NDP to delay labour relations bill until fall

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This article was published 19/03/2021 (1703 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba NDP caucus is delaying legislation it says will lead to labour disputes and erode workers rights.

On Friday, the official Opposition held a news conference to announce it will hold back Bill 16 (Labour Relations Amendment Act) until fall 2021.

The bill would allow an employer to fire an employee for “strike-related misconduct” — even if the employee has not been convicted of a criminal offence — and eliminates the right of striking workers to access binding arbitration after 60 days of strike action or lockout.

It would also require only 40 per cent of workers — instead of 50 per cent — to call for a union decertification vote.

“If this bill becomes law, it’s going to make it much more difficult for the average person out there to get a good-paying wage, to be able to protect their job, and bargain and negotiate a fair deal for themselves,” NDP Leader Wab Kinew said.

Manitoba legislature rules allow the Opposition to hold back five bills until the fall sitting.

On Sunday, the NDP said it would also delay the Public Utilities Ratepayer Protection and Regulatory Reform Act that would limit the Public Utilities Board’s ability to set rates for Manitoba Hydro, as 2,300 electrical workers with IBEW Local 2034 were set to strike.

Delaying Bill 16 until the fall allows striking Hydro workers to seek binding arbitration and avoid a prolonged labour dispute, Kinew said. “That’s one of the very important reasons we’re announcing this delay now.”

A bus driver for the Winnipeg School Division, who recently returned to work after binding arbitration, spoke at the news conference on behalf of unionized workers.

“Without the union, we are nothing,” said Gurjinder Singh, a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 832, which spent nearly 90 days on the picket line demanding a fair wage package. “We’re secure, our job is secure, my family is secure.”

The Progressive Conservative government says Bill 16’s proposed changes will better balance the rights of union members, unions and employers, and make unions more accountable and transparent. It says no other Canadian jurisdiction’s labour law allows one party to force the other into binding arbitration for subsequent agreements.

“The NDP likely doesn’t like the fact this legislation would require secret ballot votes so employees can’t be bullied into joining or staying in unions, that it would stop taxpayer support for full-time union executives and expose the high salaries of union officials to union members,” Finance Minister Scott Fielding said Friday in an email.

Manitoba Federation of Labour president Kevin Rebeck dismissed that assertion.

“Any union member can get financial information,” he said at the NDP news conference. “What this law does is create new, onerous steps imposed on public-sector unions that aren’t imposed on anyone else.”

Businesses get grants and tax breaks from government, but aren’t being required to issue statements of financials and salaries, Rebeck said.

“I think Premier Brian Pallister is being punitive because public-sector unions were successful in court in for calling out his illegal, unconstitutional wage-freeze legislation.”

The proposed Bill 28 was struck down last June by the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench, which ruled it violated the freedom of association rights of public servants under the charter. The government has appealed the decision to the Manitoba Court of Appeal.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca