are ignorant of the law concerning minimum wage or overtime. They do it because they need the job. Why don't they file a complaint? Because they need the job, because they fear their employer will fire them if they complain and it will take months before their reprisal case comes up under employment standards and months more before it is settled, and they may not win because their employer will never admit that he or she fired a worker for trying to exercise his or her rights under the Employment Standards Act. Even if they win, it's too long and it's too late and nobody else at that workplace is ever going to complain about anything.
Over 90% of complaints to the employment practices branch are filed by workers no longer employed by the company in question, and even when they have left, we know some workers will not file a complaint while they are looking for work because they are afraid that a prospective employer will phone their previous employer and be told that they're a troublemaker.
Our experience with employment standards is that workers are definitely not on an equal footing with employers, and while the business lobby opposed to Bill 40 expects and wishes workers, presumably, to act on an individual as opposed to a collective or unionized basis, employers continue to act in a concerted fashion in their own interests.
Some of us in the Employment Standards Work Group noted that the proposed amendment allowing access to employee lists for organizing purposes was dropped from Bill 40. Those of us who see live-in domestic workers couldn't help but wonder what these employers are doing to address the complete lack of privacy with which so many domestic workers must cope. We wondered when we would see these employers forcefully take up the campaign for minimal employment standards compliance by the business community.
The Employment Standards Work Group supports workers' rights to freely choose whether or not they wish to join together or to unionize in order to put forward their own point of view on workplace issues. It's amazing to us that this proposal should occasion such heated debate in a democratic society.
I've said that the workers we see feel they can't complain about violations of the law without putting their jobs at risk. We think their fear is well based. For example, one of the members of the work group quite recently saw some workers who had been fired for discussing -- among themselves, on a break, not on work time -- whether they were receiving minimum wage; as it turns out, they weren't. Just as workers have got the message that complaining about employment standards or health and safety or pay equity can cost them their jobs, they've also got the message that it's pretty risky to talk union. As long as this situation exists, it is at best erroneous and at worst hypocritical to speak as if workers are free to join trade unions if they want to.
I'd like to share with you a comment which one worker made to me in a workshop on employment standards. He said: "I come from a country where there was no minimum wage and where I had no rights at work. Here there are laws and they sound very good, but they don't mean anything." There's a tremendous cynicism out there, and you should know that if you don't already.
On behalf of the Employment Standards Work Group, I urge you to pass these amendments and to strengthen them so that this law and the idea of freedom of association exists in reality and not just on paper. We look forward to results as well from a task force on broader-based bargaining. This is the only way to improve the situation of some workers, such as domestics, even if they will no longer be exempted from the provisions of the OLRA, as well as that of other workers we see in precarious employment, such as home workers -- and I believe there were home workers before this committee -- those in small workplaces and so forth.
We urge the government to take steps as well to ensure that the Employment Standards Act is enforced, and we look forward to a comprehensive report from the employment standards review unit on that legislation.
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The Chair: Thank you. Mr Hope, four minutes.
Mr Hope: Four minutes? That was an excellent presentation, and you want me to get what I need in four minutes? I'll try.
Your presentation is articulate on the legislation and the enforcement aspect. I've been hearing the Liberal Party talk about posting a notice that an organizing drive or a vote is coming, that that will make sure there's a balance of information and that no employee would be coerced into voting either for or against the union.
You've just illustrated that people have a hard enough time getting the laws that currently exist in this province enforced. How are they going to be enforced? I was just mentioning to my colleagues that maybe what we'll have to do is hire a person from the Ministry of Labour to live with that individual until the vote is taken to make sure no coercion is done to that individual, by not just one side but by either side.
There are basically two other areas I wanted to touch on. I'm sure you've also dealt with plant closures of non-unionized workplaces, which have no representation when it comes to plant closure. Mr Phillips keeps bringing up the issue, "Well, they're mostly CAW in unionized workplaces." He forgets to mention the aspect that most of them are American-based corporations that are taking advantage of the federal government's free trade policy -- and its future policy dealing with the US-Mexico trade agreement; I'm sure we'll see more unless we can put in place a job protection program of financial accountability for plant closure.
The other area I think is very important to touch on is education, because what you are doing is advocating on their behalf to educate them. You made mention of people just talking about what minimum wage is and whether they were eligible for minimum wage.
I just wanted your views on those areas: plant closures of non-unionized workplaces and financial accountability to the community, and also dealing with the aspect of education. Maybe what we should be doing is looking at our education system and providing labour history so we're getting a balance. You talk about a balance. Let's not just teach them about the business community; let's teach them about labour history, how we got these social programs in place today, good pension programs and a number of other programs. I just want your viewpoint, because you represent, as a chief union representative, on behalf of those non-unionized workforces.
Ms Lebans: I should say first of all that we're very careful about using the word "representing." I'm not here to represent non-unionized workers -- it would be better if they were able to represent themselves -- but we do advocate on their behalf and we do listen to them and hear the problems they have.
In relation to plant closures, of course we do see workers whose plants have closed down, non-unionized workers. One of the situations that frustrates us tremendously and frustrates the workers in a way I can't even begin to describe to you is where their employer closes down, doesn't even declare bankruptcy and moves next door and opens up again. In some cases those are workers who fought a battle for wages that had not been paid to them by that employer. They went back again, in some cases, to the same employer. You might ask yourself, why would they go back? They've been so terribly treated the first time, why would they go back to this supposedly different entity that involves the same people? They go back because they don't have any choice. They work for the promise of a pay, because it's better than no promise at all.
That situation is shocking. We hear all the time in groups like the work group about "a world-class city." Well, it's a little bit different when you're cleaning the towers in that world-class city or when you're working in the kinds of plants that close down and treat workers in this way; for example, the Lark workers, who were owed a tremendous amount of money. Their case went to court, they won their case in court, but they've never seen a dollar yet of their termination or their severance pay. So that situation of non-unionized workers in plants does concern us very much, and unfortunately, we see rather a lot of workers in that position.
In relation to education, certainly more needs to be done, but one of the things that's very frustrating, once again, is the situation that obtains where workers know what their rights are at work, for example under the Employment Standards Act, and they can't do anything about it. It's one thing not to know what they are, but you can imagine how workers feel, how they begin to question things here and how they begin to question the representation we make about what our society's about when they can't use that education to have their rights enforced without placing themselves at tremendous risk. Particularly in these days when the employment situation is so terrible in the province, workers can't take that risk.
Mr Offer: Thank you for your presentation. I detected two major areas which you were addressing. First were some of the deficiencies under the Employment Standards Act and what happens with respect to those in those problems.
But on Bill 40, I'm going to ask you to help me out on this, okay? You started off by saying, "The democratic right of employees to choose," and I agree with you. This bill is not about whether unions are good, bad or indifferent. We recognize that workers, men and women in the workforce, have the right to choose to be part of a union. I think the phrase you used was "democratic right to choose." I don't think there's anybody who disagrees with you.
The problem I have is that I don't see this bill, in many ways, helping. I don't see that this bill provides protections to employees to exercise the democratic right to choose, free from coercion and intimidation. I don't see in the bill where all employees in a workplace are given notice of their rights under the Labour Relations Act in whatever way is sensitive to the workplace.
I guess the question I have is a two-parter, and I don't think it will come as a surprise to you or to anybody who has followed the hearings. I don't understand why there is almost an abhorrence to providing workers in workplaces notice of their rights under the Labour Relations Act, notice that an organizing drive has commenced and notice that they are free and able to choose whether to join or not to join a union in a secret ballot vote, fully informed, free from coercion and intimidation -- I believe that can happen -- in a manner that really does embrace the truest principle of democracy. Why is that so unacceptable, if it is?
Ms Lebans: The response I'd like to make to your comments is that, as I think you would agree, there are processes which can, given that rights supposedly exist -- the one you mentioned, the one I mentioned -- allow these rights to be exercised, and processes which interfere with them being exercised.
I've told you, in relation to the Employment Standards Act, that I think it's the same thing as around unionization in many cases. Just as workers, for fear of losing their job, are afraid to exercise their rights to a minimum wage, for example, under the Employment Standards Act, so they are afraid to exercise their right to indicate whether they support a trade union or not. They know that people are fired -- and people are fired -- for exercising that right.
Mr Offer: But it's secret. It's a free choice, with severe penalty to employer or organizer; it's the ability to cast your vote one way or the other. Honestly, I cannot see why there is such an aversion to allowing workers in this province to make that choice, with legislative penalties -- and I believe that -- to the employer. If they're guilty of intimidation or coercion: certification. But there should also be penalties to the organizer, and we've heard even this evening that there are some examples of that taking place. Give the workers protection, give the workers the right to make their choice freely, secretly and fully informed. I can't for the life of me understand why there's such an aversion to that.
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The Chair: Do you want to respond to that?
Ms Lebans: I would just like to say I'm not here tonight to represent trade unions, as you know. I'm here from our experience with non-unionized workers and what happens to them. I think what happens to them should also give us some indication of what happens to them because in their efforts to join a trade union, they're still non-unionized workers at that point and we know of the fear they have about talk about unions.
It is not that fear -- I'm not saying it doesn't exist; I don't know -- that is represented to me, for example, in workshops on employment standards. It's people's fear that they can be fired. If they start to talk with someone else about a union, could they be fired about that? Generally, because I'm not there to represent trade unions, we refer them to places where they can have those questions answered.
Mrs Witmer: Thank you very much, Gayle, for your presentation. I appreciate the sincere representation you've made on behalf of the group of employees you do represent. You mentioned, or I guess you questioned, why there was such controversy. I guess the reason for the controversy is that this government unfortunately introduced an agenda that was union-driven. From the time it was introduced back in March or April of last year, there has not been an opportunity for true consultation on the issue, and we're still dealing with that same union-driven agenda.
I think all of us agree that labour relations need to be reformed.
If the government had brought together labour, government and business and said, "What are the problems. How can we resolve them?" and attempted to do that through consensus and have a win-win, we wouldn't be faced with the very unfortunate situation we face today, where we have extreme polarization on both sides.
Although the government wants to promote harmony in the workplace, I'm afraid the process which it puts in place is going to lead to anything but harmony in the workplace. I think it's going to take years to eliminate the conflict that has been created. It's unfortunate, but that's the situation we find ourselves in.
Gayle, I know what you're speaking about. I know how difficult it is for immigrants. I've just recently met with a group of people who are trying to gain access to trades and professions in this province. They are immigrants, they are doctors, they are tradespeople. No one in this province has listened to them. They cannot find employment. We seem to be closing the doors to those people. How do you think Bill 40 is going to help those individuals to gain employment?
Ms Lebans: There is a Task force on Access to Trades and Professions, and I would think it's the work of the task force to address that issue.
Given that many of those professionals are obliged right now to perform jobs other than the ones for which they were trained perhaps in their country of origin, I would think many of them would also support both enforcement of employment standards -- because that's what many of them are under in those jobs right now -- and also access to the freedom to choose a trade union, if they like, because unfortunately those are the jobs.
Perhaps those aren't the jobs they were trained for originally, but they're in those jobs now where these proposed amendments might be a benefit to them and the enforcement of the Employment Standards Act might be a benefit to them. So I would refer back to the task force, I guess.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms Lebans and the Employment Standards Work Group. You've provided a valuable insight for this committee and obviously you've captured the attention of all the committee members. I trust that your input will be useful to them when they come to consider this bill on a clause-by-clause basis. So thank you kindly. Take care.
PARKDALE COMMUNITY LEGAL SERVICES
The Chair: The next participant is Parkdale Community Legal Services. Please tell us your name and your title, if any.
Ms Sheila Cuthbertson: Good evening. My name is Sheila Cuthbertson. I'm a staff lawyer at Parkdale.
The Chair: And now tell us what you want to about Bill 40.
Ms Cuthbertson: As you may know, I have appeared before this committee on a prior occasion to assist the Coalition for Fair Wages and Working Conditions for Home Workers in its submissions, and I am pleased to be given another opportunity to talk to this committee on behalf of Parkdale Community and Legal Services.
As you may know, Parkdale is a legal aid clinic located in the Parkdale community, and serves the constituents of that community by providing free legal counsel and representation to low-income clientele that is eligible for our services and whose problem falls within the areas of law that we practise.
The division at Parkdale that I work in is called the workers' rights division. I co-lead that division and supervise five law students from Osgoode Hall Law School in that work. The workers' rights division represents non-unionized workers who live and/or work in our community. We represent workers in cases of workers' compensation, unemployment insurance, health and safety, wrongful dismissal, sexual harassment and employment standards.
Buttressing all of our work is the perspective of human rights. We have a great deal of feeling for the anti-racist perspective which we bring to all of our work. The workers we represent generally do not speak English as their first language. They are recent immigrants, visible minorities of both genders, women. They are concentrated largely in low-income, low-paying, low-skilled workplaces such as small manufacturing companies and the cleaning and service industry.
Time and time again, Parkdale has represented these workers in cases where even the most basic employment rights are not being met: Workers are not being paid adequately according to the law; workers are fired arbitrarily and without sufficient termination pay or notice so that they can organize their lives, having been dismissed; workers are working huge amounts of overtime and not being paid for that time, and workers are being dismissed for complaining to their employers about any condition of their work that is in violation of the law.
Parkdale is pleased that the Ministry of Labour has taken it upon itself to propose amendments that will finally change a piece of legislation that is, frankly, out of step in both its procedures and application. Finally, recognition is being paid to the changing face of the workforce in Ontario. Women are entering the workforce in rising numbers. Part-time and casual work is on the increase. Home work has become the employer's new ideal: Transfer the capital costs of doing business to your employees. It is an important step that the Ministry of Labour is taking, a vital step, in promoting a piece of legislation that attempts to better reflect the reality of Ontario's workforce and workplaces.
Parkdale supports the objectives of the amendments in Bill 40, but our unique experience in dealing with unorganized workers gives us a particular view of some of the amendments which go into organizing drives. I've said it before here and I'll say it again, personally and on behalf of Parkdale, we do not perceive these amendments as somehow imposing compulsory unionization upon the unsuspecting workers of Ontario, but rather we perceive these amendments as providing a way in which employers who choose to organize may organize.
Turning to specific amendments that really concern the organizing of a trade union in a workplace, I will say Parkdale firmly believes that the process surrounding the adjudication of unfair labour practices has to be strengthened in the amendments.
The chances of a worker being fired or disciplined for attempting to start a union, for talking union in the workplace, is well documented. We believe the amendments should provide that an employer cannot dismiss or discipline an employee during an organizing drive without permission of the Ontario Labour Relations Board.
Short of that, we believe any process to adjudicate unfair labour practices when they go to disciplining or dismissing employees during an organizing drive has to be expedited so that a message is sent to employers and to workers. Employers will know that you can't do that, that you can't block unionization in your workplace like that, and employees will know it is their right to complain and to start a union.
The use of replacement workers seems to be an extremely controversial subject among business and labour. In our view, the amendments will go some distance in reducing the rancour and hostility on picket lines where struck employers are using replacement workers. However, in our view, they do not go far enough. Under Bill 40, employers can move struck work to other locations as well as contract out the work.
Further, we are disappointed that the discussion paper was changed regarding the employees who can and cannot be used as replacement workers in that workplace. While it is true that these workers can refuse to perform the work, our experience with non-unionized workers is that if they complain or if they refuse, they will be fired, and therefore you set up an untenable situation for these workers.
They risk losing their jobs if they cross the picket line, but by crossing the picket line, you're forcing these workers to get into buses and cross lines that their coworkers have put up to try to attempt to get a union into their workplace. It is our view that if you pass an amendment that says no replacement workers, including non-bargaining-unit workers, that will relieve the pressure on the non-bargaining-unit employees in the workplace.
2010
The configuration of bargaining units has been again left up to the labour relations board, and Parkdale is concerned about that, because the board has a record of not being sensitive to the changing workforce and workplaces today. The amendments, while allowing consolidation of bargaining units, again, as I stated, leave the decision of the configuration up to the labour relations board.
The ministry has also proposed amendments which would create successor rights in addition to the sale-of-business or deemed sale-of-business provisions already in the act. Parkdale is in complete support of the spirit of these amendments.
Parkdale recently finished representing some 115 cleaning women, mostly Portuguese-speaking, who worked for a cleaning company in downtown Toronto and who lost their jobs as a result of a competitor cleaning company winning the contract. All of these workers were laid off. It took Parkdale some four years, a trip to Divisional Court and what seemed like endless negotiations with the company, which the court had found liable to pay severance pay, to finally effect a settlement. These women were laid off in 1987 and we distributed their severance pay in 1992.
We believe that the contracting-out provisions would enable more organizing to happen among those industries which are profoundly unorganized, such as cleaning and service sectors. However, we are concerned about the bargaining rights exemptions, such as the maintenance and production workers, in those provisions being exempted.
I think it is safe to say that those of us who represent non-unionized workers are excited about the proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act. A modernizing of an act that better reflects the reality of the workplaces and workforces can only be a good thing.
However, we do perceive some real weaknesses in the act in some of the provisions which go directly to organizing, to allowing people who choose to be in a union to try and organize a union in the workplace. As I've stated before here, the people I represent day in and day out are not organizing themselves, not necessarily because they don't want to be in unions but because the present law acts now as a barrier to organizing.
Finally, Parkdale urges the government to adhere to its timetable regarding the imposition of these amendments. Thank you for your time tonight.
Mr McGuinty: Thank you, Ms Cuthbertson, for your presentation. One of the concerns my party's been raising -- I guess the opposition, to be fair, has been raising -- for some time now during the course of these hearings is the issue of a free vote, a secret ballot, and as well the possibility that we could include as an amendment to Bill 40 a legislative requirement that the workers be advised of their rights.
Let's deal with the second one first, please. You're working in the workers' rights division?
Ms Cuthbertson: Yes.
Mr McGuinty: You advise workers of their rights day in and day out, and that is seen as not only acceptable in Ontario society today but as something that is good, in fact very good, for people to know and understand what their rights are. Dealing with a worker, why is it not a good thing to advise a worker of his or her rights arising out of an organizing drive?
Ms Cuthbertson: In response to that, I do all the time advise workers of their rights in the workplace, mostly under the Employment Standards Act and the other acts. My experience, though, is that I always deliver my advice with a huge caveat, which is: "These are your rights. If you attempt to enforce them, you will probably lose your job."
The cynicism that Gayle Lebans was talking about recently, and the people I talk to, is very true. Most of the people we represent at Parkdale with employment standards matters have left their jobs, and I have to tell them, when I speak to them in public speaking engagements, which I do all the time: "We have an act. It's got some enforcement powers in it, but if you complain, it's going to take me a long time to get you any compensation, and I certainly won't get your job back for you." It's a shame that's what has to happen.
Mr McGuinty: But under Bill 40 there will be an improvement in the sense that if an employer can be shown to have intimidated or cursed or done anything which is deemed to be contrary to the act, then there will automatic certification.
In response to something else you said as well, you tell your clients: "Look, these are your rights, but really they're not. Not only are they not enforceable, but in fact if you attempt to assert them in the workplace, you're going to suffer some adverse consequences."
Ms Cuthbertson: "You `may' suffer some adverse consequences."
Mr McGuinty: "You may," okay. That's unacceptable to me, and we have to make an effort to put in place some kind of system which is going to ensure that those rights can be asserted --
Ms Cuthbertson: Absolutely.
Mr McGuinty: -- without having any fear whatsoever of adverse consequences. You tell me: What can we put in place to ensure that within the context of this new system?
First of all, the problem is we can't rely on the Ms Cuthbertsons of the world to advise all workers of their rights. We can't rely on the organizers, and we cannot rely on the employers. So we're trying to put a system in place that will ensure that the state will assume, the province will assume some responsibility for this, for getting out the idea that, "You've got some rights here," at the end of the day so that the workers can vote, through a secret ballot. Can you not envision some possibility there? Is that not a worthy goal for us to strive for?
Ms Cuthbertson: Again, I can only speak for the workers that I represent in employment status matters, and I would love to have a system where some resources were thrown at expediting any kind of process where an employer would be taken to task for disciplining or dismissing an employee for complaining -- a reprisal section, basically, that's enforced under the Employment Standards Act.
Similarly, we believe that no employer should discipline or dismiss an employee during an organizing drive without the Ontario Labour Relations Board saying that's okay. Short of that, any adjudicative process that brings the employer to task for doing that has to be expedited. We have to talk speed. The reaction of the government has to be swift. Right now it takes me three months to get an employment standards officer assigned to a case, and if an employee's lost a job as a result of a complaint, I'm never going to get that job back for that employee.
Mr Phillips: Just to follow up a little bit on that: At least two thirds of the employees in the province are non-unionized. I would ask you the question: Do we run a risk if we assume that the only way employees can get their rights is through collective bargaining? I don't buy that, and I find it unacceptable that that be the case. But if I were in the government's shoes, and it has a very strong pro-union bias and I understand that, the three-month delay is in the interests of union organization.
I guess my question is, if we keep heading down the path where we set legislation where the fair workplace is the unionized workplace and we don't have in place mechanisms to ensure that an equally fair workplace exists in a non-unionized workplace, aren't we sowing the seeds of a real problem in our society?
Ms Cuthbertson: Again, I can speak from my experience with the Employment Standards Act, and my experience has been that the more stable a workplace is, the more likely the workers are going to organize themselves in trade unions.
Mr Phillips: They more likely would.
Ms Cuthbertson: They will organize into trade unions.
Mr Phillips: The more stable the workplace.
Ms Cuthbertson: Absolutely. So if there was some enforcement given to the Employment Standards Act, there could be a likelihood of better and greater organizing, because employees who are frightened aren't going to do anything. It's something I've experienced in my position at Parkdale and other areas in my career.
I'm not quite sure what I can say to your question about, "Will it be good for society?" Parkdalers firmly believe that collective bargaining is a good thing for workers, but we also believe that there are a number of workers who will not be encompassed by this amendment package, and that's why we also urge the government to create a broad-based bargaining task force to look into other ways to organize these people into trade unions. To be completely frank with you, we think collective bargaining is a good exercise for workers, but we think the rights of those workers who are non-unionized should also be firmly upheld by the government.
2020
Mrs Marland: I'm finding this meeting this evening very interesting because I'm hearing the Liberal members laying claim to the request for secret ballots on this whole issue of organized drives for unions, and I'm looking at a press release here dated June 23 when Ms Witmer, the Labour critic for the Progressive Conservative Party, asked for a secret ballot. I think Ms Witmer is very flattered, I'm sure, and our caucus is flattered, because now we have support for something that we had certainly brought in.
Mr Hope: Oh, here comes the accord.
Mrs Marland: I think also it's important to place on the record that it was the Liberal Party that said this was the wrong bill at the wrong time, and we're the only party in this province that has said that should Bill 40 pass, our leader has said he will repeal it.
The Chair: You could say that my leader promised public auto insurance.
Mrs Marland: Well, Mr Chairman, I won't touch that because you're very capable of dealing with that yourself.
Ms Murdock: And he does.
Mrs Marland: Parkdale Community Legal Services is a legal aid clinic.
Ms Cuthbertson: That's right.
Mrs Marland: I'm familiar with legal aid clinics in general, and I work very closely with one in my riding which does excellent work. Could you tell me where Parkdale Community Legal Services receives its funding from?
Ms Cuthbertson: We get our funding from the Ontario legal aid plan, which is part of the Attorney General's office, I believe.
Mrs Marland: Which is really the province of Ontario.
Ms Cuthbertson: Yes.
Mrs Marland: Which is the taxpayers of the province.
Ms Cuthbertson: Yes.
Mrs Marland: I'm amazed that you would come before this committee tonight with such a narrow focus on this issue. I think your words were something like, "We're really excited about this bill, those of us who represent non-unionized workers." I'm amazed that since you're funded by the taxpayers of this province, who may have various opinions on this bill, that you can come with only one viewpoint, because I'm sure there would be times when it wouldn't be in the best interests of your clients to focus narrowly on Bill 40. How do you feel that you, in the scope of your responsibility to everyone when you're a publicly funded legal aid clinic, can come before a government legislative committee and say, "This is so exciting, this bill; I'm so enthusiastic about it"?
Ms Cuthbertson: I think my words were that those of us who represent non-unionized workers are excited about the prospect of amending an act which has needed amending for a long time, and we think a lot of work has to be done for those people we represent, who are non-unionized workers. I believe I have the right to address this committee as a person who represents hundreds of people who are non-unionized, low-income people who live in the Parkdale community. I'm not speaking for them; I can only speak anecdotally about each of them and what they say to me. I see the kind of work that they have to do, and I don't think any taxpayers in Ontario would want any of their workers or their family members to have to deal with the kind of lives that my clients deal with day in and day out.
I'm speaking to this committee as a person who represents non-unionized workers, and we are excited about the bill but not necessarily because it's going to impact on our clients that much. We think it's exciting that the government will be changing a bill that has had to be changed for years now to better reflect the changing workforce and workplaces.
Mrs Marland: So if it's not going to reflect on your clients, then you're here making a comment in the abstract in support of the bill.
Ms Cuthbertson: No, I don't think that's fair. I think that I'm making representations that I believe my clients would make. I can't speak for them. That's the problem with unorganized workers. They're not organized; they don't have spokespeople. That's why they're so vulnerable. I can only advocate on their behalf here tonight.
Mrs Marland: How do you feel about a statement which was quoted, actually in the Financial Post, on the 24th of October, 1991, and it says as follows: "Ontario Premier Bob Rae said yesterday that stronger labour unions will enhance the competitiveness and efficiency of business and vowed to press ahead with a controversial overhaul of the Ontario Labour Relations Act.
"`We are going to have to convince people that when we have trade unions involved, when we have mutual respect, it will be better for the competitiveness of the economy,' Rae told a United Steelworkers of America conference in Toronto."
How do you feel about that in terms of employment opportunities for the people who you are representing? You're a lawyer, I assume?
Ms Cuthbertson: Yes, I am.
Mrs Marland: You're obviously a very bright, capable young person and you're sincere about your commitment to your job, your profession and the opportunity that you have. How do you feel about a statement like that made by the Premier of this province in relation to creating employment opportunities for the people who you're concerned about?
Ms Cuthbertson: I'm not sure I'm equipped to deal with that question, unfortunately. I don't know anything about the quote, I don't know anything about the article and I would prefer to have something in context before I comment on it.
The Chair: Mr Hayes, unless you wanted Ms Marland to have some of your time.
Mr Hayes: No, I think she's done sufficient, thank you, Mr Chair.
Mrs Marland: Do I get the same times as the Liberals?
The Chair: If you were to get the same time as the Liberals, I would have cut you off three minutes ago, Ms Marland. Go ahead, Mr Hayes.
Mr Hayes: Thank you, Mr Chair. I'd actually like to help Ms Marland there on some past history because she comments about you being here today and taking the stand that you have, and I compliment you on that, but also when the government was discussing Bill 162, I think it's important for people to know that the previous Liberal government censored the workers' advisory and the employers' advisory not to come to the committee and discuss the bill. Who better would know than those people who work directly with compensation and things of that nature?
Mrs Marland: I sat on those hearings, Pat, and they came.
Mr Hayes: You had your turn, Ms Marland.
There's talk about the imbalance. Some people say the imbalance of power, this legislation is giving workers too much balance. I'd like to ask your opinion on that, and maybe give us some specific cases because we hear that there is abuse from the other side, from unions or organizers, but those people have never brought up any specific cases. Could you give us some specific cases where people have been harassed or fired or intimidated or coerced because they chose to or attempted to form a union or join a union?
Ms Cuthbertson: Parkdale, as I said, only represents non-unionized workers. We've had a number of incidents where the workers have come to us, again in the Employment Standards Act context, but they have complained about the working conditions in their plants, in their workplaces, and they have been summarily dismissed or they have been harassed as a result.
In terms of your question, I can only talk about hearsay. I don't have any knowledge personally, but I am well aware of stories like that.
Mr Hayes: Yes, okay. Thank you very much.
Mr Wood: Thank you for making an excellent presentation. Just briefly on the workplaces and the workforce, I'm sure you're aware, in your presentation you've talked about it, how they've drastically changed over the last 15 or 20 years and where there are more women, minority groups in the servicing sector and retail sector and domestics and things of this kind. I just wanted to know if you wanted to comment, with Bill 40 being brought forward, if it will remove some of the barriers you feel as far as organizing and giving them the opportunity, if they so desire, to organize.
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Ms Cuthbertson: Yes, my experience at Parkdale has been that the workforce is ever-changing, in terms of its personnel and also in terms of the origins of the people involved, the gender of the people involved, and the kind of work these people are doing. Bill 40 in its present state -- and I said in my submission that we hope some parts of it are strengthened through this process rather than kept -- would facilitate the organizing into unions of these workers who are most vulnerable if they really want to organize into unions. And, as I stated, we think the replacement worker provisions are good.
Mr Wood: In your opinion, in the present situation without Bill 40, is there a fair balance between employer and employee at this time?
Ms Cuthbertson: In my opinion, no. I have had some experience with organizing drives in a past life, so to speak, and my experience has been that employees who attempt to organize are given a very rough ride by employers who do not want unions in their workplaces.
Mr Ward: The critics of Bill 40 in essence say, "Eliminate the bill completely, it's a bad bill," and suggest that the implementation of a secret ballot would solve all our problems.
When I put my rose-coloured glasses on and take a simplistic approach to this, it makes sense that an employer would welcome a union organizer into the workplace. They'd stand side by side. The trade union representative would express the benefits of a union. The employer would express the benefits of having the status quo, or a non-union shop. The employees would take both sides and vote by marking an X one way or the other.
When you take off the rose-coloured glasses and enter the real world, we hear mounting evidence of intimidation, of coercion by employers who are resistant to having their employees vote or agree to have a trade union represent them.
In your experience, do you think we can ever legislate out intimidation and coercion by employers who are resistant to having their employees collectively say, "We want a trade union to represent us"? Do you think we could ever legislate that out, eliminate it completely, in the real world?
Ms Cuthbertson: In my opinion, in the real world, probably not. It's a risk. First of all, there has to be some process by which the organizer is brought into the workplace, which means that someone in the workplace has contacted the organizer. In all likelihood, that person will be discovered. The likelihood of that person being discovered is quite good, and that person will be fired or dismissed or disciplined in some way. Our fear is that employers can also discipline and harass employees in many different ways and for many different reasons, and they don't necessarily have to put the label of union organizing on it in order to harass them and discipline them. I think it would be very difficult to truly legislate out coercion and intimidation.
In terms of the amendments, as I said in my submission, if a person is dismissed or disciplined during an organizing drive, that shouldn't be able to happen without the permission of the Ontario Labour Relations Board. There should be a hearing set up about it.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms Cuthbertson. The committee wants to thank you for being here with us this evening and for sharing your views. You've made a valuable contribution to the process of this committee and we are grateful to you and of course to Parkdale Community Legal Services. We sincerely thank you. Take care.
Mr Offer: Mr Chair, being distributed now by the clerk is --
The Chair: Are you making a motion?
Mr Offer: Yes, I am, and that motion is now being distributed by the clerk.
The Chair: Mr Offer moves that this committee request the House leaders to amend the motion moved by Mr Cooke on July 14 detailing the dates and times of sittings for the purpose of clause-by-clause consideration of Bill 40.
Do you want to speak to that?
Mr Offer: Yes, if I may. After coming back from the hearings, I wanted to read the motion by Mr Cooke, with a view to seeing when amendments had to come in. I'll read from that:
"Further, that the committee be authorized to meet for clause-by-clause consideration of the bill following routine proceedings on the first eight sessional days of the fall meeting." That's what the motion says.
Then I took a look -- and I beg the indulgence of the members of the committee, because to me this is a very important motion -- at when it is anticipated the fall session commences, and that is going to be September 28. That would mean, according to my interpretation of the motion, that we would be deliberating clause-by-clause on this bill September 28, 29 and 30 and October 1, 5, 6, 7 and 8.
As members will know, I'm the Labour critic for my party and have been in this debate since day one. September 28 and 29, as well as the better part of the afternoon of October 6 and all of October 7, for myself are very sombre religious observance days, when I will not be able to be in attendance. We have a motion which does not allow any discretion save by, in my opinion, a request by this committee to amend that deliberation. I make that motion and ask for that request.
The Chair: Is there need for any further debate?
Mrs Marland: Mr Chairman, just to speak on behalf of our caucus, we are very sympathetic to the concern that has been raised by Mr Offer. In fact, we in our caucus are concerned to the degree that we question the House resuming on Monday, September 28. It's Rosh Hashana, and we felt that was an inappropriate day for this House to sit in Ontario.
Because I'm not the House leader for our party, I'm not sure where that negotiation is going. I know the House leaders have had one meeting already, and I'm optimistic that the concern that is raised by Mr Offer -- justifiably so, as he said on his own behalf, as critic for the Liberal Party on labour law. But I think that for everyone we should be looking for the House leaders to amend even the sitting date on the 28th.
I'm wondering how the wording of this motion before us really addresses the concern you have raised, Mr Offer. You're asking them to amend the motion detailing the dates and times of the sittings for the purpose of clause-by-clause consideration, but you have verbally outlined what the amendment would be. Are you suggesting that this motion is sufficient direction to the House leaders?
The Chair: I would think Mr Offer has been very generous and charitable in his wording of this motion and has been cautious to avoid embarrassing anybody. I thought he was being very gracious in the wording of the motion.
Mrs Marland: Just asking them to amend it, and it will be brought to their attention why it's necessary.
The Chair: One would think a wink would be as good as a nod.
Mrs Marland: Well, I don't believe in winking and nodding with any --
The Chair: We are talking about House leaders, aren't we?
Mrs Marland: Yes, we are, and we had so much winking and nodding, Mr Chairman, that this House sat for four additional weeks this summer. If the mover of the motion is happy with the wording, fine, but I would have preferred to see more specific direction given to the House leaders.
The Chair: Ms Murdock, you'll speak briefly to this?
Ms Murdock: Yes, very briefly. On the basis Mr Offer has stated, I can certainly understand, but I'd still like to check with my minister, if that is satisfactory. Can we table this till tomorrow, Mr Offer?
Mrs Marland: Mr Chairman, may I respond to Ms Murdock?
The Chair: You sure can.
Mrs Marland: You're the parliamentary assistant, aren't you?
Ms Murdock: Yes.
Mrs Marland: I hope the proposed changes to labour law in this province aren't going to supersede the very straightforward request this motion makes. I can't imagine that you would have to speak to your minister to ask whether it's okay if we delay the passage of this bill because of the celebration of a religious festival of the Jewish people in this province. I would hope it isn't necessary for us to table this motion.
I'm not even a regular member of this committee and my critic isn't here, but I feel perfectly safe supporting this motion, because I know our caucus is fully sympathetic to the request this motion is addressing.
Mr Offer: The only thing I would say with respect to the response by the parliamentary assistant is that the motion requests the House leaders to amend the motion. It's not within our power to amend it ourselves. This committee is not saying what day it is to be changed to; it is a request by this committee to ask the House leaders to change the dates. I've listened to what the parliamentary assistant has said. I must say I'm a little uncomfortable that that's actually necessary in terms of a request, but so be it.
Ms Murdock: Mr Chair, I'd ask for a five-minute recess.
The Chair: The committee is recessed for five minutes.
The committee recessed at 2042.
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The Chair: Ms Murdock, did you want to speak to Mr Offer's motion?
Ms Murdock: No, other than to say that my move for deferral still stands.
The Chair: So you're moving for a what?
Ms Murdock: Tabling of this until tomorrow.
The Chair: A tabling of it?
Ms Murdock: If I may.
The Chair: To what time tomorrow?
Ms Murdock: End of the day, I guess.
The Chair: The end of the day, or the 5 o'clock pre-supper slot or the 12 o'clock pre-noon slot?
Ms Murdock: The 5 o'clock would be fine.
Mr Huget: Might I add that we recognize the seriousness of Mr Offer's request? The tabling of this till tomorrow will give us an opportunity to deal with it, because it is a very serious request and a legitimate one and we want to give it the respect it deserves.
The Chair: Mr Offer, do you want to comment? Are you prepared to consent to a deferral?
Mr Offer: Well, I'm surprised, but certainly we could defer this until tomorrow.
The Chair: Thank you kindly for your cooperation; 5 o'clock tomorrow.
Mrs Marland: Is there a vote on a deferral?
The Chair: Not when the mover of the motion consents to it.
Mrs Marland: Is this motion tabled or deferred?
The Chair: Merely deferred until 5 o'clock tomorrow.
Mrs Marland: Because Ms Murdock said "tabled." Tabled is a motion and it needs a motion to bring it back. I want to be very clear about what happens to this motion tomorrow, and I want to be very clear what's happened to it tonight.
The Chair: I want to be equally clear. Mr Offer has very generously consented to his motion being deferred until 5 o'clock tomorrow. He being the mover of that motion, in my view that's all that need be done. That motion will be returned to at 5 o'clock tomorrow, regardless of what else is taking place, for a debate and/or a vote.
Mrs Marland: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, people. Take care. We're adjourned till 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.
The committee adjourned at 2051.