UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS, CANADA
UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA
ENERGY AND CHEMICAL WORKERS UNION, LOCAL 513
HAMILTON AND DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL
CARPENTERS AND ALLIED WORKERS, LOCAL 27
TORONTO-CENTRAL ONTARIO BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION TRADES COUNCIL
ONTARIO SHEET METALWORKERS' AND ROOFERS' CONFERENCE
INTERNATIONAL LADIES' GARMENT WORKERS' UNION
CONTENTS
Thursday 6 August 1992
Labour Relations and Employment Statute Law Amendment Act, 1992, Bill 40
United Food and Commercial Workers, Canada
Tom Kukovica, Canadian director
United Steelworkers of America
Leo Gerard, national director
Energy and Chemical Workers Union, Local 513
Christine Leonard, president
Dave D. Moffatt, national representative
Hamilton and District Labour Council
Maureen McCarthy, vice-president
Bob Sutton, executive member
Ontario Nurses' Association
Dan Anderson, director, labour relations
Mary Jane Christianson, president
Carpenters and Allied Workers, Local 27
John Teffer, business representative
Mike Yorke, business representative
Fairweather
Carol Cox, vice-president, human resources, Dylex Ltd
David Posluns, corporation secretary; chief financial office, Dylex Ltd
Toronto-Central Ontario Building and Construction Trades Council
John Cartwright, business manager
Southam Inc
Russell Mills, president, Southam Newspaper Group
John Simpson, director, corporate affairs
Ontario Sheet Metal Workers' and Roofers' Conference
Jerry Raso, legal counsel
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
Alexandra Dagg, manager, Ontario region
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:
*Carr, Gary (Oakville South/-Sud PC) for Mr Jordan
*Cleary, John C. (Cornwall L) for Mr Conway
*Fletcher, Derek (Guelph ND) for Mr Dadamo
*McLean, Allan K. (Simcoe East/-Est PC) for Mr Turnbull
*Ward, Brad (Brantford ND) for Mr Waters
*In attendance / présents
Clerk pro tem / Greffier par intérim: Decker, Todd
Staff / Personnel:
Anderson, Anne, research officer, Legislative Research Service
Fenson, Avrum, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1000 in room 151.
LABOUR RELATIONS AND EMPLOYMENT STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 MODIFIANT DES LOISEN 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.
The Chair (Mr Peter Kormos): Good morning. It's 10 o'clock and we're ready to resume these hearings into the amendments to the Ontario Labour Relations Act. I want to tell people that these are public hearings. Today is the last day of hearings this week. They'll resume again on Monday morning at 10 am, carrying through to Thursday of next week.
The public is invited and encouraged to attend here at Queen's Park, room 151. As well, transcripts by way of Hansard of any or all of the submissions are available to the public by calling the clerk of the resources development committee or any MPP's office. Similarly, any of the submissions that will become exhibits are available to the public.
UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS, CANADA
The Chair: The first participants this morning are the United Food and Commercial Workers. Welcome and good morning. Please introduce yourselves, tell us your names and your titles, and then proceed with your submission. Please try to keep your submission to less than the first half of the half-hour so that we have adequate time for dialogue, questions and, sometimes, interesting debate.
Mr Tom Kukovica: Thank you, Mr Chairperson. Let me introduce ourselves. With me are Sue Yates, the international representative, who before becoming a full-time representative was a part-time cashier at Zehrs, and John Tremble from our national office, on a secondment from Labour Canada, as our research person. I am Tom Kukovica, the newly elected Canadian director of UFCW and previously a UFCW representative in Quebec for 16 years, and a food clerk previous to that.
It's not my intention to read the brief. You have it in front of you. You have, really, two briefs: the complete brief and an executive summary. I'd like to make some general comments and then specifically deal with three areas of great importance and concern to the UFCW. I will be making some comments in French, so please forgive me because my mother tongue is a little bit more French than English.
I'll be dealing with three specific subjects: anti-scab legislation; geographic relocation and part-time/full-time bargaining rights; and, one of the most important, the last one, the successor rights, which is an important issue for the UFCW.
Our brief contains two appendices for your information. Appendix 1 we have attached because we're part of the Task Force on Agricultural Labour Relations, so the recommendations are there. Appendix 2 has some labour board decisions on successor rights as they pertain to the sales of assets instead of the sales of business, which is a great concern to UFCW.
Let me, as some general comments, tell you that UFCW is pleased to have the opportunity to appear before you. United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, UFCW Canada, is Canada's largest private sector union, representing some 175,000 workers in this country. UFCW members are employed in more than 20 sectors of the economy, one of our largest sectors being the retail and including service, meat packing, food processing, brewing and beverage production and distribution, fishing, general merchandising, health care, shoe and leather and the banking industry. UFCW in Ontario represents more than 70,000 men and women.
Our union strongly supports reform of the act and commends the government for its efforts to ensure that the reform process continues to move forward as expeditiously as possible. The proposed reforms are essential if we are to address the fundamental changes in Ontario's economy that have occurred over the past 15 years since the act was last amended.
The business community is apparently oblivious to this reality and has chosen to be anything but constructive in its response to the proposed changes. Their tack has been to launch a vitriolic, offensive campaign consisting of misinformation, fearmongering, questionable public opinion polls and more. This campaign has only served to create a negative image of Ontario's economy, not only in Canada but around the world.
The proposed legislation is neither radical nor revolutionary; it's merely attempting to provide basic rights to workers in a modern economy of a democratic society. The reforms are designed to bring the province of Ontario into step with legislation which, for the most part, already exists in other jurisdictions in Canada.
Let me now deal with the anti-scab legislation, or the replacement workers. We would like to commend the Minister of Labour for his proposed amendments in this important area. While this section of the proposed legislation has solicited many negative reactions verging on hysteria from employers, we believe the amendments go a long way towards creating fair, more balanced rules for workers who opt for legal strikes and who are victims of an employer lockout.
Mon expérience dans la province de Québec surtout, où j'ai été représentant avant la loi anti-scab et après la loi anti-scab -- je peux vous assurer que l'expérience que j'ai vécue dans cette province, lorsque le gouvernement péquiste de Réné Lévesque a introduit la législation anti-scab, a eu l'effet très bénéfique de trois facteurs.
Premièrement, il a réduit totalement la violence sur les piquets de grève, de façon dramatique.
Deuxièmement, il a créé un climat de négociation où on a pu régler, à 99,9 % presque, chacune des conventions collectives sans avoir recours à la grève ou à un lockout, parce que ça incitait les partis à être beaucoup plus raisonnables, à être beaucoup plus attentifs chacun de son côté aux attentes des deux partis. La menace à ce moment-là de la grève ou d'un lockout a donné certainement de la sécurité aux deux parties : à la partie syndicale parce qu'il n'y avait plus de briseurs de grève et qu'on ne pouvait pas engager des personnes pour faire l'emploi de ces gens-là ; et à l'employeur parce que ça lui donnait certainement un signe, de dire qu'il fallait qu'il s'assoie sérieusement à la table de négociations pour régler ce contrat-là au lieu de recourir à des tactiques autrement.
Le troisième facteur qui est très important, à mon sens, et qui a créé tout un remous en Ontario, c'est que tout le monde parle de chiffres fantastiques, qu'il n'y aura plus d'investissements en Ontario, qu'on va perdre tous les investissements étrangers et qu'on n'aura plus de coopération entre l'employeur et le syndicat.
L'expérience québécoise, laissez-moi vous dire, parce que j'en ai vécu de première main, m'a indiqué tout simplement que c'est totalement faux. Aujourd'hui, j'ai des employeurs que je représente en Ontario qui me disent : «Bien, si on ne règle pas, je vais m'en aller au Québec.» Je leur dis : «Si tu t'en vas au Québec, mon cher monsieur, il y a la loi anti-scab. Comment...Tu fonctionnes très bien», et ils disent : «Je n'ai pas de problème avec la loi anti-scab.» Alors, toute cette perception qu'il n'y aura plus d'investissements et que ça va être négatif pour le commerce et que ça va être négatif pour l'industrie et pour l'économie de l'Ontario est totalement fausse.
Au Québec, ça a créé toute une nouvelle façon d'avoir de la coopération entre l'employeur et les syndicats. C'est de la concertation qu'il y a. Il y a des tables de concertation, pas seulement sur la négociation, pas seulement sur la convention collective mais sur l'économie du Québec, sur des points principaux. Alors, ça a créé un climat très important, très bénéfique. Je voudrais rassurer tous les employeurs dans la province de l'Ontario qui ont des peurs fantastiques que c'est tout à fait illogique.
There are three concerns we have with the anti-scab legislation which we would like to point out to you. The first one is the requirement that during a strike vote, you're saying that at least 60% of those voting support strike actions before the restriction of hiring replacement workers will apply. We respectively submit that, as in Quebec, a simple majority of those voting should be the rule. Unions are very democratic organizations, and a simple majority should be sufficient.
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The second aspect that we feel should be included in your draft is that during a strike or lockout, employers should be prohibited from using supervisors and employees outside the striking bargaining unit who are employed at the strike location. We totally agree with the other aspect, that of emergencies, and we have no problem with that. I can tell you that in Quebec that works very well.
The third area that we would like to point out to you in a strike is the definition of a "strike." On several occasions, the government has indicated its commitment to allowing employers and workers to agree on terms and conditions of employment without intervention from outside parties. That definition refers to a strike as any work slowdown or stoppage engaged in by two persons or more on a concerted basis, regardless -- and I think that's what we want to point out to you -- of whether the parties have negotiated the right to engage in that activity under the collective agreement. We find that there are two different definitions because that same definition doesn't apply to a lockout.
Let me now go to the second point of our concerns, which is geographic relocation. UFCW Canada believes that a trade union's bargaining rights and employees' rights which have accrued under a collective agreement should not end when an employer decides to relocate in Ontario. Therefore, UFCW Canada recommends that the board be given the power to amend the geographic description in the certificate or recognition clause of the collective agreement in appropriate circumstances.
This provision will apply only to a situation where the employer has no existing employees at the new location and to any situation where at least 50% of the newly constituted workforce consists of employees previously employed at the old location. The act should spell out some of the recommendations that we are putting forward:
Establish a statutory right of workers to be offered employment at the new geographic location where any of the work performed at the old location is transferred; require reasonable advance notice of transfer, at least six months; provide full protection of the bargaining unit and the existing collective agreement where 50% or more of the newly constituted workforce consists of employees from the old location. The date should be the date until the location is completed.
The board should be empowered to hold a representation vote to determine if a majority of the old employees at the new location favour the incumbent trade union where less than 50% of the employees from the old location exercise the right to relocate. We believe that is an area you should be looking at.
UFCW probably represents more part-time and more women than any other union in this country and in Ontario. We commend the government for introducing the part-time /full-time and appropriate bargaining units. As the UFCW represents a large number of those workers in the service industry, which is characterized by a large proportion of part-time workers, the traditional separation of full- and part-time employees into different bargaining units is clearly no longer applicable today and only serves to deny bargaining rights to women, who make up the majority of the part-time workforce.
Let me just point out to you something so you understand what the service or retail industry is. In the 1960s, there used to be 40% part-time, 60% full-time. In the 1970s, it was 60% part-time and 40% full-time. In the 1980s, we went to 70% part-time, 30% full-time. In the 1990s, if you think there are a lot of full-time people in the retail sector, you are totally wrong. It's up to 85% and 90% part-time people working whom we represent in the retail industry and service industry.
We strongly support the Minister of Labour's proposed amendment which will direct the board to find a single unit of full-time and part-time units appropriate for collective bargaining. This will strengthen the ability of part-time employees to negotiate improved benefits, compensation levels and job security, aspects which are critically lacking under the current legislation.
Let me now deal with the last issue, the successor rights, which is probably one of the most important issues that we want to raise because we have been hurt as a union more than anybody else in this area and we are really concerned about the amendments to this area, because they don't go far enough in the problem we're living.
The UFCW is concerned, however, that the proposed amendments will not adequately deal with situations where there has only been a sale of assets and a purchaser conducts similar business activities on the same premises. Under the current act, this kind of transfer has not generally been deemed to be covered by successor rights, and you have in appendix 2 a whole example of board decisions where somebody has moved out of a food store or a retail outlet in a shopping plaza and there was no sale of business as such. If it was a Miracle Food Mart store or an A&P store and now it's a Super Tops food store, the only thing they bought was maybe some shelves and they sublet the premises.
If the employer had other stores in the province or in the area, the people we represented in that store were moved to other locations, and now this new employer is still doing the same kind of business. It's a food store again, no change, and he's attracting the same customers as the previous one. The board has found that it's not a sale of business, it's a sale of assets. So each and every time there is a closure of a store and somebody buys that store and puts out the same kind of operation, we're out and we can't represent those workers.
That is tragic, especially for us, where that's exactly our rule that we have to live with, and those are the issues. On almost every day there is a sale of assets but there is no sale of business, and we find ourselves in a position where we have to go back and organize that store again and again. We want successor rights.
What we are proposing to you is this, in section 64: "`sale of business' includes a significant sale of assets to an employer where the employees are engaged in types of or similar work at the same premises the vendor of the assets conducted its business."
It's one of the important amendments that we're looking for, because it's not there.
The Chair: Thank you, sir. Mr Carr, four minutes.
Mr Gary Carr (Oakville South): I'll go first. I want to thank you very much for your presentation. Tom and I had a chance to work together at the last Conservative convention in Ontario on the Sunday shopping issue and he was very helpful in trying to bring ideas forward. So again, I want to thank you very much for your presentation today. Unfortunately, that battle was not won, but I guess maybe it's not done yet in your eyes.
I was interested in the fact that you talked about that, as a union, you're in favour of the democratic process. I was interested in your comments on the secret ballot for certification. Are you in favour of the principle of a secret ballot for certification of a union?
Mr Kukovica: I think it's an insult to the working men and women of Ontario, or of any place, to think that when you as a union go out and canvass and organize and sign people up, the people can't make an intelligent decision based on the facts they have, which we give in full. We give our constitution, we give our bylaws, we give our structures and we give all kinds of pamphlets that we have here that we can show you. We give all the facts, so the people who are making that determination and are signing that card are making a very intelligent decision. I think that is the decision they are making, so if 50% -- that's our belief, not even 55% -- but if 55% of the people sign those cards, I don't see why we need a vote.
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Why are we targeting only unions? When a company president joins the chamber of commerce and signs that application to join, is there a vote? By whom? When a medical professional or any other professional signs an application to join a professional group, is there a vote? When you join the Liberal Party or the Conservative Party, is there a vote? You are making a decision based on the facts, based on what you believe is the right decision. If the majority of those people decide -- and here it's 55%; in other jurisdictions it's 50% plus one -- I think it's an intelligent decision people are making and I believe we don't need those kinds of votes.
Mr Carr: But surely -- and your union might be one that does give all the information -- one of the reasons we introduced the provision for automatic certification at businesses is that if they get involved and intimidate, the penalty is automatic certification. Businesses would come before them and say, "Of course, we're a good company and we care for our employees," exactly like you did. There may be some unions that don't. Intimidation tactics could be used. They may not tell people what exactly they're signing, particularly when there's no money involved.
I have a big problem with your saying, "We're a democratic union," and yet through secret ballot, where there can be no intimidation by either side, you get the true wishes of the people. As I said in my speech, I don't always like what happens in an election. September 6 wasn't exactly what I like in terms of an election, except what happened in Oakville South, but in the process, through secret ballot, you get the true wishes of the people.
The statistics I've seen have shown that we're approximately where we should be in terms of the number of people who want to join unions and the ones who do not. The last poll I saw was about 61-37 -- 61% don't; 37% do -- and that's historically where we are.
Mr Derek Fletcher (Guelph): Thank you for your presentation, and I'll get right to the point. You've had a lot of experience in Quebec and we've heard a lot of the stories about how Quebec laws aren't working. Can you let me know what your experience is with the Quebec law as far as replacement workers are concerned and how you feel the law is working as far as you're concerned? Without comparing it to what we're proposing, what is happening?
Mr Kukovica: I have lived in Ontario since 1984, but before that my experience with anti-scab legislation was in Quebec. For a while we had the problem of people who were not part of the bargaining unit. There was an amendment put forward in 1984 or 1985 where we had a problem with people who were not in that bargaining unit coming in and replacing people in that bargaining unit. There was that problem. That was corrected.
Since then, the experience of Quebec, at least for us in UFCW, is that we have had really minimal strikes. As I said, I think both parties realize they have to get a collective agreement. If you are in retail food, if you have to close the store, there is no money coming in, so it has made both parties have greater respect and they are coming into negotiations with a much greater interest in dealing with the issues, instead of trying to say, "I'm going to strike," or, "I'm going to lock you out," and there being violence on the picket line. That has all gone. If you're asking me if there has been any negative impact on the business, let me tell you, absolutely not.
Mr Brad Ward (Brantford): Tom, I'd like to thank you for your excellent brief. I think it's an example of the very professional staff that you have in preparing it. In my own example in Brantford, one of my best friends, Brian Noonan, is well respected in the community and is an excellent representative of the UFCW as well.
My question is more on the changing workforce. We all recognize that it has changed dramatically since the 1970s, that the labour laws in this province have not been updated significantly since then. What we're trying to do, as a government here in Ontario, is foster greater cooperation among labour, business and government. We think that is the correct direction to take if we're going to tackle the economic challenges we're facing in the 1990s and into the 21st century.
Why do you feel it's important for working people, if they are represented by trade unions, to be involved in shaping society, in working with business and government in tackling the economic problems we're facing? Why do you feel it's important to be a player at the table in these very important discussions and policies that will be shaped now and in the future?
Mr Kukovica: Because I think we believe that unions and the working men and women of Ontario are the greatest assets of our economy and they have to be part of that decision-making process of consultation.
We at UFCW strongly believe in dialogue, in being full partners, and that is one of the biggest difficulties we have with the business community. Not all, because we have some examples of good cooperation with some of our major employers where we have some final consultation processes going on: the public policy forum we just did on the grocery product manufacturing industry, where we took all those employers and ourselves and are working towards finding solutions to the problems in the grocery industry and trying to cooperate together.
We're doing the same thing with the retail food industry, where we are shaping and trying to come up with ideas on how to bring about better cooperation, better understanding, on how we can invest more dollars in the economy, how to open new stores.
So we are part of that process, I think. As long as the employers and the business community give us that respect and say that we are equal partners, I think that will be the success of the economy of Ontario. That's the difficulty we always have, because employers don't recognize unions as legitimate partners in the economy. That's our difficulty, and I hope one of these days they will recognize that.
Mr Dalton McGuinty (Ottawa South): Thank you for your presentation. One of the things that was put forward by the Ontario Federation of Labour -- and I see you've adopted that position, or you may have come up with it independently -- is the position you're taking with respect to successor rights. I must say that without having given it too much thought, I'm attracted to the proposals contained in Bill 40, and it seems, on the face of it, fair that a business person buying a business should be required to step into the shoes of the previous owner and be held responsible or accountable for any of the liabilities associated with the business, and have to step into the shoes in terms of any proceedings that were ongoing with the union.
However, you want to extend this further. This is rather revolutionary and I don't believe this is in place in any other jurisdiction, unless I'm mistaken.
Mr Kukovica: It is in Quebec.
Mr McGuinty: In the province of Quebec?
Mr Kukovica: Absolutely. There is no problem in the province of Quebec with that.
Mr McGuinty: Traditionally, business people have always had two choices. They can buy the business as a going concern, with all the inherent liabilities, or they can buy the goods, buy the assets. But what you're suggesting is that we're going to remove that choice. There are always going to have to be some associated liabilities, and I don't really like to use that word, but they're going to have to buy the workforce, so to speak. That'll come as part of the package.
We're removing a bit of the flexibility that has, to this date, been present in the marketplace. Do you not see that as some kind of restriction on the freedom of the business to just simply buy assets?
Mr Kukovica: When you say buying the assets, they have to carry the workers. You have to understand that workers, in some instances, are no longer there. What we're asking is such right to the premises where the business is conducting the same kind of business. You have to remember that if a Steinberg's or an A&P store or a Loblaw's store which is in a mall is subletting or leasing that space and suddenly decides, for whatever reason, to close that and say, "I'm going out of here," and somebody else comes in, say, Super Tops, and puts that store in there, it's the same business. It's still a retail food store. What we say is: "That's our case. That's our history. That's how it operates in Ontario."
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We need the successor rights because we had a collective agreement there and it's the same kind of work. When we got certified, we got certified for that kind of work, for that kind of industry. We're not asking you, if that store operates something different, to allow us successor rights. We're saying if it's the same or similar kind of business. If it's a retail food store, what's the difference? Now the sign is not A&P, it's Super Tops, but they haven't bought the business; they just bought the assets. That's what happens in reality in retail. You very seldom see the sale of a business. You'll see more a sale of assets.
Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): Thank you for the presentation. In the area of replacement workers, one of the shortfalls you outlined was that in the context of democracy, a simple majority of members voting should be sufficient. My question is not on that issue but on that same principle, the issue of part-time/full-time workers.
Under the legislation if, for instance, there is a workforce of 100 individuals of which 75 are full-time and 25 are part-time, and if 55 of the 75 full-time workers vote in favour of a combined unit and no part-time worker wishes to be part, then under this bill they will still be part. I wonder if you can help me out as to how we can reconcile that principle of majority with the aspect of section 6 dealing with the full-time/part-time combined unit.
Mr Kukovica: My understanding -- and you may correct me -- is that if you have 55% of the full-time and you don't have 55% overall, the board cannot combine them. If you have 55% overall, then there is a combination.
In your example then -- it has to be 75 to 25 equals 100 -- you have to have 55 people. But you say, "What happens if only 55 are full-time and only those are signing?" Then that's the reality. We believe in democracy. You have to understand the historical reasoning behind the full-time /part-time, why two bargaining units, which was done years ago for no good reason. The only reason the board found was that both groups did not have the same interests.
The reality today is that those two groups have the same interests. They are working in the same premises. A customer could not differentiate between a part-time cashier and a full-time cashier. They are both doing absolutely the same work but don't have the same rate of pay and don't have the same benefits. That's the biggest problem, because the board has always split the part-time and full-time unit. What we're saying now is that when you organize a unit or a store, if you have the majority, whatever the composition is, if you have 55% of the full workforce, I think that is a very democratic principle and you have the majority of the workforce.
In your example, where you said it's going to be 75% full-time and 25% part-time, I think you should reverse your example, because it's usually the reverse.
The Chair: Thank you, sir. I want to thank you, Sue Yates, Tom Kukovica and John Tremble, for coming here this morning and speaking on behalf of the United Food and Commercial Workers. Obviously your membership is a significant constituency which has a vital interest in this legislation. We appreciate your interest and their interest and your willingness to participate. We trust you'll be keeping in touch.
Mr Kukovica: Thank you very much. You'll be receiving a French copy of the submission very shortly.
UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA
The Chair: The next participant is the United Steelworkers of America national office, Leo Gerard, national director. Perhaps you'll seat yourself at a mike. Please start with your comments, sir, and try to leave some time at the end of the half-hour for dialogue.
Mr Leo Gerard: I certainly want to leave some time hopefully for a constructive exchange of views. I should identify myself. I am Leo Gerard, national director of the United Steelworkers of America. I also am a member of the Premier's Council on Economic Renewal -- not only the current one, but the previous one -- since its formation and have spent a lot of that time thinking about industrial strategy and workplace reorganization and restructuring.
I also want to tell those who may not know that the United Steelworkers of America is a union that is very diverse, represents almost every sector of our economy and has about 160,000 members and that all the elected officers of our union are elected by a referendum vote of the membership.
I also want to let you know that my colleague, district director Harry Hynd, will be making additional comments on what I would call these more substantive issues of the legislation. As well, my understanding is that as of today about 150 to 160 individual Steelworkers members have asked to appear before this committee. I hope you give each and every one of them half an hour. I'm sure they have something constructive to add.
My comments will be, I think, much more in the line of some of the underlying principles that are in the proposed Bill 40. I think that for many people this is not simply an issue of labour law reform, but an issue of fundamental democratic principles that allow workers the only proven vehicle in a democratic society that allows them to participate, on an ongoing basis, in decision-making in their workplace: the collective bargaining process.
I would point out to members of the committee that it's fairly well accepted internationally that a symptom or an example of the level of your democracy is the ability of workers to participate in collective bargaining. I would suggest to you that you cannot find free democratic collective bargaining in undemocratic societies. The collective bargaining process itself is an example of the expression of democracy, of allowing workers to participate through the collective bargaining process and have a voice in collective bargaining issues, workplace issues, and now the Supreme Court of Canada also says that in political action, workers are allowed to do that.
I imagine that not very many people in this room will be surprised that I, personally, and my union support Bill 40. I would also be on record to say there are many areas where we think it doesn't go far enough, and it's already gone through probably the most elaborate, ongoing consultation that has ever happened to a piece of legislation, certainly in my adult lifetime, or has been in the public eye longer than anything I could imagine.
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You've heard from the president of the Ontario Federation of Labour. We support his position and the position of the Ontario Federation of Labour.
I want to be on record, personally and on behalf of my union, to register with this committee our complete dismay at the level of attack on the trade union movement itself and the concept of unionization by the business community, by the opposition parties and in fact by some members of this committee. The record will be very clear that this is not an attack on labour law reform; it appears to be an attack on the labour movement.
Those who would argue that somehow this legislation tips the balance of power clearly have no understanding of what a balance of power is. When it takes six, seven, 12, 15, 18 months for workers to get certified and then almost as long, in many instances, to get a collective agreement, please don't preach to me about the balance of power when the fact is that workers have to sneak around in back alleys and washrooms in the dark of night to sign a card to join a union, which is recognized as an expression of democracy, for fear of getting fired, harassed and punished. Don't talk to me about tipping the balance of power, please.
I also want to say to you that our union has done a lot of work in looking at comparative economic models. Those who would attack the fundamental right of workers to join unions, those who would attack the right of those workers to participate constructively in collective bargaining and legislative reform are, in many cases, I want to remind all of this committee, the same people leading the same corporations or different people leading the same corporations, who beat up workers and who harassed workers when unions were being formed.
They're the same employers and employer groups who, in the early 1970s, said we would destroy Ontario's economy if we dared to give workers joint health and safety committees and the right to refuse unsafe work. They're the same employers who hired consultants and hired spies, which we proved in open court, at Radio Shack. They're the same consultants and same employers who attacked -- I wish he were here -- former Labour minister Greg Sorbara's original Bill 208 which, I believe personally, led to his removal as the minister. He may want to differ about that, but it still would be my view. Those are the same employers who silently acquiesced in free trade and told us we'd have a better society. I would suggest to you that in all the issues I've put before you, ask yourselves who lied to the public. It certainly wasn't working people and their institutions.
Last but certainly not least, so I can leave some time for dialogue, I want to commend to you two reports, one called Empowering Workers in the Global Economy, where the United Steelworkers of America brought together leading economic thinkers from North America to talk about the role that workers and workers' organizations can play in trying to rebuild the destroyed industrial base of Ontario.
You may find some of the presentations in this document informative. I should say to you they're not necessarily the Hansard; they may be almost as accurate, though. They're of a conference the Steelworkers held that involved bringing together people like Ray Marshall, former US Secretary of Labour, Manfred Muster, a leading economic thinker in West Germany, Professor Gary Herrigel and leading economic thinkers on workplace organization.
In addition to that, I want to commend to you a report that the Steelworkers commissioned in 1991. That report is called the Report on Partnership and Participation in the 1990s: Labour Law Reform in Ontario. That report was done as an analysis of the original labour presentation to the Burkett consultation that went on, one of many on this legislation.
The report is written by a professor, Lord Wedderburn, who I suggest to you is one of the most internationally recognized experts on comparative labour law and is a professor of commercial and business law at the London School of Economics. Lord Wedderburn is very careful to point out that labour law is not the only issue by which you can judge the success of economic societies, but he also points out that there is firm evidence which indicates that in most countries that have active labour relations policies which encourage social consensus, these policies advanced the economic performance of that nation's economy.
I would suggest to all members of the committee that you may find it enlightening to read an analysis, Professor Wedderburn's view of what were certainly far stronger recommendations on labour law reform, and to come to his conclusion on the report of the Burkett committee that there's nothing to get excited about, that there's nothing new that's not in place in some other democracy.
Without dealing with the particulars of the legislation, I would suggest to you that this is a very important piece of labour reform when you look at the rebuilding of Ontario's economy, and that the business community's hysteria and the hysteria of some opposition members has absolutely nothing to do with the economic impact of this labour law reform but has a lot to do with the fact that they're opposed to workplace intervention by trade unions in the first place. I hope that each and every one of you would reject that, and each and every one of you would support this piece of legislation.
Mr Bob Huget (Sarnia): Thank you, Mr Gerard, for your presentation. I look forward to studying both the reports you provided us with this morning.
I personally am of the view that the workplace in Ontario, certainly in order to remain competitive and to lead Canada's economy, will have to be very much a very different place. I believe that shareholders and stakeholders, stakeholders being workers and organizations that represent workers, need to have a legitimate say in the operation of that workplace. That approach will be industry's and workers' salvation, the future economic direction of the province.
People who oppose this legislation seem to want to imply that somehow, by workers organizing, they will lose a competitive advantage, that somehow workers, if they're given the choice to organize in workplaces and industries, cannot be competitive. Business points to a greater need for worker openness, flexibility in the workplace, competitiveness and productivity, and again I have to state that opponents of this legislation seem to want to imply that if workers organize, the competitive factor will be lost and we cannot compete.
I'd like your view on that issue and I would also like specific examples, if you can provide them, of where your union and workers in your union are working on the productivity-cooperative approach to financial success, not only for the businesses they work for but for themselves as well.
Mr Gerard: It's very difficult to continually have to try and defuse the big lie. It's a concept that if you say it long enough, people might eventually believe it. The fact is that the issues that lead to competitiveness or productivity improvements have a lot more to do with management decision-making than the role of unions.
In fact if we look at the way work is organized in the workplaces -- some of that is in the yellow book I gave you -- that work has been organized by managers in Canadian industrial society, North American industrial society, quite frankly, using the concepts of Frederick Taylor, Taylorism. It's been organized very hierarchically, with lots of layers of management, breaking jobs down into their smallest component so that managers could tell workers what to do and workers were supposed to respond.
It might be interesting to note that of the major industrialized democracies, only Canada and the United States are still trying to flog Taylorism. In fact most successful industrial democracies have dumped that for the kind of consensus-building, worker-involvement, democratic workplace decision-making that goes on in most of the western industrialized societies.
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I could tell you that if the workers at Algoma Steel had been in a stronger position in the 1980s when Algoma was making money, they wouldn't have decided to pay out huge dividends; they might have decided to invest in the most modern technologies. If workers had been in control at Algoma Steel or had more input, we wouldn't have had one supervisor for every four workers, as if workers were dumb. We don't need that.
The way work is organized has very little to do with workers and unions. In fact those concepts have been part of our collective bargaining strategy, to try and manage those. I guess it's not surprising that when you sit down with a management consultant in a set of labour negotiations, the thickest proposal you get from him is the nine pages on management's rights, that you don't have any; that's something we continuously opposed.
With regard to places where we're involved, the approach we take is -- and I put it in its starkest two statements -- that we believe that the effect of management on workers means that management is too important to leave to managers, so we're injecting ourselves through the collective bargaining process into management decision-making, because bad management makes bad decisions and our members pay the price.
The other point to make is that we say often, and we practise it in our union, that our union is capable of consultation. We have a very skilled and professional staff. We're capable, where it is possible, of cooperation, but when neither one of those is possible, we're also capable of confrontation, and the path we choose is very often determined by the management we work with.
Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): Very briefly, I want to first of all congratulate you for bringing forth an excellent brief. The concern you felt that there should be unanimous support from all three parties for Bill 40 goes back to where the workforce is drastically changing. I guess we're both well aware of that since the two companies in northern Ontario were formed, Spruce Falls Inc and Algoma Steel Inc, with union-sponsored worker ownership. I'm not sure how well Algoma Steel is working right now, but Spruce Falls is working very good. The first six months has shown a profit, an increase in productivity, and they're well pleased.
I'm just wondering what reaction you have that Bill 150 was not voted unanimously. The Progressive Conservative Party voted against that at the end of July, although both those companies seemed to be working really well.
Mr Gerard: I guess I view the current piece of legislation we're here to talk about, along with several other pieces of legislation that I understand are before the government or the House, as being parts of a rebuilding of the Ontario economy. The tremendous difficulty I have with what's going on in this province is that the hysterical attack by the business community, supported by the opposition parties or vice versa, is really undermining the labour relations climate as well as the investment climate in Ontario.
There are many corporations that the United Steelworkers have a very constructive relationship with. I find it offensive to meet with them on Monday and for them to be the same companies that want to talk to us about helping them save their bacon after they've messed up, while on Tuesday they are, with the help of the opposition, out saying that basically unions shouldn't exist, having a tremendous attack on this legislation, supported by an attack on the labour movement.
I read in a recent Hansard that one of the Liberal members -- who was probably still very upset that his father didn't become a senator -- made very, very personal attacks on me and some of my colleagues. That does nothing to the debate on what kind of economy we want to have in Ontario.
All the comparative law analyses done by rational economists will lead you to know that unless we adopt a more participatory approach to rebuilding the economy, the economy won't be rebuilt, and that can only be done through trade unions and collective bargaining. That is the only vehicle that is proven in western industrialized democracies to work.
Mr Offer: Mr Gerard, thank you for your presentation. I too am looking forward to an in-depth analysis of the provisions which will follow shortly.
As an opening comment, I note in your first few words you hope that there were a number of other representatives who would have the opportunity to come before the committee. Certainly, I agree with you. I think you should be aware it was just last night that I presented a motion before this committee to request extended hearings for this committee because there is something in the area of 1,100 people who have requested an opportunity to be heard on what you have characterized as a bill of importance, which has garnered a great deal of attention.
Unfortunately, I have to inform you that the motion was defeated because the New Democratic members of this committee unanimously voted against it. We lost the vote six to five, so I have some concerns that as important as those individuals are, to come before the committee, they will probably not be able to because of that motion having failed yesterday evening.
I appreciate that you came before and you spoke -- and I mean this in no critical terms -- in generalities, in principle, because I think that's important.
Mr Gerard: I know that there'll be at least another dozen Steelworkers who become very specific.
Mr Offer: I think it's important that we talk about some of the principles of the legislation. You mentioned on more than one occasion you were dismayed by the attack on Bill 40, that you viewed the criticism of the bill by opponents as not just a criticism of the bill but really of the labour movement as a whole. I believe that's a fair restatement of what you indicated earlier.
I think you should be aware that though it just be our third day, we have heard of concerns through submissions by, for instance, the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies. I have heard concerns by school boards across the province, by hydro utilities, concerns about the bill from these groups and, of course, just yesterday by independent grocers who were concerned about how these provisions might affect the way in which they would be able to distribute food, being the sole source, distributor of food in many communities in the province.
I'm wondering if you categorize those individuals bringing those concerns as being against the labour movement, if they fall within the same broad-brush strokes with which you have painted all opponents to provisions of the bill.
Mr Gerard: What raised the concern they put before you? What's the concern they gave you? Are they just opposed to the whole bill?
Mr Offer: No, Mr Gerard. I'd be more than pleased to provide those presentations to you, but the children's aid societies association was very concerned about what the provisions and the replacement worker provision would mean in being able to provide service to their client children. So the question I have is not on the specifics of the concern. Believe me, they have come before; it's part of the public record. My question to you is, do you put all of those individuals in that same category of broad-brush opposition to labour in the province?
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Mr Gerard: The broad-brush opposition I have certainly puts all of them in the same category if they're coming with the same concerns. If they're bothered by the anti-scab provision -- I'll call it what I think it is -- then that's a concern that I view as putting them all in the same boat.
The fact is that there is currently one jurisdiction in Canada that has that provision. They also have children's aid societies, they also have grocery stores, and their societies seem to be doing quite well, thank you very much.
I would say to you that the jury is out on what will happen even in the US. I can say to you that a senior officer of our union is now a senior adviser to the Clinton campaign, and I expect that if Clinton wins, this will be on the agenda in the US.
Outside of that, let me ask you, Mr Offer, do you know any other western industrial democracy where scabs are an issue? They're not an issue in any of the western European democracies. They're not an issue in Japan. In fact when workers go on strike, everybody stops work and the collective bargaining process brings about a resolution. If that's their issue for opposition, I put them all in the same boat, yes, sir.
The Chair: Mr McGuinty, and please leave Mr Gerard enough time to answer.
Mr McGuinty: Just to pursue that a little bit then, Mr Gerard, have you heard of any legitimate criticism advanced against Bill 40 to date? I know you've paid a lot of attention to this, because you're very concerned about it. Has anyone, anywhere, at any time, advanced any criticism against this bill which you would deem to be legitimate?
Mr Gerard: With regard to the current legislation before this committee, the answer would be no. The reason I would put that to you is that I said to you earlier that I support this piece of legislation for the reasons of rebuilding an industrial economy, but I also think the legislation falls far, far short of what should be before this committee.
Interjection.
Mr Gerard: Let me finish my answer. The other part of that quite frankly is that I don't know of one proposal in Bill 40 that isn't in place either somewhere in Canada or in some other western industrial democracy that is doing a lot better economically than Canada and/or Ontario.
Mr McGuinty: I just want to touch on the matter of the replacement workers. There are two arguments put forward for the provisions that are contained within Bill 40: First, it will eliminate picket line violence and, second, it is inherently unfair for an employer to use replacement workers if his workers are unionized. I just want to address the first aspect, elimination of picket line violence, and how real a concern that is, because based on the ministry statistics that were given to us, these --
The Chair: Mr Carr, how much of your time can Mr McGuinty have?
Mr Carr: None. Well, I'll give him a little bit. Just kidding.
Mr McGuinty: I owe you one, Gary.
Mr Gerard: You're on the same side on this issue anyway, so go ahead.
Mr McGuinty: No, not entirely.
There is a law in place right now, and any activities that we are concerned with are criminal activities. We're concerned about assaults. We're concerned about intimidation. We're concerned about violence. All of that is governed by our criminal law, and if there are criminal activities occurring on the picket line, then those laws should be properly enforced. I'm not talking, remember, about the second aspect of the replacement workers. How do you respond to that?
Mr Gerard: It's an interesting question. Possibly this may not be the best public posture, but let me make two points. Picket line activity certainly shouldn't be governed by the Criminal Code. I don't necessarily view all acts of civil disobedience, if that's what you want to characterize them as, as being illegitimate. They may be illegal, because even if we were in South Africa, things that are illegal aren't necessarily illegitimate.
The fact is that I view the right to strike as the most fundamental democratic right in a society. If you give me that right to strike, it means to me I have the right to withdraw my labour, and if what you return to me as a right to withdraw my labour is the right to take my job, then I suggest to you that I'm going to get very angry. That's what provokes picket line incidents.
If you came home from work tonight and someone was walking out of your front door with your TV set and you smacked him in the mouth, you'd probably get off because he was stealing your TV set. But if I have an accident on a picket line or if there is someone going in to take my job and we get in a confrontation, I end up in jail. Yet that person is taking my job, taking my livelihood. It's a very emotional issue for workers who have already chosen to give up their income.
Mr Carr: Thank you for the presentation. My time will be short, so I'll make it quick. You talk about democracy, you talk about rights. If you truly believe that, why are you afraid of a secret ballot for certification?
Mr Gerard: Two very quick points, because I guess we're short of time: First of all, that's a very narrow view of democracy. Democracy, the kind I'm talking about, has a lot more to do with ongoing worker involvement and worker participation on a daily basis than the simple concept of casting the vote, as you put it. It's a much more broad concept of workplace democracy.
I also think many of you are fooling yourselves by continuing to harp on this business that somehow a secret ballot vote in the certification of a union is democracy. The fact is, it isn't. It's been proved time and time again that when workers make the choice to sign a card, to put their name on a card that says, "I want to belong to a union," that is probably the best expression of their free will. For those who continue to harp on that issue is really, I think, an insult to the intelligence of workers.
Interjection.
Mr Gerard: Let me finish. I certainly wasn't finished yet; I might have taken a breath. The fact is that their decision to sign a card is the best expression of their will.
The other thing that happens in the only other society where a vote is the ongoing issue is that the employer ability to intimidate and to delay the process is enhanced. The society that is most committed to the vote is the US. I have some knowledge of that because of the structure of our union. The average certification in the US takes in excess of two and a half years. Don't try to tell me that's an expression of democracy, Mr Carr.
Mr Carr: What I'm saying to you is, you talk about democracy, you talk about rights. The fact of the matter is, there can be intimidation from the union side. I submit to you that one of the reasons the unions don't want that is there are some union organizers who will intimate people.
If you truly believed that your process was right and people wanted to unionize, then you would agree with a secret ballot, no intimidation by business and no intimidation by a union. You come in here and talk about rights and democracy and then you don't believe they should have a secret ballot vote. How can you say that?
Mr Gerard: Let me just suggest to you --
Mr Carr: It's ridiculous.
Mr Gerard: It's ridiculous because of your limited experience in labour relations.
Mr Carr: I was a Teamster; I know what it's like. I was a union member; I know what it was like. Don't tell me I don't know what's going on; I know.
Mr Gerard: Then you really do have limited experience in labour relations.
Mr Carr: Good. Now you're fighting with your other union buddies. Great. You talk about rights, you talk about democracy, yet you won't give the people the right to have a secret ballot on it.
Mr Gerard: Let me just try to minimize your hysteria, which is rising again. The fact of the matter is that there is so much evidence that will clearly demonstrate that the access to a vote as a mechanism for certifying workers does not work. The only industrial democracy that resorts to that is the United States.
The fact is that in that process workers have a higher incidence of discharge in organizing, there is a lower degree of success than anywhere else in the world, the length of time it takes for the certification process to run its course is the longest in the industrialized world and the only reason that people like yourself are promoting that concept is that you know the facts.
That is a fundamental desire to erode the ability of workers to join a union. Why don't we talk about West Germany, where if the workers participate in a broad-based collective bargaining process, the employer has the right to opt out.
Mr Carr: The lower degree might be because those are the true wishes of the people.
Mr Gerard: After the employer has the right to opt out, if one worker in that workplace wants that collective agreement, it has to be applied. Let's talk about the economic success of West Germany versus Canada or Ontario.
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Mr Carr: The fact of the matter is that the reason there may be lower degrees is because the true wishes of the people may be heard through a secret ballot.
Mr Gerard: The greater degree of worker participation in the collective bargaining process, Mr Carr, will be demonstrated by comparative labour law analysis that I provided to you today, which you've been asking for and which will demonstrate that those lead to the most successful industrial economies.
Mr Carr: Let's not talk about the specifics; let's talk about the principle. You're very strong talking about rights and democracy. Do you agree with the principle that the decision to join or not to join a union should be through secret ballot where the true wishes of that individual will be known? Do you agree with that principle?
Mr Gerard: No, and let me tell you why. Again the fact is that in a process where the employer gets to have scrutineers, where the employer, by its additional pressure in the workplace, gets to participate in that, by its very nature that intimidates the process.
Not me, Mr Carr, but industrial relation specialists from around the world, which I've provided you information on, categorically state that that process impedes collective bargaining and impedes the free choice of workers to join trade unions. So don't hide behind that when you know -- you know because I'm sure your party has the ability to do the same research that our union does -- the only reason you're advocating that concept is because you know it leads to the erosion of the labour movement.
The Chair: Mr Gerard, I want to thank you very much for coming here today on behalf of your membership, the United Steelworkers of America. You've obviously made a valuable contribution. You've provoked a significant response and we appreciate your interest in the process and your eagerness to involve yourself and your workers, those people you are representing here today.
Mr Gerard: Thank you very much. We'll take real steps to make sure our members get heard through the various other forums that will be available.
The Chair: I'm doing my best and I think the members of the committee are doing their best.
Mr Gerard: We'll all try to meet at Mr Offer's office one of these days.
Mr Offer: The door's always open.
The Chair: I'm sorry that we're a little bit behind schedule, but I've wanted to make sure that every caucus has an equal amount of time to engage in the discussions with the participants.
ENERGY AND CHEMICAL WORKERS UNION, LOCAL 513
The Chair: The next group is the Energy and Chemical Workers Union, Local 513. Please seat yourselves, tell us who you are and what your titles are. I want to remind people that there is coffee and soft drinks here for our guests and visitors. We want you to feel at home. Try to save the second half at least of your half-hour for discussion which, as you've noticed, can be somewhat lively and informative.
Ms Christine Leonard: Good morning, Mr Chair and members of the committee. My name is Christine Leonard. I'm the president of the Energy and Chemical Workers Union, Local 513. Dave Moffat is our national representative. We're here to express our support for labour law reform which we believe is long overdue and crucial to ensuring more equitable relationships between workers, their unions and their employers.
The Energy and Chemical Workers Union supports the Ontario Federation of Labour's submission on Bill 40. However, we would like to take this time to relate our union's experiences while attempting to organize at Consumers' Gas, my employer.
In 1983 the Energy and Chemical Workers Union, which was already representing approximately 800 full-time employees in the clerical unit and close to 700 workers in the operations section, signed up what we felt was a clear majority of part-time employees who were doing the same type of work as the full-time workers but were exempted by the old act by virtue of their hours of work.
When we got to the Ontario Labour Relations Board, the company produced a list of approximately 30 people, many of whom, I might add, were sons and daughters of management who simply delivered gas bills once a month, and had them classified as part-time employees. Needless to say, we no longer had the 55% that would have entitled us to automatic certification.
We'd like to add that we are pleased to see that the government has eliminated the $1 membership fee which was required for the purpose of certification under the old act. In 1984, while trying to organize the clerical workers at the Consumers' Gas office in St Catharines, we lost on a technicality which involved the membership fee.
The drive was lost when we got to the board with enough cards signed that would have entitled us to automatic certification, only to discover that one of our organizers had omitted to record receipt of the $1 fee on approximately 20 cards which were subsequently rejected by the board.
Although we were later allowed a representation vote, we were not successful since too much time had lapsed, and many of the people who had originally signed cards, most of whom, I must add, were women, felt frustrated and intimidated by the whole process.
Our last attempt to organize at Consumers' Gas was in 1989-90 when we again tried to organize the clerical workers in St Catharines. However, the company produced a list of people we didn't even know existed. Once again, they had an unfair advantage since they had access to the information that would have been crucial to our organizing drive.
In closing, I would like to say that examples such as those cited by us are certainly not unique to the ECWU. Too often, workers seeking to join unions are disempowered by management scare tactics. We're therefore calling upon this committee to urge the government to ensure that the final bill contains provisions that will truly advance equality between employees and employers.
We're urging the government to ensure that Bill 40 requires an employer to forward a list of employees to trade unions upon application for certification. We're also urging the government to revisit subsection 8(2) and lower the act's current provision of 55% for automatic certification to assist those workers who are seeking to exercise their democratic right to organize in order to improve their economic circumstances. Thank you.
Mr Dave Moffat: I'd like to add a concern. I'm pleased to see that the amendments suggest the recognition of successor rights in the situation of contracting out of cafeteria and building maintenance staff. I don't think that change goes far enough. I think it should cover additional service people and construction.
The situation I'm concerned with specifically is where a collective agreement exists representing workers and the employer is able, either through contracting out directly or subcontracting to individuals, to eliminate their opportunity to ever become organized and actually puts those individual jobs out. Although collective bargaining has gone through in good faith, those jobs are able to be auctioned off to the lowest individual bidder.
Quite often, these people are individually and dependent workers on that company. In the situation we're talking about the employer, in this specific case Consumers' Gas, is able to subcontract out jobs that are normally done by union workers, and the subcontracted individual is able to basically auction the services off at the lowest rate, undermining the process of collective bargaining. These individuals do not have a right to collective bargaining. That's an area I would like to see pursued in the current act. On the whole, I am supportive of the provisions currently presented.
Ms Leonard: Once again, we'd just like to thank the committee for allowing us to take this time to express our views on Bill 40.
Mr Offer: Thank you for your presentation. One of the areas you spoke to in organizing was the need for the employer to provide lists. Just before I ask you the question, I certainly accept the right of workers to associate, to join a union of their choice. That's a right that has long been held in this province and, I believe, is a right that is respected.
Up front I'll tell you I have a concern with the provision of lists. I know you've brought it forward as a way in which it's easier to organize. I'll tell you where my concern is.
A list would provide, as far as I'm aware, the names of the employees and their addresses. I have a concern that, firstly, that breaches a right of privacy that those individual workers should enjoy. I have a concern as to what impact that would have on female workers, having their addresses known. I'm wondering if you could help me out on that. We heard the issue brought forward earlier on, and I must say that though I certainly understand and accept the right to organize, I do have some substantial concern about the provision of lists and what that means in terms of privacy, confidentiality, to those very same workers.
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Ms Leonard: I think that problem you raise, the concerns you raise around privacy and security, can be alleviated if the union seeks authorization from the employees prior to obtaining that list. In most cases, most of those members would have already expressed an interest in joining the union, and therefore what the unions would need to do is to seek their written consent or their verbal consent to have the company release those documents.
With respect to security, I really do not foresee the unions publicizing lists of workers, be they male or female, and using those lists for any purposes other than organizing the members.
Mr Moffat: As far as the right of privacy goes, we're only asking for lists the employer in fact already has. If the employer is to be entrusted with that apparent right of privacy, if you had respect, as you suggested you do, for the right of association and that freedom, you would also have that trust in the people who administer those programs, I would assume. We're not asking for hospitalization lists. We're only asking for lists employers currently have.
Mr McGuinty: I see where you're coming from, but let me just follow up to this extent. If something unfortunate was to happen as a result of disclosure of the list, whatever, who would assume responsibility for that? Would it be the employer who released it or the union officials who obtained it?
Ms Leonard: It's unfortunate that you would want to focus on something negative.
Mr McGuinty: It's our job to explore all these possibilities.
Ms Leonard: In many cases, some unions, through their own methods, obtain lists of employees, and to my knowledge nothing unfortunate has happened. It really depends on what happens and on what side it occurs.
Mr Moffat: I might also ask you to be more specific about what you mean as unfortunate, whether your perception of unfortunate is that someone actually from a union gets someone to sign a card or whether you're talking about them on a stroll in a park and something unfortunate happens. I'm glad you didn't refer to my daughter, because that would have been even more of a fanatical perspective that you're raising.
What if something unfortunately currently happens with an employer who has the list, or a mailing company? I'm very concerned about anything unfortunately happening to anybody.
Mr McGuinty: It's unfortunate that you try to categorize it in that way, because it's not my intention. I'm trying to raise a very legitimate concern. We live in a litigious society. People are suing each other left, right and centre, and I'm just trying to explore possibilities, that's all.
Mr Moffat: Okay. If you want to continue that, the next question I'd have to ask you is to be more specific about what you mean by unfortunate. Not wishing any harm on anyone of any stripe, other than the response we've already given, there's really nothing else to say unless you were to be specific.
Mr McGuinty: If an employee were approached and the employee felt, for whatever reason, that the style of the approach was something he or she resented, that there was harassment or active pursuit or whatever -- it's not difficult to think of these possibilities. I'm not trying to be hysterical. I just want to ensure that if we were to proceed and ensure that you're provided with a list, there be commensurate responsibility assumed by the union for anything that came from that. The employer could say: "Look, I gave the list. It's out of my hands. I was required to give a list. Please don't look to me."
Mr Moffat: As a union-elected official and as a hired agent of a union, I would suggest that we will continue to act responsibly in conducting the business of the union. Speaking for ourselves and other members of the trade union movement who participate in things like organizing campaigns, I suggest they do in fact act responsibly and will continue to do so.
Mr Carr: This bill has been talked about as improving cooperation. As I've been hearing it, that's been the gist. I've been on both sides of the issue from personal experience with a company that was unionized and had terrible relations. It did things that were absolutely terrible, and the other side did, and everything got heightened up. Eventually, the division of the company went out of business and everybody lost their jobs, management and workers.
Could you tell me very specifically what parts of this legislation will improve cooperation? Maybe you could be specific too on some of the things you're doing, on behalf of your members, with companies to work better and cooperate. Could you be specific about how you can see this tying into that? I think everybody -- 100% of the members of this Legislature -- says we have to have better cooperation. This government has said this will do it. I don't believe it does. Could you tell us specifically how you see this working for better cooperation?
Ms Leonard: I think as it stands right now, business has an unfair advantage, and that breeds a lot of frustration on the part of us in the labour movement. Once there are steps taken to ensure that the playing field is somewhat leveller, both parties can feel they're standing on an equal footing. Until that happens, if you're always in a situation where you feel like you're butting your heads against the wall because the deck is stacked in someone else's favour, there will always tend to be confrontation. I think we need to level the playing field and workers and their representatives need to feel more empowered, need to feel they have more of a say in their workplaces. When things like those start to happen, then I think we will see the situation you're talking about occurring.
Mr Carr: The problem with this whole debate has been rhetoric. People talk about levelling the playing field and then they jump all over one side or the other. Specifically, from this bill, what do you see in there that will, to quote you, level the playing field? How will you see this being improved specifically so there will be better cooperation for you and your union?
Mr Moffat: Specifically in our union and the representative group we're referring to here -- you'll hear it from other organizations and unions as well -- we have a workforce at Consumers' Gas, as the employer, that is approximately 2,400 non-managerial employees. We represent approximately 1,900 of those; therefore, the clear majority in any democracy.
Under the current Labour Relations Act, a certain portion of employees has been exempt. Therefore, we have been spending over the last number of years, through collective bargaining and other efforts, a significant amount of time effecting the security of those 1,900 bargaining unit employees, which is being threatened by the same people who do the same work. Because of the legislation that stands now, they have been exempt, whether they are separated from operational because they're clerical, or whether they're part-time, a further separation, part-timers who have been separated from other clericals.
Even though they work hand in hand and do training of one another and participate in the same workplace, they do so with a great deal of frustration and a threat of their security. This act addresses that, and hopefully in the future those sort of circumstances won't develop.
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Mr Carr: How does that address it? What I want is to be very specific. You talk about all the problems and so on. Specifically, what will this bill allow you to do?
Mr Moffat: One area, based on the subject we're talking about, a group that's newly organized, of a similar nature, that has 100 people who work in an office who are part-time and 700 who work full-time: If 600 people sign cards, there'd be a recognition of the majority. In the old legislation, if 600 people signed cards, there were possibly 100 people who would be exempt, who would be non-bargaining unit people and would continue to be a threat in the collective bargaining process.
If you've been on both sides -- you've suggested the experience -- in bargaining both sides use whatever levers they can to achieve their aims or goals, and in bargaining the 100 people who remain unorganized, who are usually the part-timers who are exempted, become a bargaining lever against the full-time, even though they are expected to work responsibly, hand in hand on a day-to-day basis.
This legislation will address that in a newly organized group. When there's a majority that does the same work in the same workplace, whether they're women or part-timers, whether it was systemic or a natural separation, it'll be addressed with these amendments to the legislation and that environment won't be created in the future.
Mr Carr: What you seem to be saying is that the only way there can be better cooperation is if those other employees are unionized. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that's what I seem to be getting.
Mr Moffat: Well, you were putting words in my mouth. What I'm suggesting is that if there was a basic recognition, like people say there is, that workers have a right to organize and there are not barriers in legislation to that organization, then we'd be able to get off that subject. We'd stop talking about union security or whether there's a need for unions and we would face the reality that organization in workplaces will continue. It has been in existence for quite a long time. The productive side of the industrial world has recognized the requirement and need for unions and continued need for unions and organizations in the workplace, and it does not put up impediments, for example, the exemption of part-timers from full-time bargaining units, under the guise that they have a different community of interests.
Mr Carr: I may be missing it, but do you see the problem is that for as long as the debate has gone on, we keep hearing this rhetoric? I don't mean to be confrontational, but three times I've asked you specifically, and maybe I'm --
Mr Moffat: I was very specific in my answer. I talked about the section of the act that will no longer separate bargaining units from part-time and full-time -- I understand you didn't hear me the three times, so I'll say it again -- that specific section, and that's what we came here to talk about in respect to the circumstance here.
We have 800 people in one office who have actually signed membership cards. We have 150 people who are exempt from that bargaining unit. Even though the clear majority are members of the bargaining unit, there are 150 people who threaten their bargaining security. The recognition that there is a right to bargaining security is there. Everybody says that. That's the rhetoric you maybe were referring to. The constant threat of the 150 who are exempt by the current legislation will no longer be exempt by future legislation.
As a matter of fact, most of these jobs are probably in the service area. If you have access to studies, they're probably predominantly women, and until this act is enacted, the labour relations board will separate full-time bargaining units from part-time bargaining units, even though the clear majority suggest in a workplace that they want to be organized.
Mr Carr: If I'm following you right, when these 150 become unionized, then there will be better cooperation?
Mr Moffat: If you recognize the security that once you get 800 people to become members you won't put a barrier up for the other 150 to become members, then of course you could get on to dealing with productivity in the workplace, the enhanced working environment, being productive, job security for 100 years instead of 10 years. Yes, we can deal with real issues, instead of trying to survive.
Mr Carr: Let's be specific about Consumers then. What is happening now between those two units, the 150 and the other group? What are some of the instances Consumers is doing to divide you to hurt the cooperation? Be specific. What is happening now because they aren't unionized in order to kill this cooperation?
Mr Moffat: They are certainly a bargaining lever.
Mr Carr: Specifically, how many instances do you have --
Mr Moffat: They have no bargaining rights. They can't negotiate wage increases. They can expand at any moment. A whole floor of unionized full-time people could be wiped out if their expectations or their opportunity to pursue certain hours of work or a certain system of productivity, or if they were to negotiate with the company that -- we have one manager for every three workers. That's stupid. Let's start talking about making a more productive work environment. Those are things we try to pursue in our discussions with the company. We also have the hammer of next year there might be 300 part-time non-unionized people you won't be speaking for as the representatives of the group, even though we clearly have the majority.
Mr Huget: Thank you, Ms Leonard and Mr Moffat, for your presentation. I'd like to touch for a moment on an issue that arises when the system breaks down and when there is an impasse reached and workers are on strike. I would like your views and your experience in terms of the replacement worker issue. I would like to know from both of you what your experience has been with replacement workers, what effect that has had on the immediate situation during strikes and, more importantly, I would like your views on what impact lingers, impact that remains, I feel, long after the strike is settled, due to incidents that arise on picket lines. I would like your views on that issue.
Ms Leonard: I have no experience in the situation you just raised so I would pass the question over to Dave.
Mr Moffat: My experience as a negotiator over the last 10 or so years in dealing with a variety of situations of strikes suggest that there in fact is a long-term negative experience when replacement workers are used. They almost every time have been an impediment to getting a final settlement, on the basis that sometimes the company wants to keep them or keep some of them. They usually get rid of the organized negative group they may have hired as replacement workers, but they want to keep a few, and it has a long-term negative effect in that the replacement workers were able to undermine the recognition of organized workers in their pursuit of better working conditions and benefits.
Again, inevitably, in any situation that gets to a strike, replacement workers are a barrier to settlement. I guess the most recent situation I can think of is the newspaper pictures of the strikebreakers at the post office. You saw the element that was in the newspaper photographs with the motorcycle clubs that were wearing their colours, who organized and pursued jobs as replacement workers. Those are ugly scenes. They have a long-lasting productivity effect.
Eventually, the strike's going to be over. That's always the goal if it does get to that situation. I think most reasonable-thinking people who work in this area of industrial relations or labour relations recognize that in the event of a strike, it is going to be over some day and you have to get on with the work and be a successful operation, and replacement workers take a long time to heal. We still have some who have been replacement workers from strikes from 20 years ago who their coworkers won't speak to.
The Chair: Christine Leonard, president of Local 513, and Dave Moffat, the committee thanks both of you, and of course the membership of Energy and Chemical Workers Union, Local 513, for your participation in this process. You've made an important contribution. We trust that you'll be keeping in touch as the bill progresses through the committee and then back into the Legislature and we encourage you to maintain contact with members of the committee or other members of the Legislature.
Of course you're welcome to stay, and you and others are entitled to receive transcripts by way of Hansard of your presentation or other presentations. As well, the public is entitled and encouraged to attend these hearings as they sit in Toronto and elsewhere in the province. Thank you kindly.
I want to correct what I said earlier this morning when I indicated the committee would be back here on Monday. We will be back here on Monday, but we're starting at 1:30 on Monday, rather than at 10. Far be it for me to know why we'd start at 1:30 rather than 10, but we are. That was the decision of the subcommittee and the House leaders.
1140
HAMILTON AND DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL
The Chair: The next participants are the Hamilton and District Labour Council. Welcome. Please tell us who you are and your titles, and tell us what you will. Try to leave 15 minutes for dialogue.
Mr Bob Sutton: I am Bob Sutton and I'm an executive member of the Hamilton and District Labour Council.
Ms Maureen McCarthy: Maureen McCarthy, vice-president, Hamilton and District Labour Council.
Mr Sutton: I want to start by telling you a little bit about what the labour council is. It's the central body of labour in Hamilton. We have around 130 affiliated unions and we represent about 30,000 working people in Hamilton plus many more retired members.
We're very pleased to be here and have the opportunity and we're extremely pleased that the provincial government would come forward with this package of labour reform. We are disappointed that some of the issues raised in the discussion paper failed to make it to Bill 40 -- some of those things that failed in the consultation process I think were very important to us -- but all in all I think Bill 40 is a very important bill.
We're going to address just a couple of things in our brief. One is the right to organize, which is very important to our members. We've had a lot of problems in the Hamilton area with that. The other is the prohibition of replacement workers, the anti-scab legislation.
I'll take a little piece here. In 1939 J. S. Woodsworth, the leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, brought a bill into Parliament to amend the Criminal Code of Canada. This was section 392 and it was adopted by Parliament, making it a criminal offence to discharge an employee wrongfully and without lawful authority for the sole reason that he or she was a member of a trade union. Basically what we're saying there is that, between the Charter of the United Nations and the Ontario Labour Relations Act, people should have a right to belong to a union if they desire. The way we see it, this right in Ontario is too often denied.
Under the present legislation, there are too many workers who are under fear and intimidated when trying to exercise their rights to join a union. Too many employees have been unjustly discharged just for signing a union card. Even though this is technically illegal, it still happens.
The extension of the right to organize to include agricultural workers, domestic workers, horticultural workers and professionals is a very positive and progressive step. The thing we're a little bit concerned about is one particular one, that supervisors were excluded. If supervisors had the opportunity and decided to join a union, they could be their own bargaining unit. They would have the same protections as the other workers in the plant and being their own separate bargaining unit they're not in a position of any conflict.
I've got a quote here from a gentlemen named Art Frewin. He's chairperson of the salaried action committee. This is a group of Stelco salaried employees who were terminated just a little over a year ago. They had been handing out leaflets at Stelco's gates, at the Stelco board meetings. Here's a little quote from Art, "We're not after anything more than the bargaining unit employees already enjoy." I think the bottom line here is that if these Stelco salaried employees had an opportunity to join a union, they'd be there with their pens right out.
The other important improvement is allowing security guards to join the union of their choice. I just can't see any reason why it was ever any other way. Again, just like the supervisors, if they join a union, the Steelworkers or the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, they would still be their own separate bargaining unit, they'd still have their own duties. They are completely isolated from our bargaining unit and it wouldn't make any difference.
The other thing I wanted to get into here was about protection of workers for signing union cards during organizing campaigns, access to the company's property, access to third party property and company lists, how important these are to an organizing drive and how they can be used to defeat an organizing drive.
I'm going to give you an example in St Catharines. This is a company which was a novelty company in St Catharines and the Steelworkers tried to organize it almost a year ago. What happened is that they started off by getting one of the workers inside the plant. He was very enthusiastic; he was very well liked by his fellow workers and he was the key organizer. He was the guy who was in there getting cards signed and talking to his fellow employees.
Well, he got discharged. There were no reasons. Of course, the union immediately went to the labour board and they called a settlements officer in. He met with the company and the company decided that they would hire this guy back and pay him all the lost time. It didn't cost this guy a cent. However, they wouldn't admit that they'd discharged him for organizing a drive, or any guilt. They just said: "Look, we made a mistake and we're offering the guy's job back. Either he takes it or he doesn't and we'll fight it from there." Of course the worker's going to take his job back.
But during the weeks he was off work from the day he was fired, the organizing drive came to an abrupt halt. Who's going to sign a union card when the guy next to him is being fired? The other side of the coin is that when this guy comes back, he's still talking about the union. However, when it comes to his getting cards signed in the plant, he's lost the enthusiasm. The union looks around and one of the other members who had already signed a card said, "I'll pick up the ball." He's in the plant getting cards signed; he gets suspended. Now all of sudden the drive's at a dead halt again.
What happens now is he gets a similar offer, they bring him back. Now he's out there getting cards signed again and the union's got another problem: This is a fair-sized plant. How many workers are here? We've got X number of cards signed. Have we got 55%? Have we got 60%? Have we got 40%? So they asked the guy, "Go in and count the number of cards at the punch clock." He goes in and counts them and it was less than 150 cards. So the union feels: "We've probably got more than enough cards signed. Let's apply for a vote." This is what they do, because they're still unsure as far as the number of cards is concerned. They're having trouble contacting a lot of employees so they go this route.
They meet with the settlements officer and the company and the company comes out with a list of over 210. I think 212 employees was the number I was told. They had 150 punch cards. Now what's going on here? They start looking down the list and there are part-time workers in there who, under that legislation, are excluded. There are a lot of people that the company says, "These people aren't supervisors." But these same people have also said they have the right to discipline other workers. So they challenged every one of these names. They spent about eight hours arguing about the people on the list, but the union still feels: "We're not sure where we are; let's withdraw our application. We'll go back and get some more cards signed now that we've got a better idea of the number of employees in the plant and we'll apply again," which is what happened.
When it comes time for the vote, people are going into the lunchroom to vote. There are management people standing at the door of the lunchroom speaking to them as they go in. The union complains to the labour board people. These guys are removed three times from the doorway of the voting room. Anyway, they narrowly lost the vote. The second chap who had been given the two weeks' suspension hadn't come back. He decided: "This is it. I've had enough." This is the sort of thing you have to deal with.
In a case like this, if the first worker had been given the protection he needed, he wouldn't have backed off, he wouldn't have gone and sat down. He'd probably have been returned to work within 48 hours of what we would hope for. The big problem here is the delays. People are sitting there in a plant and they may have lots of reasons why they want to join a union or maybe don't.
The bottom line is that as this stretches along -- and this organizing drive took between six and seven months by the time it was completed -- first of all they see the guy discharged. A lot of them lose enthusiasm. All of a sudden he's quiet again because he's nervous; he can't afford to lose his job. Other people see it as: "Jeez, what's the use of having a union? Look how ineffective they are. It's gone six months and they still haven't been able to organize. What are they going to do for a collective agreement if it takes them six months to do this?" A lot of the enthusiasm's lost and the biggest tactic that a company has, if it wants to defeat a union, is to delay things as much as possible.
If the union had better access or was allowed complete access to company property, instead of having a worker in there who could be discharged they could have had a union rep sitting in the lunchroom taking to people as they came in and out. He could have been asking questions. He could have been having cards signed.
Access to the company's list: Here's a perfect example of how they didn't even know how many people worked in the plant. It was information that wasn't available to them. The company claimed that as perks, it gave some of the other employees the right not to punch in and out. There's no reason for it. It seems strange that one person would be able to punch in and the other person wouldn't.
They didn't use a petition here, but a petition is exactly the same thing. A petition's just another delay tactic; it ties up the process, extends it. People question, "What good is a union if it takes months?" It's exactly what it is. Anything that the company, if it doesn't want a union there, can do to delay the process kills it. There are lots of petitions taken around by employees, not because they change their mind, not because they don't want the union, but because somebody in management suggested it and they feel too intimidated and concerned for their job not to. I think that the government, with this legislation limiting the use of petitions, is definitely on the right track, but what's needed is to go that one step further and eliminate them altogether.
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I'd like to take the opportunity here to quote Don Ross. He's a city alderman and chairperson of the Hamilton Economic Development and Planning Committee. He gave a brief that he presented to the Honourable Bob Mackenzie on January 20 in Hamilton. Here's what Mr Ross had to say:
"On January 9, commencing at 7 pm, the committee received approximately 13 presentations at the second public meeting. The majority of those presenting were representatives of labour organizations that are very active within this region. In addition, there were three other noteworthy presentations, two from retired workers and one from a representative of a local anti-poverty organization."
Here's what he had to say: "The committee was genuinely impressed with the research and content of all presentations. Each of the representatives from the labour organizations concentrated on specific reforms and cited actual examples within this community that illustrates why this legislation must proceed.
"As chairman of the economic development and planning committee, I have the opportunity to see, both statistically and through business visitations, the change that has occurred within the region's economy. The transition from exclusively a manufacturing-based economy 10 to 15 years ago to a regional economy that now has a significant retail/service sector component has been dramatic. In the 1980s the region has witnessed the creation of more part-time employment and seen greater numbers of women entering the workforce. The regional municipality obviously acknowledges the need of these individuals to achieve a better working environment and a higher standard of living. There is absolutely no doubt that this region has significantly benefited from having a population that has a high per capita income, which is partly attributable to the level of unionization in our labour force."
I'd like to comment that he's recognizing the shift from manufacturing in Hamilton to the retail/service sector and the big increase in part-time and women workers. I have to say that it is very important that this provincial government changes the OLRA to reflect these changes.
The other thing I'd like to talk about here is replacement workers. Picket line violence should be a thing of the past. It's caused by frustrated workers who have reached their limit of stress. It's also caused by replacement workers who are antagonizing workers on strike, and it's often caused by management people trying to provoke incidents of violence on the picket line in order to obtain an injunction against picketing.
I think other presenters have probably talked about the Quebec legislation. We think it was a good start. I'll give you a quote here from Carla Lipsig. She's a professor at York University and was a labour relations expert who was consulted at the start of the Quebec legislation. She says, "It civilized the labour conflict over a long period of time."
That's what we think the anti-scab legislation's going to do. Instead of employers trying to set up and break a union, they're going to be more apt to try and resolve the conflict and reach a collective agreement before a strike. It's an incentive to reach a collective agreement; it's not to prolong a strike and it's not to shift the balance of power.
To give you another quote, in September 1991 during the postal workers' strike and seeing the problems under federal legislation, Ghislain Dufour, who was a prominent Quebec business leader, told the Globe and Mail that it was a good thing that Quebec had these kind of labour laws, referring to the anti-scab legislation.
To once again quote Don Ross:
"The issue of replacement workers and its resulting violence is one that hits extremely close to home in greater Hamilton. I do not have a detailed report available of the actual costs to the region of policing labour disputes over the years but they are significant, and this is supported by the fact that the regional police department has a staff sergeant dedicated full-time for labour relations incidents. The social effects of violent labour disputes, the cost to taxpayers and the corresponding image associated with the region are definitely problems that must be eliminated in Hamilton-Wentworth, and if the reform of the act can accomplish this goal, it will receive the unconditional endorsement of the economic development and planning committee."
The only concern we have is the anti-scab amendment in Bill 40. In our opinion, it isn't quite as complete as it should be. There are some loopholes in the legislation and I think some of the benefits it may have in civilizing labour conflict may never materialize because of them. Permitting employers to shift work to another unit or geographic location or to contract work out to another location or allowing non-bargaining unit employees who normally work at the struck plant to do the work I think is something that should have been plugged at the same time.
On behalf of the labour council, I'd like to urge the government to seriously consider including these restrictions on the use of replacement workers in the legislation.
In closing, we'd like to say that the labour council is pleased about the amendments in Bill 40 which we hope over a period of time will bring a more harmonious relationship between employer and workers and that this harmony will create the kind of atmosphere that will allow workers and management to work together and to be able to compete in the global economy of the 1990s.
The Chair: Thank you, sir.
Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): Is the access to company and third-party property which you refer to in your brief where you indicate that a union representative could come into an industrial property in order to organize?
Mr Sutton: What I'm referring to when I say third-party property is access to a store in a shopping mall or access to one manufacturing operation in an industrial park.
Mr McLean: To answer my question, what part of the legislation refers to, if you're aware of it, where a union organizer could come in from outside and organize within that plant?
Mr Sutton: Would you say that again? I couldn't understand you.
Mr McLean: Are you referring, when you talk about the third party, to a union organizer who could come into a plant and head up an organization to organize that plant as a union?
Mr Sutton: For instance, if it was a dress shop in a mall, if I'm talking about the third-party part of it, I'd like to see the union organizer be able to have complete access to that mall, stand in front of the store or at the back door of the store and hand out leaflets or talk to employees as they're coming in and going out. What I would like, though, is to see them have complete access to the premises of the factory or the store as well. But third party would mean what I just said there.
Mr McLean: Many years ago I was involved with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union in organizing. The discussion that took place this morning was very strongly opposed to the democratic right of people having a secret ballot. If that had been in effect at that time, that company would have been organized because many people would not sign a union card because of the fear of what you've outlined in your brief, of reprimand from company management. If there were a secret ballot and you didn't have to sign a card, wouldn't that be more feasible?
Mr Sutton: No, I have to disagree with you because what happens here, even under the present legislation, is that if you don't have enough cards signed, you can still apply for a vote. So in the case you're talking about, they could still have had their secret ballot vote. I think you're trying to put something there that isn't.
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Mr Paul Klopp (Huron): Thank you for your brief this morning. The main thrust of this bill is to update the regulations to allow people more choice to, as you pointed out in your brief, reflect the changing workplace. Could you expand for me what this changing workplace is and give examples?
Ms McCarthy: I'm with the United Food and Commercial Workers and I worked 13 years at A&P in the retail sector. In many communities, not just Hamilton, but right across the province, we're seeing a huge increase in employment in the service sector. These are traditionally very low-paying jobs, usually held by women and quite often they do not hire full-time; they hire part-time. I think with the unemployment that people have suffered, especially in the Hamilton-Wentworth area, what we're seeing is that many people can no longer find full-time jobs and many of our workers are working several part-time jobs in order to make ends meet.
The workers we represent who are part-time workers are making a decent wage. They also have benefits packages that protect them in eyewear, dental, medical and they also have a retirement plan. That's something most retail workers, say, in the run of the mill shopping mall would never even dream of having. I think this workforce has got to be organized to protect those people because retail workers are no longer the workforce that is only working to supplement the family income.
It's a mistake to believe that the women who are in there working in the store are doing it to have a nice family vacation or buy a swimming pool. Those women are working out of economic necessity. Many of them are the sole support of their families.
This is a trend we've seen throughout the province in the workforce and it's not only women who are affected. There are many men who have been displaced from industrial-type jobs who are moving into the service sector and they're finding the same thing, that they have to work at a couple of jobs in order to make up one full-time job.
Mr Ward: Bob and Maureen, I'd like to thank you for your brief and the specific cases you referred to and the problems you have experienced in representing the working people of Hamilton. I'm sure it's eye-opening to some members of this committee, and I hope the critics of our proposed legislation will be reading Hansard so they can become aware of the problems that are occurring in the workplace in Ontario.
Brantford is very close to Hamilton. I know in Brantford, under the very capable leadership of Garry MacDonald, the president of our labour council, they're very involved in the community, sitting on a number of committees, working with business for the betterment of our community and working people as a whole in Brantford.
Critics of this legislation seem to imply that we cannot have cooperation between labour, business and government, that in fact these amendments will drive a wedge between our efforts to have greater cooperation and trust. As a government, we're trying to head the province down the road of this cooperation. We feel it's important if we're going to achieve our goals as a province.
Can you give some specific examples in Hamilton of where the labour council is involved in the community and working with business, if possible, so the critics of this legislation can be aware that there are examples of cooperation and that in fact it isn't an adversarial system that we have in existence, that there are examples of cooperation?
Ms McCarthy: If I could just start, there are a couple of areas in Hamilton, and I'll ask Bob to elaborate on it. One is that we have seven labour positions on the United Way of Hamilton-Wentworth and the greatest number of contributions to the United Way in the community is through the donations of workers on payroll deduction. This is largely through the commitment of the labour council and the union delegates to that council to the United Way.
The other example I would offer is that since I would say three or four months ago, the labour council began having periodic meetings with the chamber of commerce in Hamilton to discuss issues of mutual interest such as, how can we make Hamilton an attractive city to business people so that our people can find jobs and the chamber of commerce can attract business to the community? There has been an ongoing discussion with the chamber on that.
The other example I would offer is that the Hamilton and District Labour Council many years ago opened the Worker Education Centre. They provide English-as-a-second-language and job loss and plant closure assistance within unionized workplaces in Hamilton.
Most often the way this is offered, especially English as a second language, is through negotiations with a company and the Worker Education Centre, whereby the centre goes in and actually offers the programs on the company's premises. The company will offer some time at work to complete these and then the worker will give up some of his free time. It's been a very successful relationship in the community. Bob has a few other examples.
Mr Sutton: I'm just going to elaborate on what Maureen said about the United Way. I've been on the United Way board for about four or five years now. One of the first things that surprised me was the amount of interest among the business people on that board in what labour has to say, as well as the fact that if there's going to be an organizing drive for the United Way, like a fund-raising drive in a unionized plant, the first thing they do is come to the representatives of the union, and ask, "Will you go into the plant first and talk to the workers?" Experience has shown that when the union's there promoting the United Way with the company, it's much more successful. As Maureen said, the majority of the donations, the majority of the money that's raised by the United Way in Hamilton, is from unionized plants.
Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall): I'd like to thank you for your presentation. I know the area that I come from has a district labour council too and it shares many of the things you mentioned earlier.
I'd like to thank you for sharing some of your views in your brief. There are just a couple of concerns I might have. You say in your brief that you're pleased that you'll be able to organize the agricultural and horticultural workers. Since the government seems to be very confused on how to do that and how that would show up in Bill 40, maybe you could share some of your views on how to do that, on account of the seasonal work and the short seasons. I'd like you to mostly just stick to the producers in agriculture.
Ms McCarthy: Just briefly, the United Food and Commercial Workers has many plants that are seasonal. The workers in there are quite often laid off for very long periods of time and quite often they have extremely long workweeks, when they are at work. That has not been a problem in negotiating a collective agreement, if that's what you're getting at.
Mr Cleary: I was more leaning towards the producer, right out on the farm itself, how that would affect the farmer. You must have had some ideas when you put that in your bill.
Ms McCarthy: I don't see where it's all that different from any other employment situation. If the workers are organized or whether they're unorganized, the farmer is still their employer and if they want to collectively get together to bargain for rights as workers, it's not any different from any other workplace. The situation may be different within the workplace and those situations can be accommodated, but they are still workers and they should have the right extended to them to bargain collectively for the things they feel they're entitled to as workers.
Mr Cleary: I thank you for your views, but I see it a little bit differently in the agricultural community. I just thought you might have some input that would help them when they were drafting the part of the legislation to do with agriculture.
Mr Sutton: Could I just speak on something there? One of the concerns I have is that I don't know why people would want to treat agricultural workers any differently than any other workers in the province. One of the things a union's not going to do is negotiate a company right out of business and you're not going to negotiate a farmer out of business either. You're going to accommodate what it has to do to make it a viable operation.
One of the big concerns I have is the frequency of accidents on farms. I think it would be very beneficial as far as health and safety is concerned if not only the workers, but the farm owners and their families were to have some union involvement in health and safety, because it certainly is lacking in the farming industry. I think unions can provide that. We've done well with health and safety in industry. I think we could definitely make the farming industry a much safer place to work.
The Chair: Thank you, both of you, Bob Sutton and Maureen McCarthy, who came here today on behalf of the Hamilton and District Labour Council. You speak for a significant constituency. We appreciate the time you and your membership have taken to prepare this submission and the interest you've shown by being here today. We trust that you'll keep in touch.
Ms McCarthy: Thanks, Peter.
The Chair: We will be back at 1:30 this afternoon with the Ontario Nurses' Association. People are invited to come here to Queen's Park, room 151, to watch it in person. Otherwise, watch it on the legislative broadcast channel, which is doing an excellent job.
The committee recessed at 1212.
AFTERNOON SITTING
The committee resumed at 1331.
ONTARIO NURSES' ASSOCIATION
The Chair: The Ontario Nurses' Association is the first participant. These are public hearings at Queen's Park and the public is encouraged to attend in person or otherwise to watch it on the legislative broadcast channel.
Please tell us who you are and what your titles are. We've got half an hour. Please try to save the second half of that half-hour for discussions and exchanges -- at least the last 15 minutes. Go ahead.
Ms Mary Jane Christianson: Good afternoon. My name is Mary Jane Christianson. I am the president of the Ontario Nurses' Association. With me is Noelle Andrews, the acting director of government relations, and Dan Anderson, director of labour relations.
The Ontario Nurses' Association is the largest independent trade union in Canada, representing over 55,000 registered and graduate nurses, 98% of whom are female.
The union has extensive experience with virtually all aspects of the labour laws of Ontario, both in the public and private sectors. ONA received its trade union status from the Ontario Labour Relations Board in 1973. Since then we have organized well over 500 bargaining units of nurses employed in hospitals, nursing homes, homes for the aged, community health, Victorian Order of Nurses and private industry.
The union has long contended that major reform of the Labour Relations Act was necessary. In fact, the submission enclosed was first developed in 1986 for presentation to the then Labour minister, William Wrye. These same materials were the topic of a discussion in a meeting held on April 18, 1988, with former Labour minister, Gregory Sorbara. These submissions were subsequently mailed to current Labour minister Mackenzie on March 19, 1991, and were again presented to him on February 5, 1992, as part of the extensive consultation process the government has granted on labour law reform.
We welcome this opportunity to once again present our views on the amendments set forth in Bill 40, especially those that relate to the Labour Relations Act.
It is not our intention to be critical of the amendments proposed in Bill 40, other than to suggest that the reform is long overdue and to urge this government to move as quickly as possible to enact these changes without further delay.
We see little value in going through the specifics of all the proposed amendments to the act. We would simply like to point out that we see positives to each and every section, the merits of which have been discussed in great detail throughout the consultation process.
Although we were excluded from the discussions leading up to the November 1991 discussion paper, we were disappointed that Bill 40 does not include its full package of proposals. Since we were not a party to the entire consultation process, we draw no conclusions about the reasoning for certain items being omitted from Bill 40.
Rather than be critical, we will accept this as a sign that the government has been and remains open to positive suggestions. We recognize that at this stage of the process any suggestions for wholesale changes would not be viewed favourably. While the union is generally prepared to endorse Bill 40 as a package, we have one major concern that arises from it and accordingly have made one proposal for change.
Before dealing with our proposal, I would like to take the opportunity to view the issue of labour law reform from our union's perspective.
First, the mandate of this union is to represent every working nurse in this province who is eligible for collective bargaining. With a membership of some 55,000 nurses, we represent 90% of the available membership. We have no doubt that the amendments that pertain to the certification process will be helpful in our future organizing efforts but, even with them, organizing remains a challenge.
Over 95% of our members come under the Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act and therefore have no legal right to strike. For them, replacement workers is a non-issue. Where the right to strike exists, strikes have been infrequent and replacement workers would not normally be utilized in any event.
While we view all the proposed changes positively, as a total package we don't see them as a dramatic advance into a new world of labour relations. The day that these changes are proclaimed we will still have to deal with employers who claim they have no money but with whom we must bargain collectively. We will have members on layoff, members with grievances who expect but may not receive timely resolution of their grievances and members who are wondering when, if ever, they will see the pay equity adjustments to which they are entitled. This is our current reality, and nothing in the package of reform changes this. They remain for the union and the employer to resolve through the appropriate mechanisms.
We would now like to address one area of change that this union considers critical to its future growth -- that is, the right of the Ontario Nurses' Association to restrict its organizing activities to members of the nursing profession. Bill 40 contains a provision that says, "a bargaining unit consisting solely of employees who are members of the same profession shall be deemed by the board to be a unit of employees appropriate for collective bargaining." This provision, however, appears to have application only to the following male-dominated professions: architecture, dentistry, engineering, land surveying and law. In our respectful submission, the female-dominated profession of nursing deserves to be added to this list of professions that are guaranteed a right akin to craft bargaining unit status.
In the recent past this union has been under attack by employers who have been seeking to include non-nurses within our bargaining units. This is nothing more than an employer tactic designed to defeat our applications for certification, as our membership is currently limited to registered and graduate nurses. In other words, if an employer can convince the labour board to include non-nurses in our bargaining unit, we have to withdraw our application because we are unable to admit the non-nurses into membership of our union.
In this regard we cite a recent case involving the Belleville General Hospital and the Ontario Nurses' Association. This was an application for certification of a unit of home care nurses with whom the employer was attempting to join a number of social workers. While the matter was only recently settled in ONA's favour, the expense associated with that litigation was considerable, with no assurances that the issue will not be resurrected by other employers.
Quite frankly, we would rather see the available health care dollars going into health care rather than questionable litigation aimed solely at defeating the union. Our proposal would put an end to this type of mischief, which is indirectly funded by the government where we deal with public sector employers. While ONA could amend its constitution to allow for the inclusion of allied personnel into nursing bargaining units, we are not anxious to do so for a number of reasons, not the least of which would be the jurisdictional battles that might occur with unions that have traditionally represented these allied personnel.
By enacting the amendments sought by this union, the government would effectively maintain the status quo as it relates to nursing bargaining units and preclude the significant potential for extensive and expensive litigation in this area. We also see that our amendment would assist our efforts to carve out nurses from all-employee bargaining units. We frequently receive inquiries from nurses who are part of all-employee bargaining units who would prefer to have ONA as their union. We want these nurses to have their own bargaining units and to be able to choose the Ontario Nurses' Association and not be locked into a bargaining relationship which does not meet their needs, for whatever reasons.
We strongly support the inclusion of a purpose clause which purports to ensure that workers can freely exercise the right to organize and be represented by a trade union of their choice. Where nurses are currently a part of an all-employee bargaining unit represented by another union, representation by ONA is a practical impossibility. For example, ONA recently made application for a bargaining unit of nurses in the employ of Shelburne Nursing and Retirement Home in Shelburne, Ontario. The nurses were part of an all-employee bargaining unit represented by the Service Employees International Union, Local 204. The Ontario Labour Relations Board unanimously held that in order to represent the nurses, ONA would have to raid the entire bargaining unit, nurses and non-nurses. While the nurses were unanimous in their desire to be represented by ONA, we had no desire to raid the non-nurses, and we suspect they had no interest in joining us. As a result, we were forced to abandon our organizing efforts on behalf of these nurses, and these nurses were clearly denied representation by the union of their choice.
A legislated right to a purely professional bargaining unit, in combination with the new purpose clause, should allow nurses, such as those employed at the Shelburne residence and others, to be represented by the union of their choice.
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We thank you once again for the opportunity to express our views on this important piece of legislation. While we recognize that you are not obligated to act on any of our proposals, we strongly urge you to do so for the reasons we have expressed.
As far as the remainder of Bill 40 is concerned, we urge you to move on it as quickly as possible.
Its critics say that the timing is not right for even the remaining amendments, but for them the timing will never be right. These persons simply don't believe in the principles which this government has proposed for inclusion as the purpose clause of the Labour Relations Act. The critics don't really believe that unions and collective bargaining are good things. Fortunately, we know differently.
In spite of unprecedented consultation, the critics will say that there has not been enough consultation and that the amendments are being rushed into law. For them, however, there will never be enough consultation, or the consultation process will be complete only when they have convinced government to withdraw the bulk of its proposals.
We urge this government to resist any further attempt to delay or further water down labour law reform. Please do not let this opportunity to make real change to our labour legislation pass. Thank you once again for considering our proposal.
Ms Sharon Murdock (Sudbury): Just a couple of questions. I'm pleased to hear, because we don't hear it all that often, about how extensive our consultation was. I know that when I sat through the hearings in January and February it seemed like we were listening, and certainly from the resulting legislation, Bill 40, we did hear some of the things.
What I'm hearing you say is that you'd like to be removed from the hospital labour disputes act and included in the professional section of this bill. Is that correct?
Mr Dan Anderson: No. We would not like to be removed from the Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act. What we would like to be is included in the list of professionals who have the right to have strictly professional bargaining units.
Ms Murdock: Okay. Then my second question -- actually, I've got two others, but they sort of hinge somewhat on each other. One is, I would like to know how it works with ONA on part-time and full-time work and how you resolve that within your own union, and also then in terms of your views on the consolidation aspects of this bill.
Mr Anderson: I'm not sure I fully understand your question on how full-time and part-time works within ONA, but I'll take a shot at --
Ms Murdock: You cover both, I would presume. I mean, there are part-time nurses within hospitals.
Mr Anderson: We absolutely cover both. In fact, when we go to the labour relations board we traditionally ask for a single bargaining unit including both full- and part-time. Unfortunately, in the majority of cases the employer has asked for split bargaining units. The reason they ask for split bargaining units is simply in the hope that we may not have the numbers to certify either the full- or part-time bargaining unit.
But in the main, that's not the case. We have full- and part-time collective agreements now, and in those collective agreements we have provisions which basically give full- and part-timers complete portability between the two bargaining units. It would be our preference to have a single bargaining unit, and I would suspect that ONA would make use of the provision which would allow the labour board to merge bargaining units. That is something we would want to do, simply to have one collective agreement covering both our full- and part-time members.
Ms Murdock: And you don't see any conflict in that?
Mr Anderson: No conflict whatsoever.
Ms Murdock: Some of the comments that have been made is that there would be conflict with the part-time workers, whose interests are different from the full-time workers'. I'm wondering, where the work is the same, as it would be in a hospital situation with nurses, how that is working with you. That's what I'm trying to find out.
Mr Anderson: We've had experience going back as far as 1968 with full- and part-time bargaining units. I couldn't give you a shred of evidence of conflict simply because there hasn't been any. The only conflict we've had is conflict with the employer in seeking to make two separate bargaining units effectively work as one by providing the kind of transferability between bargaining units that we think is proper. We think that total transferability is what's proper. For example, if a job vacancy comes up in a hospital, the part-time nurse has an equal right to bid on a full-time vacancy, equal to what a full-time nurse would have, and that flows throughout our collective agreements. But as for problems, there have been none.
It's really only in the last seven or eight years that we've managed to get what I would consider close to complete portability, and I must say it's worked very well. What I would like to see out of it, though, is one collective agreement, so that when the part-timer is wondering what the full-time provisions are, or vice versa, he can simply go to his own collective agreement that shows it, without having to go to a different collective agreement.
Mr Offer: I think I understand the concern you have in your hope that the legislation would -- I know it doesn't yet, but could -- recognize basically a nursing-only type of association as opposed to others being brought in.
Mr Anderson: To be clear, that's exactly what we have now, but I think nursing deserves to be recognized in the Labour Relations Act as a profession, which it is. We raise it as a concern simply because very recently our bargaining units have come under attack by employers who are trying to put non-nurses into the bargaining units that we're seeking to organize.
Mr Offer: This is the area I want to explore with you in the time available. In light of the Belleville decision, do you expect this type of employer activity will diminish?
Mr Anderson: No.
Mr Offer: Can you share that with us?
Mr Anderson: The Belleville decision really involves a group of home care nurses. I say the Belleville decision was the first of potentially many, because with the shift of health care from the acute care hospitals into the community and the impending split of home care from community health on January 1, 1993, what we're concerned with is that we have existing organized nurses with the Ontario Nurses' Association in home care who are part of community health bargaining units, and who are going to split away from community health on January 1, 1993. There are non-nurse home care case managers. Our concern is that the employers will say they think the appropriate bargaining unit is all home care case managers, be they registered nurses or otherwise.
The problem from our standpoint is that under our current constitution and the current rules by which we live, unless we can take the entire bargaining unit into membership, we can't take any of the bargaining unit. So we're concerned that there may only be, let's say, two, three or four social workers who are employed as home care case managers, but if the labour board were to find that the appropriate bargaining unit consisted of all home care case managers, then there would be, let's say, 50 nurses and four non-nurses. In a situation like that, the labour board would be inclined to say, "ONA, you have successor rights to represent this group," but the ONA would have to say, "No, I'm sorry, we can't because we're unable to represent the four non-nurses."
Mr Offer: I guess that's a very real difficulty because it puts you potentially caught betwixt and between a ruling by the board and your own constitution.
Mr Anderson: Right. Now you can bet we would fight any such ruling to the death. Having said that, that only seems to make the lawyers richer and we're not for that necessarily.
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Mr Offer: My last question is that this issue and this potential difficulty that comes to your profession could be not just alleviated but eliminated if the nursing profession, however it wishes to be characterized, is added in the same way as architecture, dentistry, engineering, land surveying, the lot. If that would happen, your concern would be in many ways a thing of the past.
Mr Anderson: That concern would be eliminated. That's exactly why we proposed it.
Mr McLean: The discussions that took place leading up to November: Why were you left out of them? Did you make an application or presentation? Why were you not part of the discussions? Do you have any idea?
Mr Anderson: We have no clear explanation why that was.
Mr McLean: Did you send in a recommendation of what you would like to have seen, as some recommendations, within the bill?
Mr Anderson: We've been making representations as to what we'd like to see change in the Labour Relations Act since 1986 and have made it to every Minister of Labour since then. I must say that the most positive response we've had, quite obviously, is from the current government.
Mr McLean: How many part-time nurses and full-time nurses would there be in that Shelburne nursing home? Would there be 60 full-time, 40 part-time?
Mr Anderson: No, the numbers are much less than that. I believe it was seven or eight full-time and seven or eight part-time.
Mr McLean: About 50-50.
Mr Anderson: Yes.
Mr McLean: In an average hospital in Ontario, the city of Barrie --
Mr Anderson: Our membership in ONA generally is 50-50, half full-time, half part-time.
Mr McLean: Would that be the same within a hospital facility?
Mr Anderson: It is the same. Our membership is 89% hospital employees and our membership split generally is 50-50.
Mr McLean: You would really be looking for two recommendations to be included in the bill then; that would be for the full-time professionals and the part-time registered nursing assistants.
Mr Anderson: No. We have no interest in registered nursing assistants.
Mr McLean: Wouldn't they be part of the bargaining unit?
Mr Anderson: No, they're not. They're part of the service employee bargaining units that traditionally CUPE or the Service Employees' International Union represents.
Mr McLean: But in the case of Shelburne, all the staff was involved in that bargaining unit, including the nursing assistants.
Mr Anderson: Yes. There are a few bargaining units where there are all-employee bargaining units that include nurses. They are few and far between, but they do exist and Shelburne was one.
Mr McLean: Would it be mainly in nursing homes and homes for the aged where they would exist?
Mr Anderson: Well, Riverside Hospital is an example of a hospital which is an all-employee bargaining unit that includes nurses.
Mr McLean: So you would then include in the provision of professionals, full-time nurses and part-time nurses?
Mr Anderson: Absolutely.
The Chair: People, I want to thank you on behalf of the committee for coming here this afternoon. You obviously represent a large number of women and men in your profession and you spoke very eloquently for them today. We appreciate your interest and the effort that went into this submission and your participation. We trust you will be monitoring the progress of the bill, and we look forward to hearing from you should new matters arise. Please keep in touch.
CARPENTERS AND ALLIED WORKERS, LOCAL 27
The Chair: The next participant is the Carpenters and Allied Workers, Local 27. Please come forward and have a seat.
You brought to the committee's attention that some people had difficulty getting into the building last night to get to the committee between 6:30 and 9. In view of the fact that people in the whip's office purport to monitor these committee hearings, maybe the whip's office could make sure that doesn't happen again.
People, please tell us your names, your titles, and proceed with your submission, leaving us time for questions and comments.
Mr Mike Yorke: Certainly, Brother Chairperson. My name is Mike Yorke. I'm a business representative with the Carpenters and Allied Workers, Local 27.
Mr John Teffer: My name is John Teffer and I'm also a business rep with Local 27, Carpenters and Allied Workers.
Mr Yorke: We've prepared a document and I believe it's being distributed to the members of the committee. It deals with the carpenters' submission to government hearings on labour law reform.
First, I would like to give a preliminary, that the Carpenters and Allied Workers, Local 27 represents 6,000 men and women in the construction industry. As a union we are actively involved in apprenticeship training, skills upgrading, health and safety education, employment equity outreach, literacy training and various community issues. We are constantly organizing non-union companies in order to bring the benefits that we have won to other workers.
In general, Local 27 would support and endorse the submissions of the Ontario Federation of Labour. The federation covers many of the concerns that affect our membership, so we will concentrate on those areas of concern to the construction industry such as organizing activity.
The original reform discussion paper correctly admitted that at present, "Employees can face substantial hurdles when they attempt to obtain trade union representation and membership." This is true in any non-union workplace in the province, but is far worse in the construction industry where the instability of employment makes it very easy for reprisals to be carried out. Because the numbers of employees fluctuate continuously and there is no seniority system, it's a well-acknowledged fact of life that troublemakers can be easily taken care of. Threats of closing a company and opening up again are taken very seriously because of the ease with which an employer can disappear into the currents of an ever-changing industry.
As a union that is constantly organizing, we face a number of employer strategies to frustrate the will of the employees to gain union recognition. They usually involve firing -- such as layoffs due to lack of work -- or threats of firing union supporters, denying access to union representatives on third-party property and padding of employee lists to cause lengthy examination procedures that delay certification for months. Of course, in construction that length of delay may mean the employees are denied the benefit of unionizing as the job may be long completed.
To illustrate our concerns over employer abuse of power during certifications, let us list a number of examples. In almost every certification application filed by this local in many areas over the last three years, employees have suffered reprisals.
In Huntsville, two carpenters were fired by Belrock Construction. Their complaint was settled many weeks later on a without-prejudice basis where they received some lost wages but were not reinstated.
In Toronto, Tartu Construction dismissed one worker for signing a union card.
In Toronto, Bemar Construction dismissed a number of carpenters and labourers as soon as it discovered an organizing drive under way. The owner then selectively rehired only certain employees in an attempt to minimize possible liability awards while still teaching them a valuable lesson.
In Alliston, five carpenters chose to join the union on April 7. Two days later all five were dismissed and replaced shortly thereafter by new hires. At present, 119 days later, the certification application is still before the OLRB and their section 89 complaint for unfair dismissal has not yet commenced. The first day of their hearing in fact is not scheduled until mid-September.
We feel that the right of employees to join a union without fear of reprisal does not exist in Ontario today. In real life, workers' lives are governed by levels of coercion that have no place in the 20th century.
Accordingly, we feel strongly that all the proposals to cover organizing activity must be strengthened. Of particular importance is the proposal to require that the OLRB commence a hearing within 14 days of the filing of a complaint arising from discipline or discharge or related to an organizing drive. This would only have meaning if, as suggested, the OLRB were required to sit on consecutive hearing days until the hearing is completed and a decision issued immediately.
However, the change from a seven-day period to 15 days is a significant retreat by the government. Employers are able to get hearings scheduled within hours of an application for a cease-and-desist order. Surely someone who has been unjustly stripped of their employment should be able to expect a hearing within a reasonable time. The act should require the hearings to commence within seven days of reprisal and continue every day until completion, at which time a board order should be issued.
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Access to third-party property is vital in construction as virtually all work is performed on third-party property. The owners or developers often deny access to organizers even to speak to employees during their own time, such as at breaks or before work or at lunch. Where contractors are working in a shopping mall or office building, the inability to reach employees at the site means that it's virtually impossible to determine which employee is actually working for the contractor in the appropriate craft bargaining unit.
Another option that was outlined in the discussion paper was the requirement to post a list of employee rights in the same manner as health and safety postings. This would be a clear step forward in ensuring that workers can be informed or can make informed decisions about their own future, yet it too has fallen on the cutting-room floor in order to appease companies who have little intent of providing those rights.
The certification process: Local 27 endorses most of the amendments relating to the certification process, with the exception of moving the date of membership evidence. We feel that given the fact that employees are often absent from work due to inclement weather or work scheduling, it is fairer to allow the extra time until the terminal date for the union to submit proof of membership. This may remain as a practice different from industrial applications. We do, however, agree that petitions or revocations are almost always tainted by management and should no longer be permitted.
What is missing from the bill are penalties for abuse of process by employers seeking to frustrate the certification. The practice of padding the employee list is rampant in construction because work changes daily and craft jurisdictions are wide and often overlapping.
We have experienced every trick from forged time sheets to replies that list every single employee of a general contractor, from the superintendent to the truck driver, as a carpenter. We have had certifications delayed by up to one year due to such fraud. The act should include statutory penalties for employers issuing false statements; failure to do so simply encourages those who flout the act.
Reducing industrial conflict: Local 27 strongly agrees with the proposal to put an end to strikebreaking. The use of replacement workers is featured more and more as new sectors of the workforce try to exercise their rights to attain a collective agreement. Often the result has been that the union has been broken and revenge is exacted on those employees who helped organize their fellow workers.
Picket line confrontations will sometimes lead to violence, as workers with many years of service to a company begin to fear for their future if production is successfully continued by others taking their jobs. Perhaps most harmful is the racial tension created in a community if unemployed immigrant workers are the ones desperate enough to cross picket lines to secure a day's pay.
We want to ensure, however, that the definition of "the establishment subject to the strike or lockout" includes all work that a constructor or contractor is engaged to perform.
The other proposal which is vital to our membership, but has been dropped for the bill, is the right to respect picket lines. It is the right of every worker to exercise his individual conscience in choosing to respect a picket line. This should be an absolute and not subject to any other restrictions. The history of industrial relations has shown that workers will exercise this right no matter what legal regime tries to proscribe it; all that varies is the severity of punishment applied.
The same is true of unfair limitations on the right of workers to withdraw their labour. Action by employees should only be deemed to be a strike if it is intended to change the terms and conditions of a collective agreement between the employees and their employer.
Related employers -- construction management: The process of constructing major projects has changed over the decades since the end of World War II. Originally a general contractor would hire all the trades necessary to build the structure of a building and would contract out the mechanical portion of the work to specialty contractors. As technology changed and specialization occurred, more and more of the work was divided into subcontracts and let out. This resulted in the widespread negotiation of subcontracting clauses in most of our construction collective agreements.
Practice has changed to the point that the vast majority of construction work is now performed by subcontractors, and the traditional method of building with a general contractor is being replaced with a process of construction management. Nearly all the major contractors now also operate as construction managers, where the subcontracts are signed directly by the owner and are overseen by the manager. The issue of contractual responsibility of these managers to uphold the subcontracting provisions of their collective agreements has been the subject of much concern in the industry.
While the bill addresses similar concerns of contract tendering in the service sector, it has omitted any resolution to the problem in construction. The fact is that a company that goes from working as a general contractor to being a construction manager is still the constructor. While that arrangement is sometimes established to circumvent union rights, it's now become so prevalent for legitimate business reasons as to constitute a significant change in construction labour relations.
The act should therefore be amended to take into account this change. Subsection 1(4) should include the requirement of an employer that acts as a constructor or a manager of construction to ensure that all of its subcontracting or contracting obligations are met on projects where it is the constructor or manager.
In addition, the discretionary powers of the board under subsection 1(4) should be removed so that a company is automatically bound to the agreements of its related company.
In conclusion, we'd like to emphasize that reform to the Ontario Labour Relations Act is long overdue. Workers have had their most basic rights to bargain collectively frustrated for decades by laws that either blatantly favour employers or are subject to such abuse by management lawyers as to be rendered near useless.
Those who are pursuing a free trade agenda have little commitment to a society which offers a just and well-balanced set of social relations. They are making their opposition to any progressive reforms well known through the media and other avenues in an attempt to persuade the government to abandon its commitment to social justice.
On behalf of the members of our union, both present and future, we urge you to move forward with substantial reform in order to provide the basis for a more just Ontario.
Mr McGuinty: Thank you, gentlemen, for your presentation. I've had a little experience in matters relating to labour and unions, but one of the things I've always thought, and I still think most people in Ontario believe this, is that the best expression of a democratic right is the right to vote by secret ballot.
When I've raised this with representatives from the labour sector, essentially they're saying that I'm rather naïve and that although that may be true generally, there's an exception when it comes to the matter of union organization, that different circumstances obtain and that it just wouldn't work there.
What I'm asking you is, what will we have to put in place in order to ensure that at the end of the day we could have a secret ballot so that at the very end an employee would have the opportunity to choose, free from inducement by either side? Is that possible? It's been rejected to date, from what I can see, but I'm just wondering, why would it not be possible? What would we have to lay down as preliminary to that?
Mr Yorke: I think it's quite possible. However, we're also talking about changing much of the structure within our present society before we get to that point. The experience I have had on many, many construction sites is that the dynamic of power between the employer and the employee is so unbalanced at present -- it is mentioned maybe that would be good in an ideal society or an ideal system, but at present I don't think it's relevant.
Mr McGuinty: Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but it would seem that when you can vote in secret, then the employer doesn't know who specifically voted one way or the other.
Mr Yorke: Right now the cards are in secret as well. The employer has no knowledge of who signed a card. We go to many cases at the labour board, and the cards are always kept secret, so the employer essentially has no knowledge of who signed a card in any event. But the power that takes place on a job site is so balanced in favour of the employers that if they have an opportunity to sway a vote one way or the other, they often make maximum use of that.
As an example, let me illustrate a situation. In British Columbia right now, after every certification drive, there is always a vote. The carpenters' union, in my understanding, has very rarely won a vote. Why? Because the employer has 14 days in which to coerce and to act and to put his pressure on the people, on the workers, so that when a vote comes up, it's invariably in favour of the employer. They know what happens if they don't do that. Often the employers out there have shut down businesses; again the same kinds of problems that happen here. People are fired on a regular basis.
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Mr Offer: In your presentation you spoke about the requirement to post a list of employees' rights, that this option was taken from the discussion paper, and that you believe that would be a clear step forward in ensuring that workers make informed decisions about their future.
Mr Yorke: Yes.
Mr Offer: There are two matters that come about from this. The first is that I believe what was in the discussion paper was not just the list of employee rights, but rather the list of employees -- that a list of employees, containing names and addresses, would be beneficial to those in an organizing campaign to find out who are the employees and where they live. Though you have not directly touched on that, I'm wondering if you might share with this committee what your feeling is on that issue.
Mr Yorke: I would have to say it was an oversight not to have mentioned that. That is something we feel is extremely critical, specifically when we're talking about third-party property. I mean, how do you get access to the workers? How do you approach those workers? Oftentimes we've been denied access. The police have essentially been called to pretty well escort the organizer away from the site. So a list of employees would be extremely beneficial. In many cases the employees are a little bit reluctant to come forward in view of the employer if the employer is in the proximity, so a list of employees would be extremely beneficial to us.
Mr Offer: Here is a dilemma I find myself in. I hear that knowing who the employees are and where they live is important in an organizing campaign, but I think, on the other hand, there is the right of an employee to keep his or her address confidential. It is their choice, and especially with female workers and what not, this is a matter which is of great importance. So I ask, notwithstanding the fact that the provision of a list of employees' names with their addresses would be helpful in an organizing drive, don't you feel that there is a superseding right of that same individual, that male or female worker, to keep his or her address private and confidential?
Mr Yorke: I think that's an important point. I don't know the exact language respecting the earlier proposals over how that information would be relayed to a union organizer, so on that I'll just leave it.
Mr McLean: In your brief, you said that "the right of employees to join a union without fear of reprisal does not exist in Ontario today." If Bill 40 is passed, do you think it will exist then?
Mr Yorke: I think the right will be there. Whether or not that's enacted is another question. We'll have to see, certainly, what develops after Bill 40 is passed.
Mr McLean: You indicate that the access to third party is vital. If you have third party going on a property to form and organize, do you believe that will cause any problem?
Mr Yorke: No, I don't.
Mr McLean: If you were the employer, would you want a third party coming on to your property to organize?
Mr Yorke: In the construction industry it's a little different. Often we're not working on the employer's property. Often you'll find that an employer is renovating a shopping mall or is in an office building. I would say a mall is quite often seen as a public space; however, for a union organizer, it's not a public space. Often we've attempted to meet the workers in an open area, the food court of any shopping mall you'd want to see, and the employer would recognize what we're doing, approach the mall management and ask them to escort us off the property. As the law stands right now, we have to adhere to that.
Mr McLean: Don't you think a secret vote would be to your advantage on construction sites?
Mr Yorke: It's my experience that the secret vote takes place when the worker signs the union card.
Mr McLean: You'd indicated earlier that the employer is not aware of who signs union cards.
Mr Yorke: That's correct, yes.
Mr McLean: I would have think that employers in at least 50% of the cases would know the majority who have signed union cards. Would that be correct?
Mr Yorke: Put it this way: In theory, they don't know who signed the union cards, but they have a pretty good idea, and that's why we're faced with all these reprisals. Someone who has talked about his rights as a worker on the site -- let's just say the employer has a pretty good idea of who's signing the union card.
Mr McLean: Wouldn't it be better, then, if you had a secret ballot and no union cards? You'd vote and have a secret ballot, and then they couldn't ever reprise on anybody. That would be my opinion. I know of a union that would have been organized if it had had a secret ballot.
Mr Yorke: It's just that we've had many experiences where that has not in fact been the case. It basically delays the whole process, and during that delay the employer takes ample opportunity to coerce the workers either to change their vote or to line up with the employer's point of view.
Mr McLean: What number would you indicate you would probably have organized in the last two years?
Mr Yorke: In the construction industry?
Mr McLean: Yes.
Mr Yorke: Due to the downturn, our organizing has dipped a little bit. However, in my personal experience we've been involved with many certifications. We eventually win the organizing drive or we have the company certified, but unfortunately for many workers it's come too late.
Mr Ward: I'd like to thank you for an excellent presentation. I'm particularly pleased that you came up with some specific examples of events that have occurred in your local's experience of organizing that support your rationale for suggested changes to the existing labour law we have in the province of Ontario.
We're hearing basically two sides, one side in support of updating the labour laws, and the other side generally saying the bill is bad or that specific areas should be redressed. The people who are criticizing the suggested legislation are saying there is an existing balance today in the workplace, that the suggested amendments will tilt that balance in favour of worker representatives in the trade union movement. We're hearing from the proponents of the legislation, the organizations and individuals who are coming out in support, that apparently this balance isn't a level playing field at all, that it is tilted in favour of the employers, and specific examples are given. How do you answer the critics of the suggested legislation when they say it is a level playing field in today's environment, when you have specific examples?
Mr Yorke: My initial reaction to that is that I don't feel we have a level playing field at all. I certainly mention that in light of the free trade agreement and the proposed North American free trade agreement.
As an organizer or representative, I'm out on the site meeting with workers on a daily basis. I'm often meeting non-union workers who tell me they would love to join a union, they would like to be part of it, but they're basically -- there are a number of euphemisms they use, but they're just out and out frightened of being fired or dismissed as a result of signing a card. So they say, "We'd like to be part of the union." Maybe workers aren't really too familiar with the whole process; they say, "If the company goes union, I'd love to be part of it."
That refers back to our list of employee rights as regards a certification or union representation. People don't have a clear understanding of how they actually get to be part of a union, so that's something we do on a regular basis as well, just sort of educate workers and discuss with people.
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Mr Ward: I think it's the general consensus that the workplace and workforce have changed dramatically in Ontario since the 1970s. That's why we feel it's important to update the existing labour laws, because we don't feel they've kept pace with the changes. We also feel it's important to develop greater cooperation and trust between business, labour and government, both generally across the province and specifically in the respective workplaces. We think that's the only way we're going to tackle the economic problems we're facing in the 1990s. Do you feel the workplace and workforce have changed since the 1970s? I know your local is very progressive. Do you have examples of existing cooperation and do you feel there are areas where we can develop more cooperation and greater trust between labour, business and government?
Mr Yorke: I'm glad you brought that up. Those are actually two interesting points. With respect to the first one, industry, especially the construction industry, is changing on a daily basis. New technology, new processes, new systems are coming out constantly. To some degree, that tends to deskill the workforce. Diametrically, it also demands a more highly skilled workforce but fewer of those more highly skilled workers.
The carpenters' union is involved in training people. We have 16,000 or 17,000 square feet where we're involved with apprenticeship training as well as rehabilitation of injured workers and retraining of older workers. That is in conjunction with the Toronto Construction Association and many of the employers whom we are in collective agreement with. We feel we're addressing the concern of the industry with respect to new technology and we're doing it cooperatively with the constructors we do business with every day.
If I may mention, talking about certification, maybe initially our relations with a number of the contractors weren't the best, when they dismissed people, etc, but I know from personal experience in a number of cases that after an employer has been certified and sees what the union has to offer in respect of trained apprentices, young people coming into the industry and the level of commitment our people are having when they're on the site, relations between the employer and the union have improved remarkably.
The Chair: Thank you. I want to tell both of you how much this committee appreciates your participation. You've spoken effectively and articulately on behalf of the Carpenters and Allied Workers and we appreciate your participation.
Mr Yorke: We appreciate the opportunity very much as well.
The Chair: We trust you'll keep in touch. Take care, friends.
FAIRWEATHER
The Chair: The next participants are people speaking on behalf of Fairweather. Would they come forward and seat themselves in front of a microphone. In the interim, other people should know there's coffee and some soft drinks over here. They're here for you to drink, to help make you a little more comfortable. Tell us who you are please, your title if any, and try to save the second 15 minutes of your half-hour time frame for questions and exchanges, which sometimes get very animated and lively. Who knows?
Ms Carol Cox: Certainly. We've been here before so we know.
The Chair: It's good to have you here again.
Ms Cox: Thank you. It's nice to be here. I'm not going to be the main speaker, David is, but my name is Carol Cox and I'm vice-president of human resources for Dylex.
Mr David Posluns: Good afternoon. I am David Posluns and I'm the secretary of the corporation of Fairweather. I'm also the chief financial officer of its parent corporation, Dylex Ltd.
I would like you to know that we greatly appreciate the opportunity to converse with you today on this issue because we feel it's very important.
Just for some background, Fairweather is a leader in women's wear retailing, with 133 stores across Canada and 62 stores in Ontario. Fairweather provides merchandise of top quality and value in congenial and convenient shopping environments.
Approximately 1,300 of our people work right here in Ontario. Because we are an Ontario-based company with almost 50% of our stores here, the negative implications of this bill could destroy the company.
One preliminary comment I would like to make is that my commitment to the retail sector in this province is both professional and personal. I was raised here in Toronto and educated in the United States, and have returned in order to help revive Canadian retailing. I recently returned from the United States, where I operated the Foxmoor and Brooks chains of retail clothing outlets. I also led the entry of the Canadian retail operation, Club Monaco, into the United States market. I'm familiar with both American and Canadian retail practices. I have returned to Canada in an effort to preserve a distinctive Canadian retail sector. This task if becoming increasingly difficult.
I am speaking to you today because I am very concerned that Bill 40 is a threat to the future of retailing in Ontario. The retail sector in Canada is struggling to cope with numerous pressures. To name but a few, consumer confidence has been at a record low; consumer spending patterns have permanently changed as a result of demographic and social change; cross-border shopping persists and lures away an increasing portion of declining personal income in this province, and there is an increasing presence of US operations in the Ontario market.
Canadian retailers have responded to these changes by lowering prices, focusing their businesses, refocusing product lines, improving training, introducing information technology and retraining our employees.
Profound changes are placing tremendous pressure on the Canadian retail sector. In fact, the Ministry of Labour reports that in the first three months of 1992 alone, over 2,800 retail jobs were lost in Ontario, and this does not include layoffs involving fewer than 50 employees. It is likely that there will continue to be job losses and closures in the retail sector for the balance of 1992.
The challenge before us is much greater than simply waiting for economic recovery. John Winter, one of Canada's retail analysts, stated that statistics proved that for every job created in retail, a ripple effect is caused which results in two more jobs being created in associated industries such as manufacturing, distribution, construction and advertising. Ominously, the reverse is also true. When one retail job is lost, two others will ultimately disappear down the line. Mr Winter added that a positive change in the retail industry has a greater impact on the economy than a similar change in any other industry.
The retail sector is changing to better meet the needs of employees and consumers. We are building progressive workplaces and are implementing innovative programs. Our parent company, Dylex, invests almost $1 million annually on employee training and human resource development. We offer employment opportunities to those who are new to the workforce -- youth and new Canadians; those who are pursuing other careers -- students and artists; and those seeking transitional employment. For others, there are full-time careers.
Dylex has not been immune from the harsh reality of retailing in Ontario today. The recession and other factors have had an impact on Dylex. Dylex has closed its Town and Country operations. In 1989 Dylex reported a loss of $60.7 million. For 1990 the company reported a loss of $3.2 million, and last year Dylex reported a loss of $55 million.
This government has started to recognize the retail sector's crisis. Its recent policy decision to permit wide-open Sunday shopping will help to encourage Ontarians to shop in Ontario, but it will certainly not solve all these pressing problems. We need the government to take further action.
The government's throne speech and 1992 budget underscored that it is committed to the economic recovery and renewal of Ontario. For years, Ontario has focused on the natural resource and manufacturing sectors as the engines of prosperity. However, in the changing global economy the economic health of the retail sector is vital to Ontario's economic renewal.
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Ontario's industrial strategy outlined six competitive fundamentals. One of these is continuous innovation. Retail activity drives product and manufacturing innovation. Our sector's proximity to consumers means that we are often the first to identify new product needs. Other sectors then respond. Retail also creates economic spinoffs in manufacturing, transportation and information technology.
When determining what changes will be made to this legislation, employers, labour and the government have a responsibility to make the economic renewal of the province their first priority. Government should be making every effort possible to help promote the Canadian retail sector in Ontario, not legislating policies which will only worsen the already bleak situation.
Bill 40 sets back retail employers and employees in confronting the challenges facing us. Bill 40 will impede new innovation, distance employers from their employees and slow down the pace of economic renewal. Bill 40 will also damage consumer and investor confidence, which is essential for economic recovery. The November discussion paper on labour reform has already had a negative impact on new business startups, new investment and reinvestment plans of those active in Ontario. Bill 40 falsely assumes that employers and employees cannot constructively work together without legislation.
Fairweather has learned, with stunningly positive results, that one of the keys to survival in the retail sector is ensuring that all employees work together with the common goal of getting closer to the consumer. This practice of flattening the organization through the elimination of layers brings all levels of the company much closer and makes the company far more effective in achieving its goals. True partnership is achieved by setting common goals and working towards them over time.
In a climate of mutual trust, this legislation will only undermine employers' efforts to work constructively with employees by adding back new communication layers to the organization. Imposing cumbersome and outdated processes based on practices from other sectors, other jurisdictions and from another era will destroy the initiatives under way to transform Canadian retailing.
Those who support Bill 40 argue that each proposal exists in some form in other jurisdictions. It is important to understand the cumulative impact of these proposals. Taken together, these changes represent a dramatic departure which significantly worsens the labour relations climate in Ontario.
I would like to outline four specific points of concern.
The purpose clause: At Fairweather, without a collective agreement, we offer substantive benefits and competitive wages, and with a flat organization there are opportunities for all employees to become involved in planning the strategic direction of the company. Furthermore, we invest in a large number of ongoing training programs and career advancement programs. The purpose clause of Bill 40 suggests that for unorganized workers the only way to improve working conditions is by forming a union. For organized workers it assumes that a union cannot win in free collective bargaining. These assumptions are both untrue and unbalanced.
Automatic certification: It is also disturbing that if the Ontario Labour Relations Board rules that an employer has contravened the act during a union organization campaign, a union is entitled to automatic certification. This can be achieved regardless of whether the union has the support of employees. This is unfair and unnecessary.
Third-party property: The provision to allow picketing on third-party property is another specific concern of retailers. As I mentioned earlier, regaining the confidence of consumers is critical to achieving economic recovery. By permitting picketing on third-party property, neighbouring stores will be negatively impacted. Principles of fairness suggest that it is inappropriate to permit demonstrations or other forms of picketing on the private property of those parties who are not involved in the dispute.
In larger shopping malls with 200 or more stores there is a great likelihood of continual picketing hampering access to shopping in Ontario. Such demonstrations may also have an impact on cross-border shopping. Many shoppers may choose to avoid the picket lines totally and shop in conveniently located malls just south of the border.
At Fairweather we have made a commitment to work towards preserving a distinctive Canadian retail sector, a sector which will respond to the needs of consumers, train and develop our employees and contribute to the economic wellbeing of Ontario.
An important consequence of this legislation is that it will facilitate further US expansion into Ontario's retail sector. American retailers are penetrating the Ontario economy at an increasing rate. American retailers can simply add Ontario to their northeastern US distribution system. The product will be shipped an extra 100 miles from the US. There will be no new investment here. There will be no Canadian marketing, no Canadian research, no Canadian managers and no Canadian retail sector.
As Canadian retailers fail, American ones are entering the market. American retailers operate in a market that has a lower cost base. Their lower level of social services permits them to pay less tax and have lower wages. They operate on consumerism to drive sales and have a population base that allows for economies of scale 10 times larger than what Canadian retailers face.
With their stronger financial backing, preferential leases and greater staying power, American retailers are not vulnerable to this legislation. Ontario stores likely represent a tiny portion of an American retailer's economic activity. They will be able to withstand strike activity in Ontario. On the other hand, Canadian retailers that concentrate most of their resources in Ontario would be crippled by such a strike. They would not be able to operate across Canada. In fact, if a strike were to occur in December during the peak Christmas season, it could easily bankrupt most retailers in Ontario -- a chilling thought.
We need to keep retail Canadian and help Canadian business to prosper in Ontario. It is my concern that the unintended consequences of Bill 40 make it impossible for us to do business here. If our costs increase as a result of Bill 40 and put us in a further weakened financial state, we will not be able to effectively compete in the long run.
As committee members it is your duty to consult and listen to the public concerns on this legislation. You are being told that the criticism the bill has received is hostile and hysterical. I am speaking from a company that is fighting to remain viable in Canada, a company that is investing in employees and technology to be successful as an Ontario-based international retailer. I am here to say that the negative impacts of this bill are real. It is already affecting our ability to attract new investment. It will impair our ability to empower employees and introduce value added innovations. This legislation undermines the province's chance of economic recovery.
We want to keep our business in Ontario. We have roots here. We are active in the community, but the government is pushing us to make tough choices as a result of Bill 40. Given the current public policy climate, it is harder to stay viable in Ontario. We are working with employees to revitalize our operations. Public policy should support these efforts and not undermine them. Bill 40 is a serious step in the wrong direction.
Mr Carr: The government just recently unveiled its industrial strategy, and one of the platforms it champions is that we need more home-based industries. They said that multinational companies, for a lot of different reasons, don't invest here and so on. They said that this bill is going to help further that, but you're disagreeing. You're saying that as a result of this we will see more American retailers. Could you expand on that a little bit, please?
Mr Posluns: Absolutely. One of the advantages the Americans have coming here is that they've got great economies of scale and a lower base of operation, which means that they can offer lower prices and work on lower margins. We're fighting to get our cost structure in line so that we can compete on that basis.
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There are many Canadians who are very weak because they're small. If you look at a company like Wal-Mart, which is projecting to do $52 billion in sales next year and makes, I don't know, several billion a year, and you look at Dylex, which is Canada's largest national retailer, we do not even do $2 billion a year.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, Wal-Mart opened 10 stores in Ontario, and they were unionized. So they go on strike. Do you think that's going to impact Wal-Mart's ability to operate or is it going to make it in a position to want to give in to any demands whatsoever by any union? Not likely.
They're going to look at the fact that many Canadian retailers are weakly capitalized and if they're unionized are going to become incapable of acting in a way where they're going to be able to keep their costs down. I think they will come here. They're going to use their advantages in economies of scale to out-price us, and they'll look at this bill and probably look at it very favourably because it'll ensure the death of Ontario retailers.
One of the amazing differences between American and Canadian retailers, having been both, is that they look very much at what the worst thing they could do to a competitor would be and ensure that they do it. Strategically, I think this would work to their advantage.
We've got 60% of our stores here. A strike here would cripple us. We would not be able to endure a strike. This is not an industry that is typical of other industries where unions have played a large role.
Mr Carr: One of the things the government has championed, and I suspect because everybody agrees that there needs to be better labour-management cooperation, but there's been the feeling that -- and I heard that even this morning -- unless you're unionized that cooperation can't begin. Could you maybe fill us in on any programs you have or what you've done as an employer to try to foster better relationships and cooperation with employees?
Mr Posluns: That's a good question as well because there's a fundamental issue that differentiates retailers from other sectors in the economy. The first is that unlike in, say, a steel mill where employees have no interaction with customers, the majority of people employed in retail are on the retail floor interacting with customers. The last thing we want is someone working on the floor who is unhappy, because she's not going to be able to convince a consumer that he should have his needs satisfied in one of our stores.
So as a sector we go to great lengths to ensure that employees are happy. We have to because it's the basis of our survival. What we have found is that the best way to do that is to have employees participate in management decisions, participate in shaping their direction and being involved in a tremendous amount of opportunity and development.
Due to the structure of chain stores, there is great opportunity for advancement because there are different opportunities, and for someone who's willing to excel, it's a great environment to be in. To encourage those winners to keep winning, we've got numerous training programs that are in place to foster their development. In fact one way we've been able to make people very happy in their environment is that we have things like upward assessment. It's not a one-way situation. We don't have managers who simply look at and evaluate employees. Employees also get to evaluate managers and that goes to that senior person's manager as part of his salary review. How do your employees view you? It's very important to the retail sector.
We've got things like an 800 number directly to the president. If someone's unhappy, he can go and talk directly to the president of the company. We have HR professionals in Fairweather and in every other Dylex division who act as the ombudsmen to make sure that employee concerns are managed.
We pay terrific benefits. We do all sorts of things to ensure that everybody's looked after and happy, because it's not in our interest to have unhappy people. They interact with consumers. That's our source of livelihood. They have to be happy.
So a flat organization where we look after people and they have a chance to participate is paramount to the success of the industry. To insert a new layer and to start saying, "Okay, now the only way you can speak to employees is through a union and you're going to have to deal with us," to me just destroys the nature of what is going to be necessary for the success of the retail industry. I'll tell you, any retailer that doesn't do what we we're doing is ultimately going to lose, because if its employees aren't happy, it's not going to be able to generate sales, and if it doesn't generate sales, it's going to lose.
So this bill works against us, it doesn't work for us, and it doesn't work for the employees, in our opinion.
Mr Fletcher: It's good to see you again. I remember you last year on the Sunday shopping issue. Is this the best way you spend your summer, coming around the committees?
Remembering what you were saying last year about your stores and everything else, you always did appear to be a progressive company, as far as we were concerned: the treatment of your employees, what you're saying. If I were a union organizer -- I have negotiated from management's side and I've negotiated from the union's side also, so I've been on both sides of the fence -- I wouldn't even come near your stores to try and organize.
I think you're doing the things we'd like to see happen in most industries in this province. It's the cooperation. If I could phone my boss to complain -- and I have a problem getting in touch with my boss sometimes, let me tell you. Maybe he's listening, I don't know.
Interjection.
Mr Fletcher: If I could phone my boss with an 800 number, yes.
It's refreshing to hear that these are the things that are going on; these are the things we are trying to promote.
When I listen to what you're saying, I can understand your concerns, but as far as Bill 40 is concerned, in your case I don't see anyone going near your stores to try to organize your stores, especially with the progressive things you're doing. I can't see that happening, but I do respect your concerns.
Mr Posluns: I'll tell you how I feel that it does impact, even if we were not the subject of a union drive. The major issue as I see it is that as we're mall-based, if you look at a mall, where you've got typically several hundred stores, definitely some, if not a large number, are likely to be unionized, especially if they're not as progressive as we are. To us, what that means is there's always going to be some sort of activity going on in the mall whereby there's going to be interference with consumers. And what do consumers want today? They want a hassle-free environment and they don't want to pay any money for anything. They want to pay nothing, little. So if convenience is an issue, that's hassle-free shopping. They don't want disgruntled employees, they don't want to have to deal with bad service. They want good service, low prices and a hassle-free environment. If they come into a mall and there's a picket going on, they don't want that. That's not what shopping is about. Shopping is about fun. You know, if you've got to part with your money, you're going to want to do it willingly and you're going to want to have fun doing it.
Mr Fletcher: Tell Mr Mulroney that.
Mr Posluns: If you make the environment hostile or not fun, consumers have an alternative. They've got mail order, they can go to the US -- and a lot of them do. Why not continue to do so? I'm not sure they're going to want to be in an environment where they're going to be hassled in a mall. They're just not interested and that's going to affect us. Total mall activity is going to decline and there'll be alternatives that consumers will use to fulfil their needs. They're not going to need to go to a mall and they're not going to want to go to a mall.
Even if we weren't unionized, we're going to bear the brunt of it just because we're a mall-based operator. I think that would be true of anyone else. It's direct interference in the shopping experience and people want less hassle today. With dual-income families and all that sort of stuff, people don't have time and they just want to shop and get it done and they don't want hassles. And this bill will create a tremendous amount of activity in malls.
Mr Fletcher: Just that part of it as far as the malls are concerned; if we could get rid of that or change something there, that would alleviate some of the concerns you would have as far as that's concerned.
Mr Posluns: Yes.
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Mr Huget: Thank you for your presentation; I found it very interesting.
I would like to say at the outset that I don't see the impact of Bill 40 on workplaces that are already happy and employees who are already happy, as you may. I'm a little sceptical of that.
My question to you is, for workers in retail situations or with retail employers that are far less carnival-like in their atmosphere around the work experience and who may be experiencing serious problems in the workplace, how would you suggest they address their grievances? How would you suggest that the situation for them is improved, as you portray that organizing is not what they need and shouldn't do, that it will interfere with the business of the malls, that it will interfere with your business? How would you suggest to these workers that they address their grievances, that they get their problems solved, that they move their employment situation into the 21st century?
Ms Cox: We can speak for Dylex and its member companies; it's very hard to speak for other retailers. In networking and talking to other firms, we're encouraging them also to put in 1-800 numbers; we're encouraging them to put in grievance policies. We've produced pamphlets that we've sent out to our stores about how to contact human resources departments and presidents and general managers of your firm if you have a concern. We're encouraging them to do that. We're also encouraging other firms to put in the kind of training programs that we've been putting in.
Also, one of the biggest successes we've had -- and David talked about it briefly -- was upward assessments. I can't begin to tell you how good it is and how good employees feel that they have a chance to talk anonymously about some of their concerns and really to assess their bosses. This is the second year in a row that we've had this in. I don't know of many other firms that are doing this yet -- this is very new -- but it's been very successful.
We've also moved to self-assessment, so we've been having all levels of the organization being able to write their own performance evaluation, which has been very good. We also sent out information to employees in the very beginning regarding what's expected of them, how they are going to be rated and what it means. We've been working very strongly with coaching and mentoring at every level in the organization.
We have a lot of employees in Ontario, and consequently across Canada, and these programs are relatively new. Dylex has just developed a corporate HR department -- it's only four years old -- at a time when Dylex was losing a lot of money. Retailers don't typically fund HR divisions, but they have and they've stuck behind it, and we've put in a lot of programs and got into a lot of divisions to encourage them to do this. Again, we're out there talking to other retail organizations, encouraging them to do the same thing.
Mr Posluns: Ultimately, the legislation, if it passes, will simply accelerate what will be the natural consequence to any firm that doesn't do this, and that is they'll go bankrupt, because if they don't address the issue and do become unionized, ultimately their cost structure is going to be too high for them to operate in what is already a razor-thin margin environment. They're not going to be able to compete, so they'll go out of business. They'll go out of business one way or the other, and Bill 40, as far as I'm concerned, will help to accelerate it.
Mr McGuinty: Thank you both for your presentation. During the past three days, I certainly have come to the conclusion that the state of relations between labour and business is abysmal, and I'm not sure there are any two other groups of society which hold each other in such suspicion.
You, by far, are certainly not extremists in terms of the position you advocate -- and I appreciated the insight you lent with respect to your involvement in the American scene -- but there was something you said that struck me. You said that a strike would cripple your Ontario base in that it would drive you to bankruptcy. Of course, that's premised on the assumption that a union would not recognize that, would not understand that a strike would effectively eliminate its jobs. Why is it that you think they would allow a strike to proceed?
Mr Posluns: I think there's a fundamental difference between the way a retailer operates and the way other businesses that are typically union businesses operate; that is, what is produced in the industrial sector usually does not have the same degree of perishability that retail products do. If a steel mill went on strike, the steel mill, for example, could accelerate production, have a huge buildup and sell it off during the strike and later on it could supplement it somehow or another; besides which, even if it couldn't sell it, it isn't perishable. Steel is steel and it's going to be in demand today and it's going to be in demand tomorrow.
In the apparel sector in particular, products have an incredibly short shelf life. They're only good over a couple of weeks. Every day that sits on the shelf, it declines in value dramatically. The only asset typically that a retailer has is its inventory, and every day that inventory sits idle is a day it declines in value. A short strike could cause such an incredible degradation in the balance sheet of a retailer so quickly that the goods could become saleable only at a price far less than what was paid for them.
I don't believe there's a true understanding of the nature of the retail industry by people who are currently involved in unions because they're not used to dealing with that sector and how it operates. A short strike could just finish you, especially if that's at a time of the year when you have an acceleration in your sales, which is Christmastime.
There's only one choice: Just give in to every single demand because if you don't and you don't get your stores open, you're just dead and you have no options. You would shift the balance of power so dramatically into the hands of unions, especially if you couldn't bring in alternative workers. You'd have to close your stores and just sit there and watch your inventory value decline on a daily basis, and then that's it. You either give in and your cost structure has to go up, which means you can't be competitive, or you go bankrupt. Eventually you'll go bankrupt anyway.
I don't think there's an understanding of how this sector works and how razor-thin margins are today. And they're not likely to improve because this is not really related necessarily to the economy; it's related to changing consumer attitudes and changing demographics and changing issues with consumers.
The base of sales is declining. People aren't spending as much and they want to spend less, and it's getting more and more competitive. Margins aren't going to improve. This is not an industry that has any fat in it. We're seeing it. We're seeing bankruptcies like crazy, and we're going to continue to see them. As soon as you put in this additional instability, it's just going to spin out of control.
The Chair: I want to thank you, Dylex, Fairweather, for coming here this afternoon. You historically have been an active participant in the development of legislation and the committee appreciates your participation.
Mr Posluns: Thank you for allowing us to speak. We feel it's important that we work cooperatively to ensure the success of the economy of Ontario, because that's what we all believe in.
The Chair: Take care, friends.
TORONTO-CENTRAL ONTARIO BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION TRADES COUNCIL
The Chair: The next participant is the Toronto-Central Ontario Building and Construction Trades Council. Could those people please come forward, have a seat, tell us their names, titles, if any, tell us what they will, but try to save the second half of the half-hour period for discussion, questions, dialogue, commentaries.
Mr John Cartwright: My name is John Cartwright and I'm the business manager of the Toronto-Central Ontario Building and Construction Trades Council. With me is Chris Thurrott, who is a representative of the council.
To start out with, by trade I'm a working carpenter, and by trade Chris is a plumber-steamfitter. We want to talk about Bill 40 and how we see it affecting the construction industry and construction workers. I'm going to read through our presentation and then probably add a few other comments in the middle.
The Toronto-Central Ontario Building and Construction Trades Council is an umbrella organization of 60,000 unionized construction workers in the greater Toronto area. We are here today to express our support for Bill 40. It is our belief that this legislation must be appreciated in the context of economic and social conditions of Ontario in 1992.
Our economy has been ravaged by free trade and corporate restructuring. Basic social programs such as medicare and unemployment insurance are threatened by neoconservatism. The construction industry is in the depths of a depression and our members are suffering up to 50% unemployment in some trades. In these tough times working people need to be able to defend their social standards and working conditions. This hinges very clearly on their right to organize and bargain collectively.
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There are those in the business community, construction contractor organizations in particular, who have assailed the citizens of Ontario with dire predictions of job losses should Bill 40 be enacted. These vitriolic attacks on the labour act amendments have been echoed, to a remarkable extent, by the two opposition parties.
We grant such corporate Jeremiahs scant credibility. After all, their counterparts in 1886 predicted the demise of manufacturing in our country when the Factory Act was promulgated to limit the working hours of children under 12 and 14. It is time to put Bill 40 into perspective.
In fact we wish to register our disappointment that many of the original proposals have already been diluted. We have full confidence in the Minister of Labour when he says that constructive changes submitted at these hearings will be given due consideration. We would like to draw your attention to several specific areas which deserve re-evaluation.
The earlier version of Bill 40, the discussion document, contained two provisos that would have eased friction between the parties during an organizing effort. They should be reinstated.
The first is that a trade union should be given a list of names of proposed bargaining unit employees after it has filed an application for certification. I want to clarify right here that we're talking about names, not particularly addresses.
Second, workplace notices of rights and obligations should be on every site, in every workplace, in addition to any more informal information source. That it's been dropped under pressures, I assume, from the employers and others is quite scandalous. We have, at this point in time, notices talking about health and safety and people's rights to that. They should also have some notices of their rights to undertake what's supposed to be a guarantee under the law: the right to choose to join a union.
Despite advances in the proposals dealing with discipline during an organizing drive, hearings should begin within seven days of filing a complaint, as opposed to the 15 days proposed in the bill. This is more than adequate time for the development of legal argument.
The proposed section 92 raises the question of timing and adjudication of complaints. This matter is of critical concern in the construction industry, as is already acknowledged in sections 102 and 124 of the act.
The principle of speedy justice in discipline cases relating to organizing should be extended to cover all deliberations of the board. We would suggest that the act be further amended to require board decisions to be made in general within 45 days of the last hearing date. Further, in the interests of eliminating delays, we recommend that more panel members be hired by the board.
Consider the situation -- we're talking about delay in real life in the construction industry -- of Eric Dagenais, construction worker, health and safety representative for the carpenters at the Bay-Adelaide complex. Bay-Adelaide, as everybody knows, is downtown. He was one of the first health and safety representatives appointed under Bill 208, just three or four days after the bill took effect. Within 10 days he was laid off, unjustly dismissed. The hearings before the OLRB ordered his reinstatement took six months.
In those six months, everybody on that site knew that anybody who was foolish enough to stand up for health and safety or any other conditions was playing a stupid game and that people should just bend their heads down and close their eyes to any health and safety violations. It's now over 18 months since Eric Dagenais was unjustly dismissed from that position, as determined by the board. He has yet to see a penny of wages in restitution for the time he lost; six months' lost wages and he has yet to see them. That's the kind of reality that takes place in the construction industry today and that's the kind of reality for which we need a Bill 40 to bring some balance into labour relations in this province.
This council wholeheartedly endorses the most publicized portion of Bill 40: the limitations on the use of replacement workers during a strike. Many tradespeople had family and friends who worked at Eaton's. Many a construction boot walked the winter picket lines after working the day on downtown towers. If Bill 40 does nothing more than prevent a repeat of Eaton's, then it will have advanced Ontario into the ranks of civilized society. We share the view of many that section 73 should be further strengthened with greater prohibitions on the use of replacement labour. I want to talk about that a little bit more off the brief.
I've been on the picket lines myself, where Eaton's workers, women, mothers, wives, neighbours, were out there day after day in the freezing cold, and all they were suffering was a planned attempt by the employer to humiliate and degrade and starve them into submission. The employer had absolutely no interest in having a long-term collective relationship with its employees.
I was on the picket line with Visa workers, women and new immigrants who were working in the so-called glorious white-collar service sector, and it was the same thing. They were being put out in the streets and their jobs replaced right away in order to give a very clear message to anybody who dared exercise his so-called rights that he might as well forget it.
Some seven or eight years ago I was on a picket line with a small paper manufacturing company. It was organized by the carpenters, 20 people. They came back to work after the long holiday in August only to find that all their jobs had been replaced by new immigrants, people who had come from Viet Nam. It created such an incredible tension of racism that it was very difficult for the union to explain to those workers who had just lost their jobs that it was not an issue of race and not an issue of colour, not an issue of people's backgrounds, but the fact that the employer had absolutely no interest in following what should have been his moral obligation to look at determining a collective agreement with his employees. That bargaining unit, over the period of weeks and months, was finally starved into submission, people earning little more than minimum wage until they disappeared. They gave up, and the so-called lofty ideals of any justice in this society were lost to them.
Opponents of the labour act amendments have argued that the scales of equity in labour-management relations will be conclusively tipped to the advantage of workers. Even a cursory examination of the existing definitions of "strike" and "lockout" in the OLRA makes a mockery of that claim.
The act should be further amended to put management and labour on an equal footing. An employer is guilty of a lockout if the Ontario Labour Relations Board is able to determine that he is motivated by a desire to amend an existing collective agreement. No such subjective criteria are used in defining a strike. It is our belief that rights of workers are unduly restricted by the definition of a strike which does not include the concept of a work stoppage or slowdown aimed at changing negotiated working conditions.
The lack of parity on this fundamental issue is clearly demonstrated in the haste with which any employer is granted a cease-and-desist on the mere threat of a strike, while wholesale dismissals of employees that have taken place in the construction industry in the last year may take months of hearings to resolve.
A legal picket line is sacrosanct to many workers. The act should recognize the right of an individual to follow his conscience and honour lawful picket lines. Many of the collective agreements of our affiliates contain a clause which grants a worker the right to refuse to cross a picket. We suggest that minimally such provisions be upheld as legal.
Over 25% of the language in the OLRA is specific to the construction industry. Bill 40 does not address one of the most glaring inequities in construction labour relations, and that is subsection 1(4) of the act.
The construction industry is characterized by a plethora of trade-specific subcontractors who in the past have been retained by a general contractor to perform work on a project. The general supervises the work of the subs, ensures contract compliance, certifies their work for payment and eventually assumes warranty responsibility. "Union security" in the construction industry is partially achieved through the subcontract restrictions on the general contractor. This has been a well-recognized and established practice. Times change, and general contractors are increasingly being replaced by project managers. These organizations perform the same functions as a general, but all subcontractors are technically hired by the owner/client. Union agreements are in fact circumvented.
Subsection 1(4) of the act should be amended to included construction and/or project management as a related activity under "common control," in the same way that there is some suggestion that it will be extended to the service sector. The current language of subsection 1(4) is discretionary. The board may treat corporations, firms etc as constituting one employer and grant such relief as it may deem appropriate. Section 63, on the other hand, the industrial counterpart, is much less ambiguous.
Many of the cases which construction unions have taken to the OLRB on successor rights under subsection 1(4) have hinged on the matter of undue delay in recognizing what are clearly convoluted business reorganizations. In fact, in some cases in subsection 1(4) we're faced with the idea that a trade union should be a combination of private detective agency, Superman and Big Brother, with an ear on every single business doorstep to find out what's happened with companies that changed names, changed locations and tried to disappear to escape their obligations to their employees and their union obligations. Construction workers should not lose their bargaining rights as a result of corporate sleight of hand. We urge this committee to recommend to the government that subsection 1(4) of the act be changed to redress the current inequity.
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I'm going to leave the text for a moment to talk about the representations our employers make to this committee and have made previously on the discussion documents. The Council of Ontario Construction Associations has been one of the most vehement opponents of Bill 40, which we find kind of unusual, because whenever construction trades go out and sit down with their employers, which we do on a very regular basis, the first thing we're told is: "Why don't you go and organize our competition? Why don't you bring my competitor into the same collective agreement as I have?"
The fact is that within the jurisdiction of the Toronto-central Ontario council, the vast majority of constructions workers are overwhelmingly union, so we hear that refrain on a regular basis: "Why don't you go out and organize these people who are now starting to bid on our work?" Yet COCA is at the same time saying, "Please ensure that it remains as hard to organize companies as possible."
I think you heard earlier today of examples of weeks, months and sometimes almost half a year or more than half a year, when people have chosen to join a union, how they've been fired and they can't get any redress from the board. When you're in a small community that our council covers, including Barrie or Oshawa or Peterborough, and there's a large job onsite and people are fired and it gets known throughout that community, all the good deeds and all the accolades in the world business people will talk about, how they want to be fair, don't mean anything, because everybody's already learned a lesson. So COCA is, I think, in a very unusual situation of suggesting that Bill 40's not necessary and that in fact workers should not have any more rights to join a union if they please.
I find it interesting that one of the chief spokespersons for COCA comes from St Marys Cement, one of the largest conglomerates of cement manufacturers in Canada and one of the cartel that was identified in the Globe and Mail on Wednesday, July 8, about the "Cement Industry Under Scrutiny in Europe, Canada" for operating monopolies that have added, in some cases, up to $1,000 extra price on a single-family dwelling in this province.
That kind of power exists in this province, ladies and gentlemen, and it exists and it faces a single one or two or three construction workers who are just trying to make ends meet and put bread and butter on the table when they want to think if they want to join a union or sign a union card. It's the kind of inequity that exists in real life in the construction industry as well as any other sectors.
I want to emphasize about the construction industry that our jobs start and finish and start and finish and start and finish and you're not like a regular place where somebody's there 40 hours a week 50 weeks a year. Employers can lay off and dismiss and find lack of work to get rid of anybody they want. There's so little ability to be able to identify that in fact there's an anti-union animus involved in that, really there is no protection for workers to exercise their so-called rights, along with the fact that many workers in the industry do not enjoy English as a first language, and as soon as they run up to the bureaucracy that's involved with the labour board, they're in trouble.
In conclusion, we commend the Minister of Labour for his foresight and courage in bringing the Ontario Labour Relations Act in tune with the modern world. We share the belief that a rebuilt Ontario must rely on worker participation in the economy, and Bill 40 is a step at this stage -- not a complete enough step -- in the right direction, because it's our belief that when critics of this legislation cite the recession and claim that this is the wrong time to introduce reform, we suspect and in fact we know what they mean is that there is never a right time to give workers more rights. The right time is now. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
The Vice-Chair (Mr Bob Huget): Thank you very much for your presentation, gentlemen. Questions?
Mr Klopp: Thank you for your interesting comments. You mentioned, off the script, new Canadians and their problems. Could you expand what you mean by that? Is it our ethnic minorities etc? We feel this bill will help them. Could you expand?
Mr Cartwright: It's no secret, and in fact everybody in this room should know, that certainly in the southern Ontario area, but also throughout the province, a very high percentage of the construction workforce is made up of immigrant workers of different backgrounds, Canadians by choice, and that English is not their first language, and in fact many of them come from what were either very repressive or very autocratic societies.
When you drive up Dufferin Street in the morning in the summertime and you see guys who are standing at the corner of Dupont and Dufferin waiting to be picked up by a truck by Tony or Joe, and they don't know what the company name is and they have no idea who it is they really work for if they ever wanted to find out how to put a lien on that job, and they have no idea how to speak English, because they've been here just a short number of years, then you're talking about people who do not know how to exercise their rights. What's important is that those people be empowered in their ability to exercise their rights.
The words "Hogg's Hollow" will always sit in the back of my mind as a symbol of the kind of horrible fate that can happen to immigrant workers in this country. The Hogg's Hollow disaster, of course, was that trench and tunnel collapse in Toronto a number of years back that first sparked the idea that immigrant workers must force their way to be able to join a union in order to have any defence around health and safety or any kind of conditions.
When you come from a place -- South America -- where to join a union means in some cases you're actually signing a potential death warrant, or you come from a place that's just a conservative, small, patriarchal-type of community, like the islands in Portugal or whatever, and you're looking at questioning and saying, "I actually have the right to say that my boss should pay me this, or is supposed to allow me to have a health and safety spokesperson on the job," it's a huge step to be able to say, "I want to see that happen."
It's not a step that will be brought about by -- so-called -- a few more 1-800 numbers of enlightened employers. It's a step that will only be rectified when those people are able to organize collectively to elect or choose their spokespeople, who can then service them in their own language and defend their rights in their own language. That's what that's about.
Mr Ward: I appreciate your brief and the comments and suggestions on how to improve Bill 40 that were included. We've been hearing presentations both for and against Bill 40. The people who have spoken against Bill 40 have suggested that the whole bill is wrong, or some specific segments of the bill should be changed or modified. Primarily, the thrust of their argument is the suggestion that the current labour conditions in Ontario under the act, prior to Bill 40 being implemented, are that it's a level playing field, that the balance of power is equal as far as business and labour are concerned.
The presentations we're hearing from the supporters of Bill 40 are in fact -- and you brought some specific incidents that have occurred in your council's experience -- that it's not a level playing field at all, but that the balance of power is tilted in favour of the employers. I would like you to expand a little bit on your thoughts on that. Do we have a level playing field or is the balance of power tilted in favour of the employer?
Second, our government believes that if we're going to accomplish our objectives as a province and maintain a quality of life we've enjoyed for so many years here in the province, that if we're going to meet the economic challenges of the 1990s, we need greater cooperation. Your sentence in your concluding remarks, "We share the belief that a rebuilt Ontario must rely on worker participation in the economy," I think supports that theme or that direction. Could you expand on that as well?
Mr Cartwright: I think it's important for the committee to understand that within the construction industry we have bipartite bodies, labour-management bodies, that sit down and deal with everything: health and safety, apprenticeship training, standards, job promotion, job creation, and in some cases even design awards for architectural initiatives.
We sit down with our employers to handle health and welfare plans jointly, to trustee them, to look at what's best for the people involved, to look at pensions, training and all aspects of our industry. We have what we think is an extremely cooperative approach to how we handle the industry with the employers under the collective agreement. That's with the people we work with.
It's interesting that sometimes the people who fight hardest against you when you're trying to organize them, after a couple of years of working with the unions and understanding what we're doing about providing skilled trades people, involving young people to learn the trades, ensuring quality of work, upgrading and training, are actually very happy in working with us and sometimes become our best friends and colleagues in some of those joint ventures.
If you're asking the question, is it a level playing field? the only person who could believe there's a level playing field in management-labour relations in the non-unionized sector is management. I started the trade non-union, and the first time we tried to organize in the shop where I was, the guy sitting next to me, on the bench beside me, was afraid to drive me home at night any more because he thought he would be tarred as somebody who was a union supporter and he'd get fired.
The fact is that there's a coercive power that exists in any non-union place, and that is very clearly that if you rock the boat, you're not going to be somebody who is going to encourage business the way management wants it. You're expendable and you should be gotten rid of. Nobody has to read very far in any of the human resources books to understand that.
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The Chair: Thank you. We've got to move on to Mr Offer.
Mr Offer: With respect to your submission, you've spoken at length about the right of workers to strike, to organize, to associate, to be part of a union if he or she wishes. In that regard, you've spoken about how the obstacles are there today so that organizing is not as effective in your opinion as it might otherwise be, that there are some difficulties workers have in an organizing drive.
Keeping in mind the comments you have made, the obstacles to organization which you have brought forward, would it not be in the best interests of the workers that if there is to be an organizing drive, there be the opportunity for each worker to cast a secret ballot, whether he or she wishes to join a union, whether in this respect there be an opportunity of information given to each worker as to what union membership may mean to him or her, and also an opportunity on the part of the employer to provide, in a non-coercive, non-intimidating way, what it means to him, and at the end of the day allow the workers, in a free, secret ballot to make their choice?
Mr Cartwright: I think in a perfect world, Mr Offer, that would be a wonderful idea. If every employer who operates in this province operated as an angel, I think that would be just absolutely an outstanding idea. We would have democracy at all levels. In fact, we'd have democracy in all kinds of programs that are being proposed to workers.
The reality is that this perfect world does not exist. There is no such thing as a free, democratic vote in a non-union workplace anywhere in this province or this country. People are threatened from the word go: "If a union comes in here, we're going to close down. If a union comes in here, we'll be uncompetitive and we'll go bankrupt. If a union comes in here, you'll be replaced somewhere else." That doesn't have to be written down in black and white, because it's whispered in the lunch shack, it's left as surreptitious Xerox copies in the shack or when people are finding their cars.
There is no such thing as a free and democratic system in a non-unionized workplace. There is only one power and that is the power of the employer to choose what's going to happen with that entity. Look at the experience of some of those ideas in British Columbia, for instance, where the Socreds brought that in. What's happenes is constant manipulation so that the time required for a vote is used to pad the list or fire people or lay them off or, I'm sorry, discover a shortage of work and therefore we no longer have the same number of people. The time that's used that way is constantly used as a method of intimidation. It just will not work.
The Chair: Very briefly, please.
Mr McGuinty: You made reference to an ideal -- you termed it an ideal -- environment, a workplace where we could effectively use a secret ballot. I want you to think of what could be, then. What is it that we have to put in place, what legislative measures have to be enacted in order to ensure that we could achieve that ideal? What do we have to do to ensure that you would feel comfortable with people having a free vote in the absence of anyone going into a booth somewhere and voting?
Mr Cartwright: It's impossible to be able to design a non-union workplace that provides an environment to have a free and democratic vote, period. It's impossible to do that because there is an element of coercion that exists, and I'm using that word because it is a very real word. When we talk to our stewards about health and safety and tell them who it is in the union sector who has to enforce health and safety, we tell them very clearly, "Tell the foreman that he's the one who has to enforce health and safety," because he has the ultimate coercive ability to say to a tradesman or woman at the end of the day, "You're gone, because I don't think you're working safely enough."
That's the kind of coercive ability that is there in all sectors, and when you have free trade being jammed down our throats and everybody says, "From now on we've got to start looking at being competitive" -- as they say in McAllen, Texas, they can supply labour in Mexico across the Maquiladora for less than half the price than you have to pay in Hong Kong or the Philippines -- when that's in the paper all day that this is what you are supposed to compete against, there's a very, very clear message out there: "Don't exercise your rights, because if you exercise your rights, you're finished."
Mr McLean: I'll just have one short question. The fact is that when you're talking about rights and votes, there were an awful lot of promises made before the last election and there was a vote held --
Mr Cartwright: You're talking about the federal election?
Mr McLean: No. I'm talking about the last provincial one, which you are well aware of. There were a lot of promises made and there was a vote, which they called a democratic society expressing its opinion. Are you saying that cannot take place in the workplace?
Mr Cartwright: I'm saying that any vote that's held in a non-unionized workplace is not held in an environment where it can be made a free and democratic vote.
You see, there's an interesting thing about where this is going. I had a discussion the other day with one of the major contractors. He talked about the whole Bill 40 thing and said: "You haven't consulted with us enough. You haven't consulted with business. You haven't talked with us enough about this thing."
I said: "It's kind of interesting, because your association supported free trade with the United States and promised us lots of jobs and now we've lost over 400,000 jobs in Canada as a result of that. The Mexico free trade deal, which was never part of the last federal election, which was never brought as part of the mandate in front of the voters, is being secretly negotiated with the full support of the Business Council on National Issues, of every employer group in this country, and you're telling us that we're guilty of not having enough consultation? When the whole future of this country is going to be dragged down into the mud by the actions of a small élite, a corporate élite in this country, you're talking about democracy and consultation?"
I think quite frankly that we're barking up the wrong tree when some people talk about the issue of democracy and consultation, because working people are faced with an economy and a society that are being moulded and transformed in front of their very eyes and they've never had any say in that taking place.
Did they have a say in the last federal election? They had a say in the last federal election about whether there would be a vote or not a vote, and then they proceeded immediately to bring in a deal with so many strings attached. Mr Mulroney talked about sacred trust. Now we have unemployment insurance being cut to the point where construction workers all across this country have exhausted their unemployment insurance and are going on to welfare. We have cutbacks in medicare, another sacred trust that was never supposed to be touched. We have cutbacks on a fair wage in the federal, so that all kinds of construction projects can go non-union at minimum wage. Those are the kinds of sacred trusts that are being proposed that are changing this society inextricably.
This is exactly why something like Bill 40 is needed, because the corporate interests, the business interests, whether they be the Council of Ontario Construction Associations or whether they be Business Council on National Issues or they be retail councils, want a certain logic of the free trade agenda to just take place. They want that logic to take place so that workers will be faced with no other alternative but to roll back their standards, to undermine their conditions and to say, "I really can't afford to sign a union card, because my boss will move to Mexico tomorrow."
Bill 40, as weak as it is, and it needs strengthening, is one thing that will actually give working people a chance to be able to say, "Well, at least we can fight back against this thing that's coming down on us, that we never had a chance to have any say or any input or any democracy in at all."
Mr McLean: Something like the Constitution that's taking place today.
Mr Cartwright: The Constitution is part of exactly the same issue.
Mr McLean: The same thing.
Mr Cartwright: Exactly.
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The Chair: Go ahead, Mr Carr.
Mr Carr: A real quick one: You talked about intimidation and problems with regard to companies. The fact of the matter is that on the other side of it, unions can lie to people. They can intimidate people. Have you ever seen that happen, and wouldn't a secret ballot eliminate that concern so that in the privacy of a polling booth, nobody on either side could intimidate anybody because no one would know? How do you answer that?
Mr Cartwright: I resent that question, because when a union organizer goes out -- do you know who a union organizer is? He's somebody, in our industry, who has worked with the tools and worked in those same conditions, and he doesn't lie to people. He doesn't have the right to --
Mr Carr: There's no potential to lie to people?
Mr Cartwright: He doesn't have the ability to tell them stuff that's not true because people can see with their own eyes what's happening to them and what happens to their neighbours and other people in this industry. So I resent that. I resent that accusation. I haven't stood here and suggested that employers will lie to people. They're telling the truth.
Mr Carr: Then why not have a secret ballot?
Mr Cartwright: Because they're telling them, "If you sign a union card, this is going to happen and that's going to happen."
Mr Carr: Then why not have a secret ballot so that there cannot be the perception of either side intimidating? Why are you against the principle of the secret ballot?
Mr Cartwright: As I said, if there was a perfect world, we wouldn't need United Way and we wouldn't need welfare and we wouldn't need a whole bunch of things, but right now there's no perfect world, and the employers running non-union places at this point in time do not allow a free, democratic vote. It would be impossible because of how they run their show and the coercive ability they have to manipulate and influence any kind of outcome.
The Chair: Gentlemen, we appreciate your coming here this afternoon and the representations you've made on behalf of the Toronto-Central Ontario Building and Construction Trades Council. You've made a valuable contribution to the process here and we're all grateful. I trust you'll keep in touch. Take care.
SOUTHAM INC
The Chair: The next participant is Southam Inc. Gentlemen, please seat yourselves in front of a microphone, tell us your names and your titles, and tell us what what you will. Please try to save at least the last 15 minutes for questions and dialogue.
Mr Russell Mills: My name is Russ Mills and I'm the president of the Southam Newspaper Group.
Mr John Simpson: I'm John Simpson. I'm director of corporate affairs for Southam Inc.
Mr Mills: We thank you for this opportunity to appear today, and my remarks will relate to Southam's daily newspaper operations.
I welcome this opportunity to comment on the contents and effect of Bill 40, but before I get into the substance of this presentation I'd like to comment briefly on this hearing process. The news coverage I've read so far indicates that this review of Bill 40 may become a dialogue of the deaf, with those for and against the legislation so dug in to their positions that they can't hear the arguments of the other side.
The government clearly feels that business reaction to the legislation has been extreme and unthinking. The minister appears to interpret some of this opposition as attacks not just on the proposed legislation but on union members themselves.
Much of the business community, on the other hand, believes that these hearings are a sham and that the government will not make any significant changes in this legislation regardless of the quality of arguments and evidence presented. Some of my colleagues have accused me of wasting my time in appearing here today.
I am here today because I take the minister at his word that he will amend the legislation if he hears convincing arguments about where changes need to be made. I am not here to attack unions or union members. My father and grandfathers were members of railway unions throughout their working lives, and I was a member of two locals of the newspaper guild earlier in my career. I recognize that unions have done a great deal to improve the quality of working life in Ontario and in Canada.
The daily newspaper industry in Ontario is heavily unionized and, in spite of a couple of recent high-profile strikes, I think it's fair to say that relations between management and unions for the most part have been good. Our employees generally have good jobs with high pay and excellent benefits.
One of the conclusions we draw from the excellent working conditions that our employees have been able to win at the bargaining table is that the current balance of power between management and labour, in our industry at least, is about right. We are extremely concerned that the changes proposed in this legislation, particularly those that would force newspapers to stop publishing during a strike, would dramatically tip the balance in favour of unions. This would seriously damage the health of our industry and ultimately our ability to provide the well-paid jobs that our employees now enjoy.
Southam was founded in Ontario, has its head office here in Toronto and remains committed to the province. The company's history goes back more than a century, to 1877, when William Southam acquired an interest in the Hamilton Spectator. Southam's operations include nine of the oldest and most respected daily newspapers in the province: the Brantford Expositor, the Hamilton Spectator, the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, the North Bay Nugget, the Ottawa Citizen, the Sault Star, the Owen Sound Sun Times, the Kingston Whig-Standard and the Windsor Star.
All of Southam's Ontario dailies are unionized. They have been for most of our history. In many of the communities where we operate, employment with the Southam newspaper is regarded as one of the best jobs in town. We recognize the right of our employees to organize and we have a long history and decades of experience dealing with their union representatives.
In many ways, however, it's no longer business as usual for daily newspapers. In addition to the stubborn recession of the past two years, lifestyle changes, shifts in the advertiser economy, the advent of new information-delivery technologies, frightening and unacceptable levels of illiteracy, evolving population demographics and characteristics, rising costs, weakness in attracting certain critical readership segments and other realities make the future of the newspaper business less certain than it has been in the past.
Our margins have been declining as traditional newspaper advertisers exploit the many other outlets for their promotional and marketing dollars.
Against this background, our biggest single concern with Bill 40 is the proposal to limit the use of replacement workers during a strike to existing onsite management. In most cases this would prevent newspapers from publishing during a strike, and it's not an exaggeration to state that this proposal could put some newspapers out of business.
A newspaper must publish continuously. Links with our readers and advertisers are tenuous, and experience has shown that any interruption of service can mean that we lose them not just for the duration of the strike but for ever. Today's consumers of news need not rely on the daily newspaper for current events and advertising information; they have many other Canadian and foreign options at their disposal.
News is a perishable commodity, more perishable than lettuce or tomatoes. If you don't publish it today, its useful life is over and missed; it's no longer news tomorrow. Unlike many other industries, it's impossible for us to stockpile production in anticipation of a strike or to catch up with production afterwards. A missed day of publication represents a newspaper and associated revenue that is gone for ever.
The New York Daily News, once the largest circulation daily newspaper in the United States, suffered through a disastrous strike last year and is now up for sale and on the brink of bankruptcy. While the News attempted to continue publication during the strike, violence prevented normal distribution and the vital link with customers was broken. Before the strike the daily circulation of the News was 1.3 million copies, but when normal publication resumed after the strike, only 800,000 of those daily buyers came back. Half a million were lost for ever.
Both potential purchasers of the News, Conrad Black and Mortimer Zuckerman, are insisting that because of the paper's poor performance, unions must agree to the elimination of at least 25% of the 2,100 jobs at the paper as a condition of sale. If the paper is not sold to someone with the capacity to make significant capital investment, it will almost certainly go out of business, with the consequent loss of all of these jobs. This is another lesson for us, and it should also be to newspaper union members, that it is not in anyone's interest to force a newspaper to break contact with its customers.
In contrast, the recent strike at the Toronto Star is evidence that our current system in Ontario, under the present labour legislation, is working reasonably well.
After negotiations which clearly showed evidence of differing opinion among Star employees, since four other Star unions accepted the company's offer and agreed to three-year contracts, the Southern Ontario Newspaper Guild, representing 1,500 employees, went on strike from early June to early July.
By using managers to replace striking employees and contracting out other services, which would not be allowed under Bill 40, the Star suffered financially but continued to publish and did not break the all-important contact with its customers. Early in the strike the Star cut ad rates by 50% in an attempt to keep its advertisers. The city of Toronto and the Ontario government both pulled their ads on philosophical grounds -- a total of $48,000 a week in lost advertising.
The Star averaged 64 pages, compared with a norm of 84 at this time of year. The Star stopped delivering flyers for most of the strike and, as a result, some advertisers turned to independent, and typically non-union, companies for distribution. One major grocery chain suggested it might continue to use this approach even after a settlement.
Even the newspaper guild acknowledged that during the strike the newspaper risked a serious loss of market share. The Star's competitor, the Toronto Sun, reported that its advertising and circulation numbers were both up.
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After all this, with both sides feeling the pinch that should be part of the reality of a strike, the government mediator, Victor Pathe, said "significant compromise on both sides" resulted in an agreement. The chairman of the newspaper guild's Toronto Star unit said he was "happy with the settlement." The publisher of the Star said he was delighted both sides had reached "a fair and just settlement." If a relatively brief labour dispute imposes economic penalties on both sides, leads to compromise and results in a settlement that both management and labour are happy with, that indicates to us that the balance of power under the current labour legislation is fair and working.
The Star, which was founded 100 years ago by a group of printers striking the now long-defunct Toronto News, published and survived to welcome back its employees. A Star which could not publish continually would almost certainly have lost many of its customers and returned to business as a smaller and less healthy newspaper able to offer fewer of these well-paid jobs.
Southam currently has a newspaper strike under way in Sault Ste Marie. By using 20 volunteer replacement workers from other Southam papers to fill in for the 65 people on strike, publication of the Sault Star has been maintained and contact with customers has not been broken. The union has attempted to organize a boycott of the paper by readers and advertisers, and Southam has incurred additional expense in the loss of services of the replacement workers at our other newspapers.
Although it's impossible to say exactly what the outcome will be, it will undoubtedly be some type of compromise and, because of the continued publication, the strikers will have jobs when they return to work. It will be more evidence that the current legislation, under which strikers can attempt to penalize a newspaper economically and the newspaper is allowed to continue publication and maintain contact with customers, is serving our industry well.
I'd like to mention one other Canadian newspaper strike that's pertinent to Bill 40. The Minister of Labour has said that any reform of the Labour Relations Act must seek to reduce the level of confrontation and antagonism in labour-management relations. Southam has undergone a strike under the Quebec legislation prohibiting replacement workers which has been a model for Bill 40. Our experience is that the level of confrontation and the degree of antagonism has never been worse.
The Gazette in Montreal was struck for seven months, from July 1987 to early in 1988. Because the Gazette believed that contact with customers could not be broken, extensive planning and very costly preparations were undertaken to permit production and distribution of the paper throughout the strike.
Ironically, the Gazette owed its existence to another newspaper strike, one which caused the closure of its competitor, the Montreal Star, then the largest English daily in Montreal. The smaller Gazette was on the verge of being closed in the late 1970s when there was a lengthy strike at the Star during which the newspaper did not publish. The result was depressingly familiar. When the Star attempted to resume publication most of its customers were gone, some to the Gazette and others away from newspapers altogether. Quebec lost an important newspaper voice and more than 1,000 workers, most of them well-paid union members, lost their jobs because contact with customers was broken. This strike took place under the same type of anti-replacement-worker limits that Bill 40 would provide in Ontario.
In light of the Montreal Star's experience, both the Gazette and its unions were acutely aware of the potential damage a strike could cause. Unions saw this increased leverage under anti-replacement-worker legislation as a means to secure a contract on their terms through the mere threat of a strike. The only alternative for the Gazette's 1987 negotiations was to take all the steps necessary to continue publishing during the work stoppage even before negotiations began. When the strike did occur, it was the most violent the Gazette had ever experienced.
Because of the expensive and extensive preparation, however, the Gazette was able to publish, survive and learn some critical lessons, including:
1. It's vital that a newspaper publish. The main asset a newspaper has is its local franchise, and news and many advertisements are perishable. If contact is broken with readers and advertisers for any sustained period, many will be lost for ever.
2. There must be a level playing field. If unions have the right to strike and attempt to penalize a newspaper economically, the newspaper must have the right to operate during a strike and preserve the base of its business.
3. In an anti-replacement-worker legislative environment, strikes are very costly, which tends to promote inflexibility and violence. The cost of the strike to the Gazette was in excess of $1.2 million. Much of this had to be spent before negotiations even began to ensure publication if they were not successful. This heavy upfront expenditure was not conducive to a climate of flexibility and compromise at the bargaining table.
The permanent loss of a daily newspaper impoverishes a community culturally and politically. It's not in the interests of the people of Ontario that legislation be passed that could put the existence of their local daily newspapers at risk. A year ago I expressed some of these concerns in a letter to Premier Bob Rae. I wrote then:
"My prime concern is with the proposals that would in effect force newspapers to cease publication during a labour dispute. When an auto plant shuts down, the company can be confident that people will continue to use their cars and not lose the driving habit. Newspapers do not have this comfort. Our connection with many of our younger readers who were brought up with television is rather tenuous and it is easy for them to lose the newspaper-reading habit when papers are not available. Southam would go to extraordinary lengths to avoid missing even a single day of publication."
Bill 40 seems to have been designed to correct a perceived imbalance in power between management and labour. While this may be the case in some sectors of the economy, it would wreck the reasonable balance of power we now have in our industry. In the newspaper industry our employees have been able to use their existing clout to win the kind of highly paid jobs this government and the labour movement want available to all workers. I urge you not to pass legislation aimed primarily at helping poorly paid, unorganized workers that would damage the health of our business and ultimately put well-paid union and non-union jobs at risk in our industry.
We all want Ontario to continue to be a productive and rewarding place to live and work, and unions have an important role to play in this. The legislation which limits staffing during a strike to onsite management would have a devastating effect on daily newspapers and the 12,000 people they employ in Ontario. It would be a step backward for labour relations in our industry.
This legislation represents major institutional reform which would shift the current balance of power between employers and unions. In Ontario, major shifts in legislation have been made only after building a consensus among all stakeholders. The evidence presented at these hearings so far indicates that there's no consensus whatsoever.
We urge the government to continue to respect the tradition of balance in our labour relations in Ontario. Excessive power to either party in the workforce could destroy decades of building a skilled, productive and rewarding working environment.
Mr Offer: As we read the submission, there's no question that it is just the single issue in the use of replacement workers that is before the committee in your presentation. One of the issues brought forward in this matter is that the prohibition of replacement workers would have a direct impact on incidents of violence at the picket line. Can you expand upon how to address those concerns which have been brought forward to the committee?
Mr Mills: First of all, I should say that there are other concerns with the legislation, and the newspaper industry will be making another presentation next week that'll be more broadly based. We've just chosen to focus on this one today.
There's no doubt that is a concern. When you use replacement workers, there has been violence, unquestionably, in other industries. I think in the case of the Toronto Star strike most recently there was not a great deal of violence; there was some. In Sault Ste Marie where we are using replacement workers recruited from our other newspaper, so far there really hasn't been any. Unquestionably there has been in other industries. At the Gazette, which took place under the anti-replacement worker legislation, there was far more violence than there was in either of these strikes.
I'm not sure the legislation as in effect there is going to be a key factor. If there's going to be violence, I think there would be violence anyway.
Mr McGuinty: Mr Mills, again with respect to the issue of replacement workers, the unions advanced the position that their right to shut a business down, their right to protect their jobs, should be given priority over the right of a business to continue to operate. Obviously you disagree with that, but how do we reconcile those competing rights?
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Mr Mills: I'm speaking here for our industry only and I've tried to point out some of the unique factors affecting our industry. There may be some industries that are affected less by a forced shutdown than we would be. As I've said, if you shut down a car plant, for example, people are going to keep driving their cars, wearing them out, and there's no chance they're going to give up driving and take the subway because a car plant is on strike. But in our experience in the newspaper business, newspaper-reading is a habit. People make it part of their lives when they come home from work or get up in the morning to read a newspaper, and if it's not there for an extended period of time, that's gone.
We don't just face an economic penalty in shutting down. We face the entire erosion of our business. I think there's a recognition in the legislation that some industries that are essential must continue to operate and at the other end of the scale there may be industries that can afford to take a shutdown. We probably fall somewhere in the middle, and there may be others in our category: We really do face the loss of our business altogether, as the loss of many newspapers has shown, when we're shut down.
Mr McGuinty: Then with respect to this issue at least, you'd be satisfied if the newspaper business was added as an additional exemption to those which would not be subject to the provisions of dealing with replacement workers?
Mr Mills: I guess I'm saying that this legislation appears to me to be a broadsword dealing with a problem when maybe a scalpel is more indicated, where you need a more specific type of legislation that's intended to deal with the problems, change in the labour force and so on, that are behind this legislation, and that by swinging this broadsword around you could damage a lot of us that are not the primary focus of the need for change here.
Mr McLean: If this legislation had been in place when the Star strike was on, would the Star have been out of business today?
Mr Mills: No, I don't think the Star would be out of business. The Toronto Star is the largest newspaper in Canada and is a very strong franchise. The strike might well be going on still because all the pressure would have been on the newspaper, far more pressure than there was on the union. As I've tried to indicate, I think if you look at the result, the balance of economic penalties was roughly equal: People were out of jobs for a while but they got strike pay; the newspaper was still publishing but it was losing money. The balance was equal.
Mr McLean: But it may have been over quicker too?
Mr Mills: Yes, it might have been over quicker but the Star might have had to give in to things that would affect its long-term viability as a newspaper.
Mr McLean: Look at the effect in Montreal with the 1,000 workers who are now out of work.
Mr Mills: Yes, the Montreal Star.
Mr McLean: Could you see the same thing happening here?
Mr Mills: It's possible, if it had gone on for a long period of time. The Montreal Star strike went on for about eight months back in 1979. When it tried to come back, even though it gave away advertising free, gave away the newspaper free to subscribers, its customers had moved on, some to a competitor and some just got out of the habit altogether. Even a newspaper like the Toronto Star could be in the same jeopardy as the Montreal Star if it were prevented from publishing for a long period.
Mr McLean: Could the Toronto Star not farm out its printing and publishing somewhere else?
Mr Mills: Not under Bill 40.
Mr Carr: I had the advantage of reading a recent article, in the Report on Business maybe, that had an in-depth study that was very flattering about your company, so I feel like I know it.
My question's very simple. I'll talk about the Toronto Star strike. Some people would say that strike might not have happened because the company, whatever the demands were percentage-wise, would have given in and that strike would not have happened. Knowing the financial position -- and you said long-term it would hurt Torstar -- what would have happened with that specific strike had this legislation been in place? Would we have even had a strike, and, if not, what would it have done in terms of the cost? Could the Star still have survived?
Mr Mills: It's very hard to speculate and know exactly what would have happened. Certainly, if the Star were looking at a situation where it would not have been able to publish at all, would not have been able to serve its customers and its advertisers, it probably would have had to give in at the bargaining table because, as I've said, looking at the whole history of newspaper publishing, we know how dangerous it is to break contact with customers, and that's what we're concerned about.
I think the jobs, the pay, the benefits, the working conditions we provide for our workers now are very good. At our large newspapers and the Toronto Star, the key journeyman rates are $24, $25 an hour for most people plus all kinds of drug plans and health plans and dental plans and so on. They're very good jobs for people.
If a newspaper is in a situation where it must give in to the union demands or shut down, it has to give in. If it has to continually give in, it's going to undermine the viability of newspapers. Newspapers are facing more challenges than ever before for some of the reasons I outlined. We continue to provide excellent, well-paid jobs and be cost competitive, but we can't give in to everything the union people may want.
Ms Murdock: It's not a business I know very much about. I think your points have been made very clearly in regard to replacement workers, so I'm not going to continue in that area. I'd like to look at a different aspect, which you haven't really addressed but which is part of Bill 40, that is, the whole issue of part-time over full-time workers. In terms of having $24 or $25 per hour for most of the employees, I would presume that would be a full-time rate?
Mr Mills: Yes.
Ms Murdock: Do your part-time workers come under that as well?
Mr Mills: It varies from paper to paper. Some do. We have part-time workers who make full rates and others who are paid less.
Ms Murdock: Is there a difference between full-time, part-time and freelance?
Mr Mills: Freelance are independent contractors, and part-time and full-time are employees of the newspaper. I think in most of our newspapers about 80% to 85% of the working hours would be done by full-time employees who work somewhere between 35 and 40 hours a week.
Ms Murdock: Would both groups have similar benefit packages within your organization?
Mr Mills: It varies from paper to paper. Some do, some don't. The reason newspapers need part-time employees is because our volume of business varies so much during the week. The Wednesday and Saturday papers are much bigger than the Monday and Tuesday papers, for example.
Ms Murdock: Just to get back to the perishable aspect of news, my riding is Sudbury. I know it's not one of your papers, but when they had their strike a number of years ago, they closed down for six weeks and didn't publish. I presume the argument -- I just want you to confirm whether that would be true or not -- is that the reason the Sudbury Star has maintained its readership is because it's the only one there, or would it make a difference in terms of your target market?
Mr Mills: I believe the Sudbury Star has shut down twice, for different periods.
Ms Murdock: Yes. Once it used replacement workers and once it didn't.
Mr Mills: Yes. The circulation before those strikes at the Sudbury Star was 40,000. It's now about 28,000, while the community has grown.
Ms Murdock: I'll have to check.
Mr Mills: I think if you check that, you'll find that's accurate. So it hasn't maintained its readership. Newspapers are very vulnerable. As I've said, I'm not exaggerating. We're very vulnerable. If you don't get your newspaper delivered for two or three weeks or six weeks, when it comes time to start again, you may not want to start again. I wish it weren't true.
The Chair: Gentlemen, on behalf of the committee, I want to thank you for coming here this afternoon, for your views and your input into this process. You've obviously provided a perspective that's novel and that will be helpful to the committee. We appreciate the time and effort you've demonstrated this afternoon. Thank you kindly. Take care.
ONTARIO SHEET METALWORKERS' AND ROOFERS' CONFERENCE
The Chair: The next participant is the Ontario Sheet Metal Workers' and Roofers' Conference. Come forward and have a seat.
I mentioned earlier the difficulty some people had getting into the building for evening sessions. The whip's office was indeed monitoring the committee, because Peter Block from the whip's office came in here promptly after I mentioned that and indicated that he can assure us there will be access for evening participants and observers through the main and east doors. That's an assurance that there'll never ever be any difficulty for anybody getting into the evening sessions here. I appreciate that from Peter Block in the whip's office.
Gentlemen, please tell us who you are, what your titles are and leave us the last 15 minutes at least of your half-hour for discussion, dialogue and exchange.
Mr Jerry Raso: Thank you, Mr Chair. We are here on behalf of the Ontario Sheet Metal Workers' and Roofers' Conference. We are a construction union of approximately 13,000 members in Ontario, basically in the industrial, commercial and institutional sector. Mr James Moffat is the business manager of Local 30 of the conference, which is the Toronto local and the largest local in Ontario. My name is Mr Jerry Raso. I'm the legal counsel for the conference.
Before I begin our comments, I couldn't help overhearing the talk about the newspaper. During the Toronto Star strike, I cancelled my subscription, in support of the strike. I renewed my subscription immediately upon the end of the strike. A lot of people do that.
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We're here today to speak in support of Bill 40. We consider it an extremely important bill. The conference made submissions before the committee on the discussion paper. We'd like to thank the committee for giving us this opportunity to speak again on these important changes to the Labour Relations Act. We presented a brief. It's quite detailed and addresses many issues. Since we have such a short period of time today, we're only going to address a few important issues and leave room for some questions.
Just as a very short introduction to what we're going to say, basically we're in support of Bill 40. When the Burkett report was out and the labour representatives issued a report, they issued very far-reaching and substantial recommendations for changes. We endorse that. Then the discussion paper came out and we felt it was short of the labour representatives' recommendations. Then Bill 40 came out and it too had many omissions.
Basically, this says that this is not the Satan that is being portrayed in the press. It is very modest, necessary proposals for change. Most or virtually all of the changes in Bill 40 exist somewhere else in Canada. These are not radical changes by any means.
The first area I'd like to address is the purpose clause. We've heard it said that this will completely politicize the Ontario Labour Relations Board and force the labour relations board to take a pro-union stance. Speaking as a lawyer, one who appears before the board on a regular basis, this is simply not true. Putting in a purpose clause, as opposed to a preamble, will give direction to the board in interpreting the Labour Relations Act, but it doesn't give the labour relations board free rein to do anything it wants.
Further, this purpose clause is merely a continuation of the Labour Relations Act -- what's presently in it now -- and merely codifies basically what goes on before the board every day. If I can just read the present preamble, the purpose: "Whereas it is in the public interest of the province of Ontario to further harmonious relations between employers and employees by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining between employers and trade unions as the freely designated representatives of employees."
The Labour Relations Act has always existed to encourage collective bargaining. Bill 40 simply builds on this and brings the Labour Relations Act up to date. It brings it into the 1990s. It recognizes that things have changed with the workforce in Ontario in the last 40 and 50 years, that people are part-time workers, that people work in quasi-public premises such as malls and no longer work strictly in factories owned by their strict employer.
The purpose clause is much in keeping with the present Labour Relations Act. It doesn't give the labour board any new powers; it simply still has to follow the sections and the rules that exist in the act.
Another area that we feel is very important concerns organizing and certification. We are very pleased to see Bill 40 propose the elimination of petitions after the application date and the elimination of the requirement for a $1 fee being paid to the union when you sign a membership card. These two things are completely unnecessary and do nothing more than simply create more antagonism between the parties and create undue acrimonious hard delays. We have seen petitions, and the requirement for $1, delay certification applications by months and months.
Petitions again are unnecessary because they only exist in a small percentage of certification applications and the vast majority of them are rejected. It has been our experience in certification applications that they're merely a tactic created by management to delay the certification application or to influence employees and to force them to sign this.
I even have a quote from David Wakely, who is a very well-respected management-side labour lawyer in Toronto. He agrees with the elimination of both petitions and the requirement for a $1 fee to be paid. Concerning petitions, he says, "I really do think that one of the reasons they want to get rid of this...is to eliminate a large amount of largely acrimonious litigation." He said the $1 requirement has "spawned all sorts of litigation. The government's motivation here is to remove or avoid that kind of litigation, and I don't think that's a bad thing." By the way, his firm is Winkler, Filion and Wakely. So even labour lawyers on management side recognize the petitions and the $1 requirement do only harm.
One concern we have with Bill 40 is that only petitions after the application date will be eliminated. It's our position that petitions that are submitted before the certification application date do as much harm as those introduced after, and therefore all petitions should be eliminated, both pre- and post-application; there's really no difference between the two.
Another area we support in Bill 40, under organization and certification, is expedited hearings for allegations that the employer has committed an unfair labour practice. This too is absolutely crucial for certifications.
One thing you have to remember is that we're not talking about minor infractions by employers. We're talking about serious actions that employers do to frighten, scare and intimidate their members into not joining a union, not signing a card or signing a petition. We're talking about when they threaten to lay off or discharge an employee. We're talking about when they interrogate them, when they bring them into the office and ask all sorts of questions about who is talking to the union, about who is doing what. We're talking about surveillance when we have employees followed by private investigators or management people. These are serious infractions by management.
The real effect of having an expedited hearing will be to reduce or take away the power to scare other employees. The real effect of this is that when you have someone discharged for supporting the union and it takes literally six to 12 months and $30,000 for that person to win his or her case and get his or her job back, the damage has been done and the employer has already won.
What happens is that you have other workers see what happened to their coworker and see that he has been unemployed for six to 12 months. Frankly, it works: It scares them. What happens is that they say: "I don't need that kind of trouble. Big deal, so I win 12 months down the road. It means I've been out of a job for a year. I don't need that kind of trouble." So what they do is either they refuse to sign a card, or if they do, they sign a petition to refute that card.
Having an expedited hearing does absolutely no damage to the employer. It merely makes sure that the effect of the delay of the hearing will not have a negative effect on the certification application. One very concrete example we have is where we tried to certify a company with 13 employees. A few employees were fired. After the application went in, management called and had several meetings. Management created a petition and got an employee to circulate it.
After all these allegations, the Sheet Metal Workers of Local 30 filed an unfair labour practice. The union won and it was found that the employer did commit all these infractions. The problem was that we didn't get a decision until two and a half years later and after spending $35,000 in legal fees. That's what it cost the union to certify 13 people, and that's what it did to employees of that company. We certified them, but the company won an important victory in scaring people and making many people question whether it's in fact worth it to sign a union card. Expedited hearings are very necessary and they're very reasonable.
Again, this will only apply to bad employers who violate the Labour Relations Act. If you're a good employer and you don't violate the law, you have absolutely nothing to worry about.
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Another area we support with Bill 40 concerns certification, where the labour board finds an employer guilty of committing an unfair labour practice. Presently, the requirement is that the board has to find, first, that the employer committed the unfair labour practice, so the true wishes of the employees cannot be ascertained, and second, that the union demonstrates adequate support.
The real and serious problem with this is that once the employer commits A, the unfair labour practice, it will succeed in frightening and intimidating workers so that they refuse to sign cards and the union cannot demonstrate that it has adequate support. Once the employer has done A, it's virtually impossible for the union to demonstrate B. It makes no sense to have both requirements. What you basically have presently is employers being rewarded for committing unfair labour practices.
Unfortunately, in the area of organizing and certification, we're disappointed with Bill 40 in three important areas. First of all, we're disappointed with the amendment to allow access for organizers to quasi-public premises. This would basically apply to shopping malls. In construction, this will not apply to and will have no effect on our organizers. Our workers work on construction work sites. These are not quasi-public premises. The public does not have access, for safety reasons, to a construction site. This will provide no positive effects for construction workers.
It is our position that it is not unreasonable at all to allow organizers on to all employer premises, whether they are private, quasi-public or whatever, with the proviso that you can go on to only those parts of the premises where there is no work going on, where there is no production. Basically, we're talking about parking lots and cafeterias. This will provide non-union employees with an opportunity to meet and be given a leaflet from the union and it will again do absolutely no damage to employers. What we're talking about are premises and parts of the premises where work will not be interrupted.
The second area in organizing where we feel Bill 40 does not go far enough is in not granting or providing for a notice to bargain an access to employee lists from employers. We feel a better process is for unions to very openly go to an employer and say: "We want to talk to your employees. Give us an employee list." What this does is it brings the whole matter out into the open, into public.
Presently, organizing can be very clandestine. It's like it's something illegal. You have to make sure the employer doesn't find out. We feel this is improper. We feel unions have a right to go to management and say, "We'd like to have a copy of your employee list." This is not an infringement of anyone's right to privacy.
Presently, what we have -- we all receive this -- is junk mail and phone calls and we have no idea where these companies got our names and addresses; they bought them from some other company or some newspaper or magazine. That's not a violation of the right to privacy and certainly granting an employee list is no more an invasion of the right to privacy.
There will be no harassment. Frankly, it's not in a union's interest to continuously go after someone. The union does not have the time or the money. If it goes to a person and that person's not interested, usually the union will simply move on.
The third area is automatic certification when a union reaches 50%. We see no reason why a union has to have 55% to get automatic certification. In a democracy a simple majority should be enough to certify that union.
We support Bill 40 in the area of strikes and industrial conflict. We feel that the amendments proposed will level the playing field, provide a more equitable relationship between management and labour and most certainly reduce violence on picket lines. You only see violence on picket lines when you have scab labour and when you have a worker, a man or a woman, who's been with that company for 25 or 30 years, has given his or her life to that company, is on strike and then sees someone else taking his or her job away. Usually that other person doesn't want to get involved in picket line violence. They're usually desperate for a job. Banning certain replacement workers can only reduce that violence.
Unfortunately, in our perspective, Bill 40 doesn't do enough to ban replacement workers. It can be said that this is an extremely onerous clause on management. There are so many exceptions to the ban on replacement work. Management and supervisors can perform the work, non-bargaining unit employees can perform the work, the company can have that work performed at another place or premise where it operates and management can contract out that bargaining unit work. It can hardly be said that this is extremely one-sided. For example, in construction the contracting-out ability can only serve to hurt unions and will serve as a big hole in this ban on replacement workers.
The other problem with replacement workers and the ban is that there's no expedited hearing when a union alleges that the employer has violated this section of the act. Just as we said you need an expedited hearing for an unfair labour practice for dismissing an individual, you need an expedited hearing in this case.
If a union alleges that a company's violating this ban, what good does it do if you go to the Ontario Labour Relations Board and you get a decision 8, 10 or 12 months down the road? The strike will probably be over by then. During that year management has been able to use replacement workers in violation of the Labour Relations Act. It may get a declaration at the end of the day that it has violated the act, but basically it's won. It can violate the act and do it with impunity because of the delay.
The third problem with the ban on replacement workers concerns a remedy. The act is basically silent on what the labour board can do if a company is found to have violated the act. One thing the Sheet Metal Workers' conference proposes is that it be put in the Labour Relations Act that the board has the power to put a penalty on management equal to the wages it has paid to the replacement workers it used in violation. Only if management is adequately deterred from doing this will it stop. If there's no adequate remedy, if there's no adequate enforcement or if there are no teeth to the legislation, then it becomes meaningless.
It's 4:20.
The Chair: You have two choices: You can either carry on or you can leave some time for dialogue.
Mr Raso: I'll just carry on for one minute on one other point.
The Chair: A lawyer's minute?
Mr Raso: A sheet metal worker's minute.
The Chair: I know whereof I speak. It's okay.
Mr Raso: The one area where there are many proposals is to streamline grievances, to streamline hearings, to make many administrative changes for both grievance arbitration panels and the Ontario Labour Relations Board. As a lawyer, I can only welcome these changes. Again, these are not radical changes; they're very modest. They simply make sure that if there's going to be a hearing the parties are going to get that hearing as quickly as possible and they're going to get a decision as quickly as possible.
You know the saying, "Justice delayed is justice denied." That's what often happens in labour relations hearings. With the examples I've given already and other cases of occupational health and safety violations, hearings and decisions can take six, eight, twelve months or two years down the road. The taxpayers, if you go to the labour relations board, have spent an enormous amount of money, and the parties have spent an enormous amount of money and time, and often it's because of preliminary legal objections that eventually will have no bearing on the case.
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Bill 40 does many of these things for the act. It requires a decision to be rendered within 30 days of the hearing being concluded. It provides for settlement officers. That's very important. If the parties can settle the case before they go to the board, that's a big victory for all parties.
It increases the jurisdiction of arbitrators. That allows arbitrators to get to the bottom of a matter, to the roots and what's really at stake. If you have a grievance and you have a hearing and it gets thrown out for some legal or preliminary matter, you've still got the problem; you've still got the antagonism between the parties. Allowing arbitrators to get to what's really the problem with this grievance can only benefit everyone.
In summary, the conference fully endorses Bill 40. We feel it's important, we feel it's necessary and we feel it's quite modest. It simply brings the Labour Relations Act up into the 1990s. It reflects what's going on today and it provides a more level playing field between management and labour, and because of that it should improve and it should work towards building better relations between the parties.
The Chair: Thank you, sir. Mr McLean and then Mr Carr.
Mr McLean: The first question I have for you, sir: You are a lawyer. You salute the government for its amendments in this Bill 40 and for providing a full opportunity for full consultation. As a lawyer, can you give me the interpretation of "full consultation"?
Mr Raso: It issued a discussion paper and it had hearings before a committee for that discussion paper. It allows many parties to appear before this resources committee consisting of all three parties.
Mr McLean: A layman's opinion of "full consultation" would mean that everybody who wanted to be heard would be heard. That is what I would conclude is full consultation. There are 250 people who are going to be heard in five weeks and there are about 1,200 who want to be heard, and you say that is full consultation?
Mr Raso: In this case I do say it's full consultation. I know that in terms of the 1,200 people who want to be heard, we have 13 locals in conference. I think all 13 locals sent in a request to be heard; there are 13 locals in the provincial conference. We recognize that this matter has to go on. The 13 locals did not get standing but their views are being represented by the conference. The conference met, we went over our brief and all the parties in our union agreed that the conference would represent everyone. In terms of the requests, I have full faith in Mr Harold Brown and his staff that they will adequately --
Mr McLean: You've answered my question. Thank you.
The Chair: One moment. You wanted to praise Harold Brown and his staff. Go ahead and finish, because they deserve praise. We won't take it off your time. Go ahead.
Mr McLean: I'll do that for Harold.
Mr Raso: I'm just sure they will be able to look at all the requests and decide who would best represent and get a full representation of the province of Ontario.
The Chair: As staff you mean not only Harold Brown; you mean Todd Decker and David Augustyn, the co-op student who's been working with the clerk this summer. That's whom you're speaking of.
Mr Raso: Exactly.
The Chair: Fine. Mr Carr.
Mr Carr: And don't forget the Chairman.
With regard to the certification process, and you talked a little bit about the list, if one of the provisions were that a union is allowed to get the list of names of people, mail out bylaws, talk about previous settlements and get its side of the story to employees, for whatever period of time, so that it's confident that its side will get out, if that provision is in there where a union could get the list, would you then be prepared to say, through a secret ballot process, that the true wishes of the individuals will be heard?
We've heard a lot about how management will get involved in the process. There would be no reason, because no one would ever know. Of 150 employees, if 100 vote for a union no one would know who those 100 are. If you, as a union person, could get your message out through these lists, through mailings or whatever, would you then be prepared to have a secret ballot for certification, and if not, why not?
Mr Raso: As opposed to a certification drive that goes on now?
Mr Carr: Yes. You talked about the problem associated -- and I heard you saying it was a bad process, a lot of problems with it. Would that make it a lot simpler? If not, why not?
Mr Raso: No, I don't think it would. I think our proposals, in terms of access of lists and if any infractions are committed that you have an expedited hearing -- I think that's much better. I don't see it being very democratic bringing in a group of non-union employees --
Mr Carr: Labour board people to hold the vote?
Mr Raso: What you're proposing is that you'd have both sides present their views and have a vote, no?
Mr Carr: You're opposed?
Mr Raso: No, I think this way's better, because what you have right now is a union being required to prove it has a majority of that employment. You've got to have 50% or 55% and you've got a full majority of the full workplace. If you simply have a vote, you're going to have problems with who's going to have the right to vote, who's going to show up. Are you going to force all employees to vote?
Mr Carr: That's the same way with the vote for the provincial government, not that many people showed up.
Mr Raso: At least at the beginning you have the union being forced to demonstrate it has a majority of the entire workplace. If you have 20% show up, you can't force people to vote.
The Chair: That having been said, we've got to move to Mr Wood.
Mr Wood: Thank you very much for coming forward with an excellent presentation. I listened to your comments intently and I realize you're not fully satisfied with the amendments that are brought forward, but I'm sure you must agree that it's going to give some workers out there who would like to belong to a union a choice in the coming months and years.
Mr Raso: We support every amendment in Bill 40. We fully support it and we urge the government not to delete it all, to pass what's there. It's our position, though, that in certain matters we've outlined, it just doesn't go far enough. What's there is good. It will definitely help to achieve some of the government's goals of improving relations, reducing picket violence and providing a more level field between management and labour. We fully agree with that.
Mr Wood: Along the same line, realizing that the legislation hasn't been updated since 1975, almost 20 years; that the government is trying to reflect the changing environment, the changing workforce, the amount of extra part-time workers there are, more women going into the workforce, more minority groups, new Canadians coming who have no place to turn to for assistance and who would be able to turn to a union of their choice and say, "Well, I'd like to have some protection in the workforce," do you believe that is going to accomplish this, that we can further update it in another four or five years if we see more changes in the workforce and the environment and that changes can be done?
Mr Raso: Absolutely.
Mr Offer: Thank you for your presentation. I want to bring forward an issue you have raised, I think, for the first time to date in our hearings. That is around the jurisdiction of powers of the arbitrator or the arbitration board.
One of the areas you brought forward was that, as a result of the amendments to Bill 40, the arbitrator or board will now have the power to determine the nature of the differences to address their real substance. This of course excludes, in a very real sense, what is known as due process. It is in essence saying to the parties: "We don't really care how you got here before the board. We don't care what method was used. We'll decide now what is the real issue to be decided."
On the basis of a natural sort of fairness and justice, that is a power to an arbitrator or the arbitration board that just shouldn't exist and which I don't know exists in any other portion of our laws. People can come to the board and if there's an argument by one group saying, "The process has been faulty," the board can say, "We're going to put that all aside and still make our decision."
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I ask the question -- I know it is very specific but I do pose it, because I heard you allude to it in your presentation -- as a solicitor dealing with this matter, I'm wondering how you feel about this change, which really does exclude the whole issue of due process for an arbitrator or board.
Mr Raso: I don't think it excludes the issue of due process by any means at all. I think what it does is allow arbitrators to go beyond any technical or legal mistakes or infractions that have occurred to date and get to the issue. He or she is not going to simply pull out of the air, "I want to deal with this issue of the company problems." There are real parameters that it has to operate within and those include, first of all, the collective agreement. Grievances only deal with violations of the collective agreement.
If a worker, not knowing the labour relations law, fills out the grievance form in a wrong way and cites the wrong clause of the collective agreement or doesn't know how to properly phrase it, that shouldn't prohibit the arbitrator from saying: "Yes, you've spent six months to get to where you are, but I'm really sorry, you didn't cross your t's and dot your i's. Therefore, go back, go home. I'm not going to hear you." That's not due process either.
Mr Offer: My question is that on a reading of the bill, it doesn't apply to dotted i's or crossed t's. It talks to an arbitrator or the board, saying to the parties, "You're here, and we, the arbitrator or board, are now going to address the real substance of the matter as we see it." I'm wondering what type of justice that is to those who are before the board.
Certainly there are procedures where some of the examples you've brought forward would be addressed earlier on. I'm talking right in the area of decision-making. I think it's an important matter and I'm glad that you've brought it forward. I certainly do want to hear your thoughts on that.
Mr Raso: It's not going to happen at the end of the road. It's not going to happen with the decision. Parties are not going to see a decision on an issue they had no idea was going to be there and had no opportunity to address. That is going to be dealt with at the beginning of the hearing. It's going to be dealt with before the merits are presented. The arbitrator's going to say: "This is the real issue. This is what really happened. This is what we're going to deal with." If it happens on day one, there's going to be an adjournment. The parties are going to go back, they're going to prepare and they're going to deal with the real substance. That benefits both sides. Why waste thousands of dollars and thousands of days for nothing?
Mr Offer: I hear your response. I wish I could share your optimism. There's no question that power is given to the arbitrator, the board, and I have some concerns as to what that means in its exercise. I must say I do appreciate your bringing this matter, because it's one which has caused me some concern and reflection since the bill has been introduced. I do believe you have been the first person to suggest this one very important area. Thank you.
The Chair: People, I want to thank you for appearing on behalf of the Ontario Sheet Metal Workers' and Roofers' Conference, for taking the time to be here and for the interest you obviously have, for very good reason, in the legislation. You represent a significant constituency and you've presented its position forcefully and articulately today. You've been of great help to the committee. I trust you'll be following the process of the bill through the committee, and we welcome further input from you should new matters arise.
Mr Raso: Thank you, Mr Chair.
INTERNATIONAL LADIES' GARMENT WORKERS' UNION
The Chair: The next group participating is the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. Come on up and sit down at a microphone. Tell us who you are and what your titles are, if any. We're eager to hear what you have to say. Try to leave us 15 minutes at the end of the half-hour for questions and dialogue.
Ms Alexandra Dagg: Okay, I'll try. I'll introduce the people with us today. I'm Alex Dagg. I'm the manager for the Ontario region of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. To my right is Ms Mary Said. She's a union rep with the union who was a garment worker, a sewing machine operator in a plant. To my left is Wilfred Kronquist, who is the elected president of the region. He's a cutter and works for Dylex Ltd making dresses. To my far left is Danny Sun, also a cutter from the trade who's now an organizer with the union. Ready?
The Chair: Go ahead. Tell us what you want to tell us.
Ms Dagg: The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union was established in Canada in 1911. We are one of the oldest local unions in the manufacturing sector. The Ontario chapter of the ILG has worked for the benefit and dignity of garment workers and has also fought for a better future for them. Approximately 85% of our membership are immigrant women, many of whom have worked in the industry for many years. Our members sew all types of garments that Canadians have worn for decades, from T-shirts and socks to $3,000 wedding dresses. The ILG's consistent guiding principles through the last 80 years has been to fight for workers' rights and fair and equal treatment for them, and it is within this spirit that we present this brief to you today on the issue of Bill 40.
The ILG welcomes the opportunity to respond to the proposed Bill 40 amendments to the Ontario Labour Relations Act. Not only is reform of this act important for the effective monitoring and regulation of labour-management relations in this province, it's been more than 15 years since there has been any thorough review of this legislation. Workplaces have changed dramatically since this act was last reviewed and it's essential that the OLRA change with the times and adapt itself in order for it to be the regulatory body that reflects the workplaces of the 1990s in Ontario.
We will be responding in some cases specifically to Bill 40, but also more generally as to whether we believe the proposed amendments will actually mean that the OLRA will facilitate the right to organize in the province.
An additional comment we would like to make at the outset is that our experiences have indicated that when unions and workers are respected by the employers and recognized as important contributors to wealth creation there is greater productivity in those cases. We believe that Bill 40 will contribute significantly to promoting stability within Ontario's workplaces. For these reasons, we believe this is an important bill.
We are, though, disappointed by the fact that the government has decided to only minimally address the measures that need to be taken to increase the access of women and immigrant workers to collective bargaining. The government's original discussion paper had documented the changing nature and composition of our workforce. Specifically it had pointed to the growing numbers of women and visible minorities entering the workforce. Statistics show that women lag behind men by about 10 percentage points in the rate of unionization. Ontario in particular has the lowest rate of unionization of women workers of any province in the country. The predominance of women in certain sectors of the economy like small workplaces, part-time jobs and the service and retail sector, which are for numerous reasons difficult to organize, can partially explain this lag.
The Ministry of Labour then goes on to argue that the proposed reform will aid and facilitate the right of workers to organize in particularly the non-traditional areas. They further argue that the act must be responsive to new economic developments in the Ontario economy.
While it's true that many of the proposals will help facilitate the formation of unions, they are a far cry from completely altering the labour relations environment of Ontario. They will clearly not, as some opponents have argued, mean that all Ontario workplaces automatically will become unionized. Nor will the amendments increase significantly the numbers of women and visible minorities organizing in unions. The amendments will mean less litigation time at the labour board for the bargaining units that are already organizable, and it will likely mean increased effective union organizing in sectors where viable bargaining units exist, but it will not alter fundamentally the bargaining power of small units and sectors of the economy where there is no clear employer. This is necessary to ensure effective access to collective bargaining structures. Those employees who are working in areas where there is some job security and in standard forms of jobs will gain greater access to collective bargaining, but those women concentrated in non-standard, insecure employment will not see greater access to effective collective bargaining.
Subject to our comments below, this legislation must be passed. However, if the government is truly committed to facilitating the rights of workers to organize in particularly the non-traditional areas and be responsive to new economic developments in the economy, other measures must be taken to give better protection to home workers and other workers concentrated in non-standard forms of work. The government must not be influenced too heavily by the strong scare tactics that have been used by the business community to hinder the commitment by the NDP to make some real changes to the rights of working-class people in this province.
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Specific options for reform: We generally support all of Bill 40 and therefore have not discussed those aspects which we support the inclusion of. This brief is specifically focused on those areas of the bill that we have found to be inadequate and on the issues that are significant in addressing the general areas of increasing access to collective bargaining for sectors of the economy that are not typically unionized.
Bill 40 outlines a proposal to remove the exclusion of domestic workers' right to organize. Although the ILG welcomes the removal of this exclusion, we recognize that the simple removal of this is only symbolic. It does not deal with the real difficulty of achieving collective bargaining for domestic workers who are employed primarily in units of one in a single-family home. Not only are these workers women; they are also largely immigrant women and visible minority women. This is an area of the economy increasingly important as traditional families now often rely on two income earners. This is also an area employing large numbers of workers who are at the bottom of the economic ladder and are clearly in need of greater protection at the workplace that unionization could provide. It's disappointing that the government, which has been clearly on the record as advocating for greater equality for women in this province, has only taken the initial, first step in its proposal to deal with domestic workers. This is clearly not enough.
To effectively deal with the rights of domestic workers to organize a union and bargain collectively, there must be a system in place that mandates broader-based bargaining. There must be a regulation that designates all the single-unit family employers as a single employer for purposes under the Labour Relations Act. The addition of a central registry for domestic workers that would collectively bargain with the employer and then deal with individual complaints as they arise would give them real access to collective bargaining. The provision of a union hiring hall mechanism could also facilitate an alteration of bargaining power. This could operate in a similar fashion to hiring halls found in the construction industry as well as in the garment industry.
There are parallels with garment workers and domestic workers that would benefit directly from sectoral bargaining models. We will discuss the importance of sectoral bargaining further in our brief.
Structure and configuration of bargaining units --
The Chair: If I could interrupt you, this is a well-prepared brief, but I've read through it. If you want to highlight these next sections -- in other words, address them -- because I think we're going to get far more from you in our discussions with you. I think you've got some important things to tell us. So I'm not telling you how to do your presentation, but perhaps you could highlight the headline and basically the thrust of it so that we save 15 to 20 minutes for discussion, because this is an exhibit now. Your brief is a part of the record. Okay? Sorry to interrupt.
Ms Dagg: Okay. And you guys are going to take it home and read it, right?
Interjection: Yes.
The Chair: No, people are reading it right now. And I tell you, people are going to read it.
Ms Dagg: Okay.
Structure and configuration of bargaining units: One of the things that's really important in determining issues around the labour board is the definition and the importance of the bargaining unit. The importance of the bargaining unit is fundamental, but that gives difficulties when you don't have a clear, definable bargaining unit, and also in cases of small employers. One example we have here is that in 1985 nearly 84% of all of Ontario's registered businesses employed fewer than 10 workers. With units of this size, collective bargaining and union servicing of collective agreements is often very difficult.
The structure of the garment industry in Ontario is also in the middle of rapid restructuring away from large manufacturing plants towards a complex web of interrelated employers in a pyramid structure. I just want to talk a little bit about the structure, because that really makes our case about broader-based bargaining.
The hierarchy is structured as follows: At the top of the pyramid is a relatively small number of jobbers and manufacturers. The jobbers design garments but they rarely manufacture directly any of their garments. Even the manufacturers, who were typically the large employers in the sector, now manufacture only a small portion of their sales. The trend is towards pure jobbing and the creation of the "hollow" corporation.
These jobbers and manufacturers subcontract cutting and assembly operations to contractors. The larger contractors often subcontract work out to still smaller contractors and to home workers. At the bottom of the chain, of course, is the production of the home workers. These home workers often work for more than one contractor. So when you look at this pyramid subcontracting structure of the industry in which home workers are employed, you can certainly see how it drives home work underground. Any enforcement mechanism for minimum standards or for protection under the act must address this subcontracting structure.
The reliance within the act on the existence of a viable bargaining unit before a collective bargaining relationship can be struck means the frustration of workers in such complex subcontracting structures, because we can go and organize a small contractor, and as soon as we go and put a certificate in at the board, that contractor is shut and long gone, but he will then operate and open somewhere else under a new name. Unless you're an expert detective, they're very hard to find and to track.
The proposed reform of the configuration of bargaining units only addresses the smaller issues that unions sometimes face, but it's unable to deal with the larger question where bargaining unit descriptions as normally practised have no meaning or no relevance, as in the case of home workers.
Again, the issue of broader-based bargaining in particular sectors such as the clothing industry or for domestic workers becomes very important. We strongly propose that the minister be mandated to review sectoral bargaining models that are already in existence, examine them as to their appropriateness in certain sectors in the Ontario economy and be mandated to report back in a very short time frame so that this issue can be addressed, and then implement sectoral bargaining models so that these issues can really be addressed.
Let me turn to the striker replacement provisions. The striker replacement provisions are important proposals as well, but they do not go far enough. The failure to recommend that work must not be contracted out during a work stoppage is also a major gap in the provisions. In the clothing industry, work is routinely contracted out. All an employer has to do is bundle cut pieces of fabric or, alternatively, ship the paper patterns to any number of garment contractors that exist all over Metropolitan Toronto. This could effectively frustrate any work stoppage by employees. In our union experience, picket line violence has erupted when trucks attempt to take the work out or people try to take the bundles out to send them round to a contractor.
The failure as well to include the company's managerial and supervisory employees in the striker replacement provisions is also a major gap for us. Although the union strongly supports the introduction of this bill, there are still too many loopholes which will contribute to picket line confrontations. We urge the government to reconsider its position on this issue and close some of these loopholes.
Preservation of bargaining rights: As discussed a little earlier, we described the structure of the clothing industry. When you look at the related employer provision and sale-of-business provisions under the act, you have to understand the nature and the structure of this industry to understand the loopholes in the law from our point of view. Any sale of businesses defined under this act should also include simply a sale of assets.
We've experienced numerous difficulties in trying to preserve bargaining rights over the last few years, as an employer will routinely sell just its most important asset to another employer, which is normally the labels or the brand names it sews under. The effect of this is to escape bargaining rights, because then this new employer will own the rights to the brand name, the old manufacturer using completely different workers, and then they escape bargaining rights. This has happened to us on many occasions. There must also be improved protection for employees when employers relocate their businesses.
The simplest and most effective means of ensuring compliance with minimum standards under the Labour Relations Act that will deal with some of our problems is to impose joint liability for these standards on the businesses at the top of the pyramid. Not only do the manufacturers and jobbers in the clothing industry control the labour process, they are economically much more stable. They also set the terms which the subcontractors, who are in a very competitive position, must comply with. A liability on the top employer would help ensure that wages and working conditions would not be subject to constant downward pressure, thereby frustrating workers' access to collective bargaining structures. Again, a system of broader-based bargaining would help deal with the structure of the industry here.
In conclusion, we support many of the proposed reforms in Bill 40. They would give much-needed improvements to the Labour Relations Act. They would help us maintain collective bargaining relationships with employers where we do have representation rights now and may increase the numbers of garment and clothing workers gaining access to collective bargaining in cases where they work in larger, more secure industrial units. But we strongly urge the government to take another look at the changes that would also significantly benefit women and immigrant workers as members of the more vulnerable workforce in different forms of precarious or substandard employment.
We just want to mention, in addition to our comments on the Labour Relations Act, the importance of looking at some of the other employment law here.
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One act I'd like to point out is the Industrial Standards Act, which regulates minimum standards in the clothing industry. This is a cooperative act where employers and unions work together to set standards. We have standards above the Employment Standards Act at this time. We have a long history of working cooperatively together to regulate this industry, but this act needs serious amendments as well because it hasn't been amended for about 30 years and doesn't really fit the industry any more. So this one needs to be done as well.
However, the lessons we have learned from the Industrial Standards Act and working cooperatively with employers to actually set standards in the industry can be useful lessons and applied to other sectors of the Ontario economy. We believe this could be an interesting pilot project for a broader-based bargaining model if it were updated to reflect the 1990s.
One last point is that the majority of women workers in the province of Ontario rely on the Employment Standards Act for protection in the workplace, not the Labour Relations Act. It's essential, then, that this act be amended as well if the Ontario government is serious about improving and expanding opportunities for women in this province.
Not only is the enforcement of this act weak, it has not, as well as the Labour Relations Act, kept up with the changing nature of the workforce in this economy. It's not the legislative vehicle it should be, so we strongly urge that the Ministry of Labour immediately undertake a serious review of the Employment Standards Act with a concrete program and an agenda of legislative proposals and consultations. Thank you for this opportunity.
Mr Fletcher: Thank you, Ms Dagg. It was a very good presentation. Earlier on in the day we had Fairweather in here, whose parent company is Dylex. They were telling us about how progressive they are. They have enhanced training programs -- I have their brief here -- flexible work hours for anyone who wants to work flexible hours. Retail provides the opportunity for seasonal employment, part-time work if you'd like it, or what have you, and their compensation exceeds that of the US, Quebec and other provinces. They even have an 800 number. If you have a complaint you can phone the boss -- something I can't do -- but it's there.
With Dylex and Fairweather being such progressive companies, do you have specifics of why you would even want to organize someone like Dylex?
Ms Dagg: It's very interesting. We've had a collective bargaining relationship with Dylex for many years. For 40 or 50 years we've been bargaining with it in its manufacturing centres. Wilfred works for Dylex and is an employee there.
One of the interesting things about Dylex is that they do employ home workers. Even though they have registered their home workers and met the minimum conditions of the Employment Standards Act, they're no angel employers. They are actually one of the companies we have the most problems with in dealing with grievances, and Wilfred and Mary can both attest to that. So it's very interesting if they're saying they're progressive employers, because that certainly hasn't been our experience with them.
The Chair: I want the people here to understand that all of them can respond to these questions, not just Ms Dagg.
Ms Murdock: We had Intercede in the other day. I know both your group and Intercede are working together, because we recognize the fact that removing the exclusion of domestic workers doesn't resolve the problem for domestic workers or garment workers, particularly in the home working situation. I know you mentioned hiring hall and broad-based bargaining. Which is your preference, or how do you see it working?
Ms Dagg: I think it has to be a combination of things. One of the things we're studying in a joint project with Intercede right now is exactly developing a model that could address and set up a broader-based bargaining model for both domestic workers and home workers. We don't have the full program at this point set out, but we do have general ideas.
We think the designation of who the employer is is really key; then if you operate with a central registry for both home workers and domestics, any employer who would like to use a home worker or a domestic worker would have to come through the central registry. That way we would know and could track exactly where they are and monitor the working conditions much more closely than we can, because most of the case with the home workers is that it's underground. We don't know where they are. A lot of them are operating in basements under illegal conditions.
A report we did found that there are numerous and repeated violations of the minimum basic laws in this province. We found, for example, one Chinese-speaking woman who was earning the equivalent of $1 an hour on her piecework wages in her home right in the city of Toronto. There has to be a way of looking at who the employer is and making these employers who own the brand names and the labels responsible for violations of the basic law.
That's kind of the outline of what we think could be done. I think some examples in the construction industry are also useful here in terms of using union hiring hall mechanisms for referring workers to employers when they need them.
Mr Offer: Thank you for your presentation. I guess I've had an advantage in that in an earlier meeting a number of months ago the configuration and some of the issues were explained to me. I was very much looking forward to your presentation. I think the issues you bring forward are absolutely crucial.
Notwithstanding Bill 40, is there something that should and could be done to the Employment Standards Act, in your opinion, that could in a very real way address some of the issues that confront the home garment workers in this province?
Ms Dagg: Bill 40 is important for the workers we have currently under collective agreement. We're obviously trying to maintain collective bargaining rights, so I don't want to minimize that part. That is important as well because we've been under attack by employers like never before in the past couple of years.
For home workers, there are already some provisions under the Employment Standards Act that aren't enforced. Even if you didn't change the law and you could enforce what we already have, that would immeasurably improve already what the women face now. There's a way they could improve their enforcement. By using an audit procedure rather than just a complaints-based procedure, they could do an occasional audit on certain sectors of more marginal employers.
If we could have a high-profile charge or public hearing of an employer using home workers under illegal conditions and have it be public in the papers and have this person fined $50,000, which is there under the act, that's a cheap way of making sure the other employers are going to start to pay more attention to the law too. The little cost-benefit analysis they do internally about whether or not it pays to break the law is going to be weighed a little bit differently once you start seeing violators fined a much higher amount. That's one thing.
The second thing is to amend the act to look at who the employer is. We have cases of large employers who do millions and millions of dollars of business in this industry and they might own five or six different designer labels -- your wives probably buy and wear this stuff -- and what happens here is they don't manufacture anything; they send it out to all these contractors. But they're not responsible. The way they've set up their business is perfect for avoiding legal liability so that they're not actually responsible for any of the violations. If we find someone not making minimum wage, we have to go to the contractor. Once the contractor finds he's under investigation, he flies the coop and he's gone and then you're left with no vehicle.
If you could define that and impose a joint liability on the top employer, you would get a lot more just by the fact that the employer who's responsible for the work would then say, "It pays for us to make sure that the contractors we're using and their employees are making minimum standards," because otherwise they're subject to fines. It's not that big a deal.
Mr Offer: I have a small follow-up question. With regard to the areas you've just alluded to, without taking away from your concerns with respect to Bill 40 for and against, would it be in order for you, if possible, to give to the committee the position you have in the area of not only Bill 40, which we have before us, but also the Employment Standards Act, so that we could almost use this as an addendum to your concerns?
I think this is a very important issue that's coming at an extremely crucial point in time. This is the time when we really do have an opportunity to deal with it and I would like to try, if possible, to get not only the position on Bill 40, which we have here today, but also some of the areas you've already alluded to.
Ms Dagg: I believe we gave you our brief on that when I met you in December, but I can certainly make available copies to all members of the committee, because it does go into more detail. Actually, I thought the Coalition for Fair Wages and Conditions for Home Workers was scheduled to speak this morning, but there was a mixup; it'll be speaking to the committee next week some time. They will be raising these issues as well, so I can make sure they bring the brief for you.
Mr McLean: I appreciate your presentation here today. I observed the other day that the committee was dealing with nannies and domestics. We're trying to figure out how they would organize and under what conditions they would organize.
You explained the question very well to Mr Offer with regard to the home workers: It can be at arm's length about three different distances away from the original garment maker or manager of a certain company you could be working for. How many of these home workers in the city of Toronto do you estimate work for persons about two places away from their bosses? Somebody would hire them, and then maybe that person who is hired would hire two or three more and give them the work they were supposed to do; I read in the paper a week or so ago, like the person you had indicated, about $1 an hour. Is this what's happening? The one person is making it for the company and then it in turn farms it out to somebody else.
Ms Dagg: Yes, it is something like that. It's an amazing web and pyramid. We spend a lot of time actually trying to figure out where the work is going. If we look at a designer label like Alfred Sung, for example, it takes us a long time to try to figure out where all these garments are actually being made. It's incredibly complex.
Mr McLean: It could be thousands of people?
Ms Dagg: Not so many any more here, because they actually import a lot from Hong Kong, but they still produce a substantial amount in Toronto. We're talking probably a couple of hundred workers, but they'd be spread out all over the city, so they're incredibly difficult to track.
Even though we don't know exactly how many home workers there are any more in this city -- because they are underground; they're very difficult to track -- very conservative estimates are that there are about 3,000. But there's only 6,500 working in the factories in the city of Toronto now, so there are at least half as many home workers as factory workers. If we keep going in this trend, there are going to be more home workers than people working in factories.
Mr McLean: How do you organize?
Ms Dagg: It's very difficult. You need a broader-based bargaining model which designates who the employer is.
Mr Ward: Bill 40 will help.
Ms Dagg: Bill 40 helps, yes. Bill 40 will help in certain cases where an employer has many home workers. We still run into the difficulty that home workers work for more than one employer.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms Said, Ms Dagg, Mr Kronquist and Mr Sun. We thank you very much for coming here on behalf of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, which has a significant and impressive history here in Ontario and throughout North America. Your comments were most valuable to the committee. We appreciate your taking the time and we trust you'll be keeping in touch. Thank you kindly.
That wraps up this week. I want to be very clear that I'm thankful -- all of us are -- to the staff who have helped: Pat Girouard with Hansard; Avrum Fenson and Anne Anderson, legislative researchers; Teresa Lohan, who operates the console and makes sure peoples' mikes are turned on and off at the appropriate times; of course the people doing the translation -- theirs is a particularly onerous task because, as often as not, two, three or four speakers will try to speak simultaneously; the legislative broadcast service, which has done a wonderful job, as usual; and Harold Brown, Todd Decker and David Augustyn, who is the co-op student working with Harold Brown and Todd Decker. I hope David Augustyn's parents on Port Robinson Road West in Thorold are watching this as we compliment David Augustyn for his outstanding work this week.
We're going to come back on Monday at 1:30 here at Queen's Park. Thank you kindly, people.
The committee adjourned at 1705.