KINGSTON DISTRICT CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
CANADIAN UNION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES, ONTARIO DIVISION
ONTARIO HOTEL AND MOTEL ASSOCIATION, EASTERN ONTARIO REGION
PETERBOROUGH AND DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL
KINGSTON FRONTENAC HOME BUILDERS' ASSOCIATION
AEROSPACE INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION OF CANADA
KINGSTON AND DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL
KINGSTON COMMUNITY LEGAL CLINIC
ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION, LOCAL 444
ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION, LOCAL 432
CONTENTS
Thursday 27 August 1992
Labour Relations and Employment Statute Law Amendment Act, 1992, Bill 40
Kingston District Chamber of Commerce
David Cunningham, second vice-president
Canadian Union of Public Employees, Ontario Division
Sid Ryan, president
Ed Scott, Kingston area representative
Joe Martin, president, CUPE local 234
Gloria Morris, president, CUPE Kingston district council
John Elder, solicitor, legal department
Ontario Hotel and Motel Association, eastern Ontario region
Valerie Nicoll, representative
Peterborough and District Labour Council
Dean Shewring, president
Robert Freeman, member, labour legislation committee
Kingston Frontenac Home Builders' Association
Bruce Sheen, chair, labour relations committee
Gary Eskerod, member
Aerospace Industries Association of Canada
Fred Sutherland, president
Peter Broadhurst, chair, human resources committee
CAW Canada
Glen Myers, national representative
Kingston and District Labour Council
Charlie Stock, president
Kingston Community Legal Clinic
John Ross Done, executive director
Ontario Public Service Employees Union, Local 444
Gavin Anderson, president
John Smith, vice-president
Ontario Public Service Employees Union, Local 432
Lynn Park, unit steward and board member
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:
*Fawcett, Joan M. (Northumberland L) for Mr Conway
*Hayes, Pat (Essex-Kent ND) for Mr Klopp
*Hope, Randy R. (Chatham-Kent ND) for Mr Wood
*Runciman, Robert W. (Leeds-Grenville PC) for Mr Jordan
*Sterling, Norman W. (Carleton PC) for Mr Turnbull
*Ward, Brad (Brantford ND) for Mr Waters
*Wilson, Gary (Kingston and The Islands/Kingston et Îles ND) for Mr Dadamo
*In attendance / présents
Clerk pro tem / Greffier par intérim: Decker, Todd
Staff / Personnel: Fenson, Avrum, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1000 in the Howard Johnson Confederation Place Hotel, Kingston.
LABOUR RELATIONS AND EMPLOYMENT STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI A TRAIT AUX RELATIONS DE TRAVAIL ET À L'EMPLOI
Consideration of Bill 40, An Act to amend certain Acts concerning Collective Bargaining and Employment / Loi modifiant certaines lois en ce qui a trait à la négociation collective et à l'emploi.
KINGSTON DISTRICT CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
The Vice-Chair (Mr Bob Huget): First of all, good morning, everyone. The first group scheduled to appear this morning is the Kingston District Chamber of Commerce. Could you come forward. Welcome. Could you identify yourselves and then proceed with your presentation. You're allocated half an hour, and the committee would really appreciate if you could leave some of that half an hour for questions and answers.
Mr David Cunningham: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. My name is David Cunningham. I'm the second vice-president of the Kingston District Chamber of Commerce, and with me today are Les Foreman and Bert Walsh. We are here today representing the more than 900 firms that belong to the chamber of commerce. This presentation is also endorsed by the Brockville Chamber of Commerce.
Rather than repeat the presentation made to the ministerial consultations earlier this year, we thought we would bring some of the members of the Kingston business community into your hearing room to present their views about Bill 40. We have a couple of screens set up here to the left.
[Video presentation]
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Mr Cunningham: The views presented in this unique video collage are the unscripted, unprompted concerns of a representative cross-section of the greater Kingston business community. The businessmen and businesswomen appearing on this video are real people from all sectors, typical business people struggling to stay afloat in a no-growth economy, planning to create new employment opportunities right here in Kingston as they grow their businesses when the economy turns up. Their concerns are genuine, sincere and legitimate.
Ontario currently enjoys a high degree of workplace harmony relative to other jurisdictions. Employees are free to organize for the purposes of collective bargaining and do so with relative ease. There is an approximate balance of powers given to both management and unions in the existing legislation under which the vast majority, approximately 95%, of agreements are achieved successfully though the collective bargaining process. Strikes and lockouts seldom occur, and incidents or picket line violence are extremely rare. Healthy and productive relationships generally exist between unions and management.
The Ontario Labour Relations Act is high on the list of legislation that works in this province. There is low strike activity, higher employment levels and an elevated measure of prosperity relative to other jurisdictions. It should not be drastically tampered with.
Ontario's positive labour relations environment is a significant contributor to the province's overall economic success. Despite the fact that we are currently in the midst of a long and devastating recession, historically Ontario has enjoyed a higher level of prosperity then most other North American jurisdictions. Ontario has one of the largest economies in the world, and it is a partner in the world's largest trading relationship with the United States. The success of economic activity in this province has provided its citizens with a high and enviable standard of living.
Highly valued by the citizens of Ontario is our array of social programs. It is evidence of the genuine care that Ontarians hold for one another, a demonstration that Ontario cares for its disadvantaged and less fortunate. This social safety net is made possible only through continued economic success. So the needs of a multitude of stakeholders must be considered before proceeding with Bill 40.
But despite the existing scenario of labour relations success, some claim the current act is old, awkward and in need of streamlining. Indeed, one of the government's arguments in support of Bill 40 claims that the Ontario Labour Relations Act hasn't been changed in almost 17 years. However, in an address to the Kingston Rotary Club on July 30 of this year, Donald Carter, who's a professor of labour law at Queen's University and a former chairman of the Ontario Labour Relations Board, stated: "Contrary to what the Minister of Labour wrote in his recent letter to the Whig (Standard), it is not `almost 17 years since the act was last amended.' In fact, the Ontario act has been amended five times during that period."
Our government promotes Bill 40 by stating that all of the proposals in it are in place in other jurisdictions. What they neglect to say is that in no other single jurisdiction are all of these proposals in effect. Bill 40 makes Ontario the most anti-business jurisdiction in North America.
Our government proudly tells us that there is legislation in the province of Quebec which bans the use of replacement workers, and our government often refers to Quebec as a province which has model labour relations legislation. Well, let's examine the Quebec experience.
From 1970 to 1977, there were 46 more strikes in Ontario than in Quebec. In 1978, legislation similar to Bill 40, which banned the use of replacement workers, was introduced in that province. Between 1978 and 1991, there have been 652 more strikes in Quebec than in Ontario, and there have been more strikes in Quebec in every year but two during that time.
In Quebec, capital expenditures in the four years following the passage of Bill 40-type legislation rose 26%. During the same period, capital expenditures in Ontario rose 50%.
The Quebec experience suggests that there will be an increase in the level of strike activity leading to reduced productivity and that investment will suffer drastically as a direct result of Bill 40. This is perhaps the most powerful piece of evidence, an enormous yellow and black caution sign on the Bill 40 road.
The stable labour relations environment in Ontario is due largely to an equal and fair distribution of powers and responsibilities between unions and management. Under the existing relationship, both parties want nothing more than to resolve their differences, reach a contract and continue working. A strike or lockout is to the advantage of neither.
However, it is the looming possibility of a strike or lockout during collective bargaining that forces both sides to be reasonable. The employer must take a reasonable position in order to avoid a strike and the union must also take a reasonable position to maintain the support of its members. Strikes and lockouts are extremely rare because this dynamic, the mere possibility of a strike or lockout, is in play. Bill 40 drastically changes this dynamic. It essentially empowers unions at the expense of business.
In his address to the Kingston Rotary Club, Donald Carter said that the ban on the use of replacement workers will "give a union the power to impose an effective strike in every labour dispute, clearly altering the existing balance of bargaining power in Ontario in favour of unions." We strongly advocate the maintenance of this delicate balance of power.
Perhaps the most repugnant among the proposals are those which strip individual workers of their normal democratic rights and freedoms. Bill 40 will strip employees of the right to change their minds once they have signed a union card and Bill 40 will strip bargaining unit employees of their right to cross picket lines and return to their jobs if they feel this action to be in their own best interests. In the event of a strike, Bill 40 allows a minority of striking workers to hold the majority hostage, forcing the entire bargaining unit to continue with a strike against its will. Bill 40 disempowers workers in a fashion that is clearly undemocratic and hands that power over to big, powerful unions.
There's much evidence suggesting that the changes contained in Bill 40 will derail Ontario's economy, taking us off the track of economic renewal. In addition to the overwhelming objection of the business community across the province, there are numerous studies, most notably the Ernst and Young report of February 1992 indicating the loss of 295,000 jobs as a result of the proposed legislation and the loss of $8.8 billion in investment over the next five years, and there are foreign banks, such as the Deutsche Bank, warning their clients against investment in Ontario because of a negative labour relations environment.
In light of these warning signals, our government has the audacity to discredit private sector studies yet refuses to conduct an economic impact study of its own, a step that has become normal and routine in the legislative process. Indeed, our government chooses to push ahead blindly with its destructive proposals.
It is beyond comprehension why our government will conduct exhaustive studies when the habitats of owls, snails and minnows may be endangered yet when there is strong evidence that our economy may be threatened, when there are warning signs that the standard of living of all Ontarians may be at risk and when caution flags tell us our social safety net may be in jeopardy, our government refuses to conduct a study. Does our government care more about owls and snails than the citizens of this province?
The Kingston District Chamber of Commerce demands that a comprehensive economic impact study be undertaken before this bill proceeds to third reading.
In the end, Mr Chairman, neither you nor your committee nor your government will make the final decision. Business owners and managers, like the ones on the video, will make the absolute decision. They will judge the environment that you create through your legislation. They will choose to either continue operations here or take their investment and job opportunities to more welcoming jurisdictions.
So, your government will not make the truly final decision but will be held accountable.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. You have used the time allocated to you. I'd like to thank the Kingston District Chamber of Commerce and each of you for coming forward to present your views. You may also wish to convey our thanks to the people who appeared in your video as well. On behalf of the committee, thank you very much.
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CANADIAN UNION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES, ONTARIO DIVISION
The Vice-Chair: The next group is CUPE, Ontario. First of all, welcome, and if you could identify yourselves and then proceed with your presentation. I think all members of the committee would be very pleased if there was some time in your presentation for questions and answers.
Mr Sid Ryan: My name is Sid Ryan, and I'm the elected president of CUPE in Ontario.
Mr Ed Scott: My name is Ed Scott, and I'm the area representative for the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
Mr Joe Martin: I'm Joe Martin, president of Local 234 of the outside workers for the city of Cornwall.
Ms Gloria Morris: I'm Gloria Morris, president of the Kingston and district CUPE council.
Mr John Elder: John Elder. I work in CUPE's legal department.
Mr Ryan: On behalf of the 170,000 working men and women represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees here in Ontario, I'd like to say good morning and convey my thanks to the committee for allowing me to share my thoughts with you on Bill 40.
Since our time with you today is short, I will also refer you to the formal brief we have submitted to your committee. This document is prepared by our legal department. It is of a more technical nature and will provide you with a thorough analysis of our position on the OLRA amendments.
It's the largest union in the province and indeed the largest union in Canada, with over 400,000 members providing services to Canadians in virtually every part of the public sector. You can well imagine that we have much to say about these long-awaited, badly needed changes to the Ontario Labour Relations Act. The current law, I think you will agree, is outdated and based on a period of our province's history when the engine of our economy was driven almost exclusively by natural resources and manufacturing. Those days, thanks to the Mulroney government's North American free trade agreement, the GST and high interest rate policies, are just a sad memory.
I'd like to say that the debates which have unfolded in our province over these labour reforms have resulted in a healthy and vigorous exchange of ideas on both sides, with the public being the ultimate benefactor in this exchange. I'd like to say that but I can't, because this debate has really been characterized by a level of rhetoric and fearmongering from the various anti-reform business lobbies, the likes of which this province has never seen before.
The people of Ontario have been witnesses to a highly damaging, heavily bankrolled propaganda campaign which, if nothing else, has shown us that the power brokers in this province, the banks, the insurance companies and the multinationals, are prepared to destroy the investment climate of this province in order to defeat or usurp the democratically elected government. So much for democracy.
But what makes this strategy of the business lobby so incredibly ironic is the sad fact that they have succeeded in doing exactly that which they had falsely accused these proposed labour reforms of doing: They have created a climate in Ontario that is clearly anti-investment. In this age of global economies and recessions, it may seem difficult to believe that the business lobby would deliberately sabotage the investment climate, but how else can one explain the motives of a lobby group that would erect billboards in the cities of New York, Buffalo and Toronto with the sole intent of dissuading investments in the province of Ontario? These people are not content with just lashing out at the government; they have also launched a most vicious attack on the working men and women of this province.
In a transparent piece of public relations, those opposed to Bill 40 have camouflaged their attacks on workers by focusing on unions. Their intent is to leave the impression with the public that unions are undemocratic and bad for the economy, and therefore workers should not have the freedom to easily organize. They advance these arguments while at the same time they organize themselves into business lobbies to protect their interests and to deny workers that same basic right.
These amendments, while they don't go nearly far enough in addressing some of the many inequities that working people face in Ontario, are a bold and confident step forward for our province. Workers and employers will benefit from the fairer and more stable workforce they will provide.
It is a known fact, for instance, that collective bargaining processes increase productivity. Study after study confirms that the workforces in highly unionized countries such as Germany and Sweden are more productive than their non-unionized counterparts. For those who would argue that the changes would tip the delicate balance in favour of what they characterize as strike-happy unions, think about this simple and undeniable fact: Right here in Ontario, less than 5% of labour disputes result in strike or lockout. That's correct: 95% of collective agreements are settled without having to withdraw services.
If employers in this province are serious about moving to a high-scale, high-productivity economy as they so often claim they are, they will need to develop fairer working relationships with their workers. The most important strength of any economy, after all, is its workforce. Business should be building a stronger future by improving its working relations with unions.
I'd like to touch briefly on some of the amendments themselves, because so much has been said about them, most of it inaccurate and most of it inflammatory. Firstly, far from being radical, these proposed changes, each and every one of them, are measures which already exist within one or more federal or provincial labour codes in this country. Even the so-called highly controversial anti-scab legislation, which would prohibit employers from using replacement workers during a strike or a lockout, has been in place in Quebec since the late 1970s. It has not caused the mass exodus of capital predicted by business. On the contrary, according to the federal Department of Labour itself, it has contributed to a more stable and peaceful labour relations climate in Quebec. One need only look to the prosperity and boom Quebec experienced during the period prior to the current recession to see the weaknesses in this business argument.
As for the weaknesses in the replacement worker provisions -- and CUPE believes there are many -- I will simply highlight the main ones. For others, I will refer you to our brief, most notably an employer's ability to still legally shift bargaining unit work to another geographical location -- ambiguous language causing difficulties with the interpretation and enforcement of some of the exceptions, and equally fuzzy language regarding an employer's ability to transfer out bargaining unit work.
We've a great deal of concern regarding the exceptions permitting employers to use replacement workers. In particular, the timing for giving notice to the union is not necessarily required until promptly after a conciliation officer is appointed. This raises a couple of concerns. The union would be notified, in our opinion, too late to prepare its bargaining strategy, and what the heck does "promptly" mean? Would two weeks after conciliators' appointments be prompt enough?
CUPE strongly urges the committee to simplify and clarify the provisions relating to the transferring out of struck work by placing an outright ban on such activity. CUPE strongly endorses the proposed changes related to organizing certification and membership, although we find it puzzling that the automatic certification level remains at 55%, since a simple majority is 50% plus one.
As well, we give strong support to the new provisions for first-contract arbitration. In the past, this has proved to be a costly and time-consuming procedure which has been abused to no end by the employers trying to stave off inevitable unionization. In the same context, it would appear the government has not gone far enough in giving unions full access to employer lists of employees.
The expedited process with respect to unfair labour practice complaints during organizing campaigns is a welcome and long overdue change to the law. There are, however, several places where the proposals are not just complete or inadequate; they're completely missing. One such instance relates to the broader-based bargaining. As a union that represents workers of many social agencies and nursing homes, which rely primarily on the provincial government for funding, we have long seen the advantages and the benefits of sectoral bargaining. Not least of these benefits will be the less costly collective bargaining for unions, public sector employers and, most importantly, the taxpayers, who ultimately pay the bill.
In conclusion, I think it is only fair that CUPE recognizes all those employers who do not subscribe to the fearmongering rhetoric of the lobby groups -- employers such as General Motors and Ford of Canada, which have recently announced major investments in Ontario. These companies have invested in Ontario because they know we have a highly skilled, highly trained and highly unionized workforce that can compete with the best in the world.
We in labour are looking forward to working with the employers and the government to form real partnerships, such as was announced by General Electric Canada last January. Here we have a shining example of what can be accomplished when business, labour and government put their heads together to beat out competition from around the world: an established major lighting project right here in Ontario.
We welcome initiatives of employers like Ontario Hydro who see the benefits of working cooperatively with their employees and are blazing new trails in the area of true partnerships. We want to work with business and governments because we are committed to building a better, brighter future for Ontario and for our children.
I'll conclude there, and I'd like to pass you across to Mr Joe Martin, who will give you some examples of what happens in real life when you use replacement workers.
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Mr Martin: I'd just like to start off by saying you have to live it before you can talk it in some situations. From my local, after seven months, we have learned a lot. If this new bill doesn't come on and into place and put us on at least some same level as management, we will not have the rights to hang out there and fight for our rights and what we believe in. We came up here very strong today because we believe in the bill and we do have to have some other rights, because after seven months, I found out I don't have too many rights. That's why this bill has to come into place. Thank you very much.
Mr Ryan: Next I'd like to pass you over to Gloria Morris, the president of CUPE's district council in Kingston.
Ms Morris: Thank you. As well as being president of the district council in Kingston, unlike my brother at the table here with me I'm president of a local which has just successfully concluded a round of collective bargaining.
As a labour leader and an activist in Kingston, I would like to address the unbalanced view that has been presented that unions are going to organize workers and then put them out on strike. This is just not the case. Unions operate on democratic principles. Workers decide to join a union and workers decide whether or not they're getting a fair deal. If they fear they're not getting a fair deal, they collectively decide whether or not to strike. They never take this decision, nor do they make the decision, lightly, and as a leader I would never recommend the decision lightly.
We do it with the realization that we are giving up our livelihood. We do it with the realization that the company that we work for or the employer is also suffering economic loss and may go out of business, and we may not have jobs to return to. So the decision to strike is never one that is taken lightly just to put a company out of business. The allegation that workers want to put a company out of business and that's why they go on strike is just patently unfair. To us, CUPE council in Kingston, it's just plain unbelievable.
Mr Ryan: Next I'd like to pass you across to Mr Ed Scott. Brother Ed Scott is a union organizer for CUPE.
Mr Scott: As stated, my name is Ed Scott, and I'm the area representative for CUPE. I've been working in the Kingston area for the last 23 years as a full-time representative. For the purpose of the Labour Relations Act, that is one who regularly works more than 24 hours per week.
My comments today are to reflect on discussions I've heard and read regarding these hearings as they relate to the certification of workers. I have personally organized and had certified over 40 groups of employees over the years. These groups have numbered from three to over 500 employees.
One of the concerns that I have is about the comments that are made at these hearings using the 55% for certification and/or the 40%-45% for a vote. In listening to it, it is a simplification and appears to imply: 100 workers, 55 sign, union certified, issue closed. Not so. The 55% is a number that constitutes the units of employees as a collective bargaining unit as defined by the Labour Relations Act and/or agreed to by the parties.
Now, for clarity of the committee, let me take you through the process:
1. Worker contacts union regarding organizing.
2. Meeting held. Members are defined, meaning numbers, whether are not they constitute full-time or part-time under the Labour Relations Act. Cards are signed.
3. Application is made to the Labour Relations Board. Union must define the appropriate bargaining unit and the geographic area. They must list their estimate of number of employees.
4. They must sign a declaration of truth that they received the dollars. Thank God that will be gone.
Then the employers reply. Notices are posted and the employer gets to define the bargaining unit, including clause 1(3)(b). That's the managerial definition: full-time, part-time and the appropriateness of employees for bargaining. The employer can split the application, for example, from a full-time to part-time, meaning two certificates.
One would assume in these hearings that a part-time worker is fairly obvious. For example, one who works 18 hours per week, 52 weeks a year, must be a part-time worker. Not so. Part-time workers include summer students, casual employees, temporary employees -- anyone who's not regularly employed full-time.
The employer then gives lists of employees. These fall into four groupings: Schedule 1 is full-time employees, according to the employer; schedule 2 is part-time employees, according to the employer; schedule 3 is employees laid off and not at work on the day application was made; schedule 4 is employees not at work on the day application was made and may be on leave, such as maternity leave etc.
You work all that out, but now we've got clause 1(3)(b). This is managerial. This is the case where the employer states that the manager supervises the administrative assistant, so the manager should be excluded; the administrative assistant supervises the secretary, so the administrative assistant should be excluded; the secretary supervises the clerk-typist, so the secretary should be excluded; the clerk-typist supervises the receptionist, so the clerk-typist should be excluded, and the receptionist sits by the filing cabinet with the personnel files in it and has access to information related to labour relations, so she should be excluded.
But you finally work all of that out. Then you have to deal with the jurisdictional group that's appropriate for bargaining. This is whether manual, office, clerical, professional and all the exemptions in the act. You finally work that out. Now you can take your count. Do you have 55% of the group left for the purpose of certification or do you have the 40% or 45% for the secret vote?
I hear many comments about the secret vote. When there are not adequate cards for certification but there are adequate cards for a vote, it's always been conducted secretly, in my experience, and it's always been conducted by the labour relations board. I get the feeling at these hearings that some thug is roaming around with a baseball bat, making people do things that they don't want to do.
Any organizer worth his salt will tell you that on application to the labour relations board, you always have surplus cards. So let this committee not pretend that 55 cards from 100 workers means something like automatic certification. The chances of that are almost impossible.
If this committee believes and the people in the province of Ontario believe that workers have the right to bargain their conditions of employment, then any amendments that this legislation makes to make it easier for workers to organize is positive. That includes the right to single units, for example, full-time, part-time etc.
Thank you, Mr Chairman, for your time.
The Chair (Mr Peter Kormos): We have four minutes per caucus.
Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): Thank you very much for your presentation. There are so many areas to address. Just by way of opening comment, I'm sure you have followed these hearings and that those who are critical or have concerns with the legislation are not just those who might be found in the so-called business community.
We've heard concerns from local school boards; we've heard concerns about the legislation from businesses that are involved in the distribution of food; we've heard concerns about the legislation from local hydro services, from research facilities in universities, and I am sure you would not be characterizing those concerns with this legislation in that broad brush of somewhat -- I think the words you used were "fearmongering rhetoric." These are individuals who have come before the committee with some real concerns about the legislation, who are not just part of the business community. That's just by way of opening comment.
I'm quite interested in the area of organizing and the whole issue of a rep vote or secret ballot vote. It's quite interesting how the process has been so well outlined. It seems to me that has just set up a whole variety of obstacles as to whether employees wish or do not wish to be unionized, and it seems to me that the legislation will be, in the end result, on this one aspect basically measured as to whether it gives the employees the right of freedom of choice.
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What would your reaction be to a trigger point, not of 40% but of 20%? Let us say 20% of cards signed, that there would be full protection given to employees in the workplace against coercion and intimidation either at the hands of the employer or in fact the union rep, that they would get full notice that there is an organizing drive and what it means to them, that there would be a secret ballot vote conducted under the auspices of the labour relations board and then if those men and women in the workplace wished to be part of a union, let them say yes or no free from coercion or intimidation by a secret ballot vote. Lower trigger point, full protection against coercion and intimidation, full information, early notice. Your reaction?
Mr Scott: First, I'm still not beating my wife. I think the question is loaded. If you're suggesting that there's intimidation, you're wrong.
Second, in terms of the 20%, my response would be that this would be somewhat irresponsible and time-consuming. I would much prefer the opposite, where the number is realistic in approach, but the amendments that have been suggested in terms of bargaining units can speed up the process. Remember, the cards, when signed and filed with the labour relations board, are signed in privacy by the worker. Only the labour relations board has access to the names. Signatures are matched by the labour relations board, and if there are adequate numbers that want to be certified, why delay the process?
Mr Elder: I'm a bit puzzled by the emphasis on secret ballot votes in discussing these amendments, because they're not something that's new in these amendments. The proposals do not create a new situation where employees are certified without a vote. That's been the situation in Ontario for as long as I can remember. It's the situation across this country except for BC which, under the anti-labour amendments of the Vander Zalm government, instituted secret ballot votes.
There's a reason for that. The reason is that despite the promises you offer, no one can provide real protection to workers against intimidation by their employers. That's a fact of life; that's what happens. That's why across Canada, except for BC, unions are permitted to certify by presenting adequate membership evidence.
Mr Robert W. Runciman (Leeds-Grenville): I've personally worked on both sides of the fence, both as a union president and a contract negotiator in management. I was involved in a number of strikes on both sides of the fence as well. There are some elements of this legislation that I can be supportive of, but the total package, I think undoubtedly, is unfortunate, to say the least. I've been asked by a number of people whether or not people presenting who have valid concerns about this are going to have any impact. Certainly, we're not optimistic that's the case.
You wonder why we've heard the chamber of commerce here today, the video and others suggest that it's a payback to organized labour for the years of support while the NDP has been in the wilderness. I think it's a little more than that. I think there's a long-term scenario here. Maybe I'm overly suspicious about these things, but I'm curious about asking the CUPE representatives if their union, on an annual basis, contributes to the NDP. Do you?
Mr Ryan: Yes, we do.
Mr Runciman: Is there an automatic checkoff? Is that part of it?
Mr Ryan: No, whether or not to donate is left up to each individual.
Mr Runciman: I wonder, when your organizer suggests that this legislation is making it easier for workers to organize -- and I don't know if this just simply applies to public service unions. I remember a case in the Supreme Court a couple of years ago, I think Merv Lavigne from northern Ontario, appealing the automatic checkoff where a portion of that member's dues went to support the New Democratic Party although he personally had great difficulty with that concept.
I just wonder, Mr Chairman, simply putting this on the record, whether there's a significant ongoing benefit to the New Democratic Party by seeing more people organized, because organized labour, at least the leadership of organized labour, in this province has tended to support the NDP and to support it in a very significant financial way.
You talked about fearmongering. The only facts we've heard before us in respect to the impact on the economy is the Ernst and Young study, which shows close to 300,000 jobs being lost, and you've accused these people of fearmongering. I'm wondering why. Certainly CUPE has the resources, organized labour in this province has the resources, to conduct an impact study if the government is refusing to do it, for whatever reasons. Why haven't you conducted an economic impact study?
Mr Ryan: I guess we deal with realities. We deal with working men and women on a daily basis. We know the causes of the loss of jobs in this province; we know why they're taking place. We look at the policies of the Mulroney government, supported by the Tories in this province. We watch the investment of large corporations, such as General Motors, and we know that these people are making these heavy investments at a point in time when a major discussion and debate is taking place in the province surrounding the changing of the labour laws. They know it's inevitable that these labour laws are going to come into full force, yet they still pump billions of dollars into the province, so we don't really necessarily share your view that Ontario's a bad investment.
Mr Runciman: I know --
Mr Ryan: Excuse me a minute. Will you hold on a second? You'll be here for the next four years. I've got 15 minutes, and you asked me a question, so please allow me to answer it.
Mr Runciman: You're not responding to that question.
Mr Ryan: You asked me a question about fearmongering. Well, let me tell you about fearmongering, sir.
Mr Runciman: Mr Chairman, I asked a very specific question and this gentleman is obfuscating.
The Chair: I appreciate that, Mr Runciman.
Mr Ryan: Could I please answer the question?
Mr Runciman: I asked why your union has not --
The Chair: I appreciate your concerns, but it remains that we have to move to Mr Wilson.
Mr Gary Wilson: My question in part relates to this as well, because we're looking for balance here in this legislation, yet we have a question about where our party gets its money without the complete explanation of where the other parties get their money from, and just the process that happens here.
Mr Runciman: Ask the chamber. Go ahead, ask the chamber.
Mr Gary Wilson: What I want to find out here is from Ms Morris, who raised the issue of what workers have to face if they reach a situation where they democratically decide that they're going to go on strike. The submission by the group before us, that is, the chamber of commerce, suggested that the benefits of our country, which we all agree are magnificent, and it's been internationally recognized that this is a good place to live, but these benefits have been derived from the business point of view.
I'm just wondering what your thoughts on that matter are. Have workers got any views about what it means to work to produce decent living conditions and whether workers should share in that and whether they shouldn't have the opportunity to democratically form organizations that will support that kind of standard of living?
Ms Morris: That's quite a large question, Gary. Very briefly, speaking on behalf of the approximately 4,000 people in Kingston I represent, I'd have to say, number one, we want to work. We want to do the best job we can do. We want to make a decent living, a decent wage, to look after our families, we want benefits in terms of medical etc, and I feel we certainly give the employers back what they have hired us for, a good productive day, a good product or service.
In my case, I'm a public service worker. Yes, we do want our say in it. We elect our leaders to come here today and make a presentation to the committee and we elect representatives to form hearings such as this and come out and listen to the people. I think yes, I feel very good about saying I think we do want what is fair. Basically, all we want is fairness.
The Chair: Briefly, Mr Hope.
Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): Impact studies are hard to do when you're talking about attitudes, and attitudes are hard to get at impacts, but my question is, this morning I had the opportunity of being out front talking to some of the workers who have been out on strike for some time now, and it's amazing that a lot of them made reference to their families. Not only are we affecting workers, we're also affecting their families and the children.
Being as you're in here today as a spokesperson on behalf of those workers who have been out on strike -- and I guess replacement workers are being used -- I would just like to see if, in your own comments, you'd give us some kind of flavour of how these people are being hurt and the corporation you work for is not being impacted one bit.
Mr Martin: I'd like to answer that for you. At one time, yes, I think we all kind of agreed on negotiations. At one time we could shake your hand, go away and we would both honour that. I think that's slipping away now, and it's very hard in this strike since I've been out to see other contractors doing our work. That's hurting our families and hurting the guys. I try to run a very peaceful strike, no violence, no nothing. When you're at the table, that's where I believe any problem can be solved.
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By now, the summer came on and they're using students and everything. This is why we believe in the NDP to make this law. It gives us some power. Right now we've got no power. They can use everybody. When you've got a person standing up and saying, "I'm winning this battle," he's right, because he can hire anybody he wants to do our work and the work is being done. That's very hard to take.
As a president for a long time in the city of Cornwall, I always believed in sitting at the table and negotiating man to man. We are not asking for anything new. We're having a battle right now just to keep what we've got, and that is very hard.
Now there's a person who just went into a position where he was just elected. Maybe he doesn't know all the background and what he's handling and maybe he can't handle this, so he turns to contractors, students and everybody else to do our work, and he doesn't know the scapegoat to use to get out of his problem. That's very hard to take.
The Chair: Thank you. I want to say thank you to CUPE, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, for making a valuable contribution to this process, and thank you to the people who are spokespeople today on behalf of that organization. We're grateful to you. Take care.
ONTARIO HOTEL AND MOTEL ASSOCIATION, EASTERN ONTARIO REGION
The Chair: The next participant is St Lawrence and Rideau Lakes Hotel Association. Would those people please come forward, have a seat, tell us their names, give us their titles, if any, and proceed with their comments and submissions. We've got half an hour. Please try to save the second half for comments and exchanges. Go ahead.
Ms Valerie Nicoll: The presentation is actually very brief. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to listen to this presentation on behalf of the members of the Ontario Hotel and Motel Association. I'm here to represent the eastern Ontario region, which makes up a substantial number of the 1,200 members in the hospitality industry and covers accommodation and food and beverage services. We currently employ approximately 300,000 people in this province's hospitality industry.
The issues presented, therefore, by Bill 40 are of paramount importance to the small family-owned and -operated establishment, as well as the large corporate-structure hotels with several hundred bedrooms, but with the same implications for both: the difference between a thriving, flourishing operation and doing marginal business. The impact of the current draft of Bill 40 serves only to add to an industry already hit, like all others, by recessionary times, high taxes, escalating wages and benefits packages and an ever-decreasing market share.
Contrary to what some unions believe, there is and always has been a vast majority of employers, especially in the hospitality business, who have always regarded all of their employees as their most valued asset and therefore provide fair and equitable treatment to them, regardless of status and union or non-union. We recognize that without people, our industry will cease to exist. It is therefore foolhardy from every standpoint to set up an adversarial role between employer and employee or union and management.
We further recognize that unions are a fact of life, and in operations where unions coexist with us, they are there at the request of the staff for whatever reasons. In other words, employees had and have the right to choose.
Under the new legislation, the rights of the individual are at best questionable. In an organizing campaign, shouldn't each individual have the right to choose whether or not he or she wishes to belong to a union? Why will some of the people be allowed to determine the fate of all employees, which under the new legislation has been expanded to include part-timers, on such a personal issue involving the individual's wages, benefits, scheduling, hours of work etc?
As freedom of choice is a matter of conscience, we fail to see the purpose in doing away with secret ballots. Allegations of intimidation on both sides only support the need for secret ballots.
Why further reduce the requirements for union certification from some semblance of choice -- a 55% majority -- by taking away the thought process that should transpire through a minimal payment of $1, the right to revoke a membership card and to petition against the union's application? We may only logically conclude there is indeed a bias in this legislation to promote the unions', and only the unions', agenda, regardless of what anyone else wants.
What about the operator who is struck? Where is the right to choose by each individual as to whether or not he supports a work stoppage or his willingness to cross a picket line? What happens to the individual's rights and freedoms in these situations?
In addressing the anti-replacement-worker provision, we would point out that, unlike other industries, our commodities, rooms and meals are sold and revenue generated on a daily basis. A room not sold, a meal not served is revenue that is lost for ever and cannot be recouped. In the past, where replacement workers were used, an operation did not continue in a business-as-usual manner but at least hopefully was in a position to cover its overheads.
By disallowing the use of replacement workers, is it the mandate of this government to force even more businesses to close their doors, perhaps permanently? We do not believe this to be the intent. However, under the new legislation it is conceivable. At the present time there is recourse to address bad-faith bargaining, but where is the rationale for imposing undue hardship, in particular on those smaller establishments that cannot afford a closure of any length of time?
In larger establishments, we are often asked by clients if we are unionized, and when does our collective agreement come up for renewal? No conference organizer wants to find himself asking groups of 400 and 500 delegates to cross picket lines to access their meeting rooms. So believe me, ladies and gentlemen, when I tell you that we are cognizant of the impact of a strike on business volumes already, without having to shut down the operation entirely.
Consider for a moment the implications to all business and industry in allowing third-party picketing. Many operators, especially in recent years, have built their business adjoining office complexes and shopping malls. We respect our employees' right to strike and must bear the consequences of our failure to reach agreement with the union's representatives. Why, however, will unrelated business operations be subjected to the strike action, and does this lead to those businesses bringing further pressure to bear on the picketed employer? Let's face it: Given the present climate, especially in the retail trade, there are few, if any, independent merchants, or chain stores, for that matter, that can withstand any further interruption of trade or lessening of business volumes.
The aforementioned are of particular concern to the 1,200 members of the Ontario Hotel and Motel Association. It is not to imply that many members do not take issue with other parts of Bill 40. In the interests of time, however, we have concentrated only on these.
On a more personal note, as a human resources professional for 15 years, I would like to suggest that there is in fact room for negotiation and, in some cases, changes to the current labour legislation. Those changes, however, should endeavour to keep the playing field as level as possible. At present the amount of controversy over Bill 40 and the labour reforms has only served to open the gap wider between employee and employer during a time when the question of unity is paramount in this country, never mind the province.
We commend the government for patiently listening to these many presentations over the past few weeks and ask only that due consideration be given to the many concerns and questions that have been raised over the labour reforms act, and that we don't act in haste and repent in leisure.
The Chair: Thank you kindly. Mr Runciman, six minutes, please.
Mr Runciman: On our agenda it indicates you're a representative of the St Lawrence and Rideau Lakes Hotel Association.
Ms Nicoll: I don't know where that's from. I actually represent the eastern region of the OHMA, from Kingston right over through Ottawa.
Mr Runciman: What's your total membership, 1,200?
Ms Nicoll: That's 1,200 in the province, with 300,000 employees. In the eastern region, we have approximately 23,000 employees.
Mr Runciman: In the eastern region, you have 23,000. How many of those would be organized currently?
Ms Nicoll: I couldn't tell you, but I would hazard a guess that the majority of them would be unionized.
Mr Runciman: What's your track record been like in respect to man-hours lost to strike? Have you got a pretty good record in this respect?
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Ms Nicoll: I'm only reasonably sure of the area I'm currently in, which is the Ottawa-Carleton district. It's been not bad, mostly because in the Ottawa-Carleton district there are eight hotels that negotiate together. You can well imagine the impact of a strike: If one goes on strike they all go. In fact, there was one the last time they bargained maybe two years ago now, and it only lasted a few days because the impact is too great. It's eight hotels out of the city.
Mr Runciman: Why do eight hotels negotiate together?
Ms Nicoll: That's a very good question. We're not one of them, so I'm unable to answer that.
There is a lot of pressure brought to bear, sometimes, by the various unions. We have three unions in the particular property that I work in, one of which is the Canadian Guards Association. Every time we bargain they ask to bargain collectively with the property we're attached to and the one that's next door to us, simply, I think, because it's easier for the unions. It also means, to a certain extent, that there's safety in numbers as far as the union representation is concerned. But it certainly doesn't make any sense from an employer's perspective.
Mr Runciman: I'm just looking at my own region. I suspect that most of the people who belong to your association are not unionized; that would be my experience. Perhaps in Ottawa and environs they are unionized, so this legislation perhaps would be of more concern to the non-unionized sector than to those currently working with organized labour.
You've mentioned some concerns, and being in this business, in the current economic environment, I know the problems you're all facing with respect to a variety of things: minimum wage, for example; the heavy tax load that makes you not as competitive as you might wish to be. Are there any other specific concerns you perhaps didn't have time to incorporate in your brief that are of concern to your membership?
Ms Nicoll: I know that a lot of the smaller, non-union operators are concerned with the certification processes, the organizing campaigns, the legislation that covers those areas. I would again suggest that in fact there's concern over most of the legislation. But unfortunately, given the time restrictions -- and that may be one of the reasons for the mixup here -- this was hastily put together because there was no time slot available in Ottawa. But I would suggest, as I say, that they are in fact concerned about most of the legislation.
Mr Norman W. Sterling (Carleton): Yesterday in Ottawa we had a presentation by the association for security guards. The legislation provides that if the labour relations board approves, the security people within an establishment can become part of the same bargaining unit as the other workers. Coupled with that, of course, the rule that you can't replace workers puts the hotel in a very vulnerable spot if struck. You are faced not only with not being able to replace administrative staff, cleaning staff and food workers, but you're faced with not being able to replace security people. Has there been very much alarm or concern about that?
Ms Nicoll: Quite a bit of discussion. Our understanding is that the legislation does provide for a proven conflict of interest of guards belonging to the same union, and I think right now that's under a lot of discussion. I know several of the legal firms have done a number of seminars on all this legislation. That's been one key area that has come up very often among the hotel and motel association; especially, as you pointed out, the part of the legislation that addresses not being able to use replacement workers. So I think there'll be a strong lobby, particularly from properties like my own, which are attached to other centres and could pose a major problem if security were part of the larger union. We have three unions in our property, so it would be a problem.
Mr Sterling: We are going to put forward an amendment to this legislation. Our first instinct is not to put any amendment, but one of the amendments we would put forward is that if the OLRA finds they are the same bargaining unit, we would like an amendment which would permit at least the replacement of security personnel at the very least, because it could be a danger not only to the property owner but to the public. That's particularly true in places like construction sites and large recreational areas, where you just can't lock the door, so to speak. So our party will be putting forward an amendment during the process to at least allow replacement workers for security people.
The other aspect of it too, of course, is that the answer I got from labour yesterday when I posed that question was, "Well, management can provide the security." I can imagine situations where management has to be at the gate, and I don't know how that would lead to smoother relations and the progressive conclusion of negotiations if you had the boss standing on one side of the gate and the picketers on the other side of the gate because there is no other provision for security of the gate. I just don't think it makes sense.
Ms Nicoll: There's that issue, but there's also a safety issue. Some management people are trained in emergency responses, fire and safety, things like that, but the security people are fully trained in all of those aspects. So it would pose a safety hazard as well.
Mr Gary Wilson: Thank you for your presentation, Ms Nicoll. You say you are a human resources professional. Is that what you're doing now?
Ms Nicoll: Yes.
Mr Gary Wilson: First of all, maybe more generally, I'd like to say that in the Kingston area we're perhaps more aware than anybody of the importance of having a vibrant hospitality industry. I was lucky enough to have a couple of weeks to travel to the east coast, and we stayed in a number of establishments. My family and I were often aware of the importance of having well-trained staff in the hotels and motels where we stayed, because it made our stay a lot more pleasant and helped us to enjoy the area. I think that is one of the objects you would have uppermost in your mind as well. With that in mind, I'd like to ask you what you mean on page 2 of your brief, where you refer to the personal issue involving the individual's wages, benefits, scheduling, hours of work etc. What do you mean by "personal" matter?
Ms Nicoll: I talked to a number of employees, not just in the Ottawa region but also in the Toronto area, because we're part of a corporation, and my background was from Toronto; I worked for two properties in Toronto before I moved to Ottawa, so I did a lot of contacting of past employees and current employees in some of the other properties I'd worked in. It would appear there's a bit of a shift. This has become, rather than a collective issue with employees, much more of a personal thing, because one of the responses we got most often was the fact that people simply can't afford to go on strike, for instance.
We have issues in our own areas where on the Quebec side there have been a number of strikes lately, and it has affected a lot of our workers who come from the Hull and Gatineau areas. Their spouses, brothers, sisters, whatever, have been on strike for a fairly lengthy period, and financially they simply could not have afforded this. It seems to have become much more a personal issue than it was in the past. I have no idea what strike pay is these days, but it doesn't appear that it covers any of the expenses.
Mr Gary Wilson: Exactly. That point was made by one of the members of the group that preceded you. She is a unionized worker, and that's a very serious issue with them as well, obviously; it means their livelihood is at stake. I think that is one of the things that is taken into account here in the Labour Relations Act, that one of the factors is that workers themselves face this very severe hardship through a strike. That's one of the things that acts against striking and creates the balance. I think you would agree, then, that for workers themselves to go on strike means there's a very serious issue involved.
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Ms Nicoll: Absolutely. But the contentious issue for us in that is that unfortunately a lot of the workers don't seem to feel they have a choice in some of these situations. I've dealt with a number of unions over the year and found most of them and their representatives to be very reasonable, whether you're negotiating or sitting down at the weekly meetings with them, but there are a number of people in this province who are far from reasonable and get involved in actions that the employees simply don't support.
Mr Gary Wilson: I think you'd also agree -- and certainly from the submissions this committee has heard -- that exists all over. It's not just one side that's unreasonable.
Ms Nicoll: Sure I do, absolutely.
Mr Gary Wilson: In fact, some say that's why unions are there in the first place, that some of the employers are less than model employers.
Ms Nicoll: I absolutely agree.
Mr Gary Wilson: I think you'd also agree that as a member of an association you've got to meet to make decisions about how you're going to act. You said you did have items that the association wanted to present here but realized there's limited time, so you had to make a decision. I assume there's some mechanism by which you determine which ones you'll come to; maybe you even vote on the kinds of issues. I think you would agree, then, that other individuals who have collective interests can come together in groups such as unions and democratically decide on the kinds of things they would like to see, and then put it forward in a reasonable manner. Already you've said that you've been involved in productive relations with --
Ms Nicoll: A number of them. I'd also like to recommend that if it is going to be a large conference, our hotel is certainly open to having them.
Mr Gary Wilson: Exactly. For these things to go off smoothly, as I say, it helps to have well-trained employees. When you think of an issue like health and safety, you might agree that unions have done a lot to ensure the safety of their members. A worker's health and safety on the job is a very personal thing. Getting together, they see how they can improve that safety. I would say it even helps the employer to have various risky things in the workplace brought to light and remedial steps taken.
Ms Nicoll: Definitely.
Mr Gary Wilson: In that sense, we think this legislation will promote participation in the workplace and make for more productive workplaces. I would like to think too that the workers in the hospitality industry would have the wherewithal not only to support their day-to-day life but also the opportunity to travel, because if they're in the position of being a traveller they get to see what kinds of conditions make for a more meaningful trip, and when they come back to their workplace that can also work to the benefit of the industry.
Ms Nicoll: One of the biggest benefits of working for a corporation like the one I work for is that a benefit of all employees, regardless of their status, is up to 10 complimentary nights a year anywhere in the world we have a property. So they do get to see first hand how other areas are operated. I'd also like to state for the record that one of the reasons this province is so successful in the tourism business is because of the people here. We enjoy a very high standard of service excellence in this province.
Mr Gary Wilson: It's good to hear that, and of course that's what we want to promote. Thanks very much. I think Mr Hayes might have some questions.
The Chair: You left him 30 seconds, Mr Wilson.
Mr Pat Hayes (Essex-Kent): I'll try to do it very quickly. Thank you, Ms Nicoll. You mention on the first page, "The impact of the current draft of Bill 40 serves only to add to an industry, like all others, already hit by recessionary times," and you mention high taxes, escalating wages and benefits and decreasing market share. Although you mentioned the high taxes, you didn't mention the GST, the high interest rates and the inflated Canadian dollar that have certainly hurt you.
But I have another question and another angle here. How do some of these people, when they come from another country or another province and they come down Bay Street and see these great big billboards that depict -- you know, Bob Rae is compared to Karl Marx and things. Don't you think this would adversely affect your business? What kind of image would those people get from that kind of tactic?
Ms Nicoll: Speaking only as an individual rather than as a representative for the association, I think people make up their own minds, regardless of what kind of advertising campaign is done, for any reason, for any kind of marketing. It is a marketing tool, obviously, on behalf of the employers and businesses who are quite concerned about this legislation, as I am. In my personal view, this piece of legislation simply makes my job a lot harder and widens the gap between the employer and the employee.
As I said, it's like any advertising. Maybe I'm a little different, but I look at it that I will still make up my own mind over whether or not I see Bob Rae in that light, and in fact this particular piece of legislation.
Mrs Joan M. Fawcett (Northumberland): Thank you very much for your presentation this morning. I think we got an insight into the impact on tourism. We certainly have heard from many people across the province, and yours adds to that.
Is there any indication as to just how long it would take under this legislation, if a place like this were struck, even a smaller tourism business, before it would absolutely mean that the place went down? We've heard there are going to be a lot of jobs lost. How serious is it?
Ms Nicoll: I think it's very serious. It doesn't matter whether it's a small or a larger operation. For the smaller ones, the tendency would be to go under a lot quicker, obviously, because they don't have the resources or the capital available to them that some of the larger hotels and corporations do. Oddly enough, we had a conference call with our counterparts across Canada yesterday and, without exception, our hotels are looking at a worse year next year than this one, and we work for one of the better ones in the world. I would hazard a guess that if that's the way our corporation is looking, then the rest of them are looking at an even worse year than we are.
Mrs Fawcett: Have you thought of any way to change that particular portion of this bill, an amendment you might suggest, other than withdrawing it completely?
Ms Nicoll: Well, that would be my first choice. No. In fact, the HRPAO, the Human Resources Professionals Association of Ontario, has some recommendations and I support those recommendations, but today I'm here on behalf of the Ontario Hotel and Motel Association.
Mr Dalton McGuinty (Ottawa South): Thank you for your presentation. I wanted to touch on this issue of replacement workers and the impact it's going to have on your industry. We've heard from both sides that there are very few strikes. We heard as well that there are very few incidents of violence when there are strikes, which of course brings into question the justification for this banning of replacement workers in the first place. Also, I can add that we do have laws in place today prohibiting violence, assaults, threatening, intimidation. They're all of course found within the Criminal Code.
Bill 40 is going to become law. Let's not delude ourselves into thinking otherwise, because we'd be naïve. We are bound up in a lockstep process which is going to culminate in the passage of this bill some time in the fall of this year, so you will not be able to hire replacement workers. What I'm trying to get at now is the impact this will have on a hotel, and maybe you could describe it in terms of how it would affect a small operation and a larger operation.
Ms Nicoll: I think in terms of that particular piece of legislation, the small owner-operator might have a little easier time of it in the short term, simply because the volume of business isn't as great and you're not looking to replace 500 workers, or in our case 350 workers, if there is a strike. You would simply find yourself pitching in, doing the job of two or three people, in a much smaller operation. In a larger operation, in a hotel with 400 or 500 bedrooms, as I mentioned, you'd be looking to replace 300 or 400 employees during a strike, and much as we'd like to think our management team is great about leading by example and there isn't anything we wouldn't do, you wouldn't be able to keep that up for too long, depending on your volume of business.
I think the biggest pressure, however, would come from the volume of business you would lose because of the strike. You would have cancellations.
The Chair: The committee wants to thank you, Ms Nicoll, for your presentation on behalf of the Ontario Hotel and Motel Association. We're grateful for your interest in this matter and for your attendance here today. We appreciate it.
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PETERBOROUGH AND DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL
The Chair: The next participant is the Peterborough and District Labour Council. If the people speaking on behalf of the Peterborough and District Labour Council will please come forward, have a seat and tell us their names and titles. Written submissions have been distributed to members of the committee. They'll form part of the record by virtue of being made an exhibit. Go ahead, please.
Mr Dean Shewring: You've said this before.
Before I start, I'd like to assure the previous presenter that it's generally been the policy in the trade union movement to have conferences at union hotels, so we should assure her that there'll be plenty of business heading her way.
My name is Dean Shewring. I'm the president of the Peterborough and District Labour Council. With me, and he will be joining me in the presentation, is Rob Freeman, who is on the Ontario Labour Relations Act committee of the labour council and a delegate to the labour council and is from Canadian Auto Workers, Local 1987.
The Peterborough and District Labour Council is pleased to have this opportunity to present our views on the proposed changes to the Ontario Labour Relations Act. On behalf of the executive and delegates of the labour council, I would like to thank the members of the resources development committee, holding these hearings on Bill 40, for allowing the viewpoints of worker representatives from Peterborough and area to be heard.
The Peterborough and District Labour Council represents Canadian Labour Congress-affiliated local unions in Peterborough county, plus Omemee. Our labour council represents over 5,800 trade union members in 41 affiliated locals in both the public and private sectors. The goal of our labour council is to "promote the interests of its affiliates and generally to advance the economic and social welfare of workers."
The labour council submission is designed to focus on those Bill 40 proposals we feel would have the most significant impact on working people in our area. In some cases we will be briefly commenting on other important aspects of the Ontario Labour Relations Act within the scope of the reform proposals.
We understand that these hearings are the second round of hearings being held on changes to the OLRA. The labour council is somewhat disappointed that these hearings weren't held in Peterborough during this round, as we know of about half a dozen additional labour-related submissions from the Peterborough area whose authors would have liked to speak before this committee. The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, Local 604, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, Locals 524, 527 and 540, Neil McMahon from the Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 1320, Oliver Hodges of Workers Equity, and Canadian Auto Workers, Local 1987, all informed us of their intention to make presentations if offered standing. This would have provided an opportunity for more personal testimony before this legislative committee on how workers in Peterborough and area would be directly affected by the proposed changes to the OLRA. There are many stories to tell about unjust treatment, the high cost of the grievance process, scabs, first contracts, petitions, Ontario Labour Relations Board procedures, access to malls, exclusions, reforms to help part-time employees and bargaining rights. There will be several written submissions involving many of these areas which will be sent to the committee after the hearings.
The business lobby has been particularly unreasonable in its response to proposed changes to the OLRA. There was a brief campaign by the Greater Peterborough Chamber of Commerce during the week of July 6. It was a very negative campaign which spent a great deal of money on full-page ads and radio spots, but this "Information Week" offered little in the way of information to the public on the actual proposed changes to the OLRA.
The results of their efforts were one or two ill-informed negative letters. One of those two or three negative letters I did see involved the fact that this person thought Bob White and Bob Rae were involved with a communist conspiracy involving these labour relations changes. That was sort of the tone of some of the comments.
Interjection.
Mr Shewring: No comment on that one yet.
There were negative editorials in the two local newspapers and many actual spontaneous letters in support of labour law reform. What I mean by that is that while the labour council urged members to write, many of those letters that appeared were not as a result of any of our urgings, so they reacted to the negative campaign by the chamber of commerce. Copies of several of these letters are attached at the end of this brief, as well as several clippings from local newspapers related to our response to the Ontario Labour Relations Act.
The labour council feels that many of the arguments used by business lobby representatives are spurious. For example, the question that these changes would cause a loss of confidence by the business community and, subsequently, a significant loss of jobs in the province is being used as a scare tactic. Any apparent loss of business confidence can be traced directly to the highly charged, negative campaign being conducted by the business lobby. Given the opportunity to examine the facts, most businesses will soon see how little impact these OLRA reforms would have on their operations.
It should be obvious, given the restructuring of the world's economies, that it would make a lot more sense for business and labour to cooperate in dealing with these and other matters, but it seems that this level of communication in labour relations has yet to materialize in Ontario.
The labour council, generally speaking, supports those changes to the OLRA proposed by the provincial government. We consider increasing the categories of workers who may choose to join unions, access to third-party property, elimination of membership fees and petitions, consolidation of bargaining units, anti-scab provisions, successor rights, OLRB interim orders etc, as positive aspects of Bill 40.
We think, of course, that the government should go even further.
We agree with the Ontario Federation of Labour that the language in the proposed purpose clause and throughout Bill 40 should be strengthened and unambiguous. It should be stronger concerning the value of trade unions in the workplace. The addition of the further objective in the purpose clause "to recognize that effective trade union representation is necessary to advance equality between employees and employers" would be a good start.
The labour council applauds the expansion in the categories of workers eligible to join trade unions of their choice.
We are concerned, coming from a largely agricultural area, that agricultural, horticultural and silvicultural workers may be excluded from some provisions of the act, particularly the right to strike. We feel that the vast majority of these workers are not essential in the same manner as firefighters, police and hospital workers, and therefore should have full bargaining rights, including the right to strike.
We agree with the proposals to eliminate the $1 membership fee and anti-union petitions after the union has applied for certification.
Among many arguments against the membership fee we would like to add that it is an institutionalized insult to working people. It implies that workers are too stupid to know what they are signing without paying this money.
The anti-union petition is, and has been used as, an intimidation tactic against workers. When workers are confronted by such a petition they have to decide whether to sign it and state they are against the union, or not sign it and reveal they are a supporter of the union, opening themselves up to harassment and intimidation.
The following is a statement from one worker who has faced the daunting task of trying to help his fellow workers organize themselves into a union, and I'll turn this over to Brother Freeman.
Mr Robert Freeman: This was my personal experience. It happened a number of years ago, but I have no reason to believe that it's any different today than it was then.
Trying to join a union or organize your workplace can be one of the most stressful, painful, fearful, angering and frustrating experiences workers may put themselves through. The thought of being isolated is by far the most powerful. That fear is realized in the observation of any private conversations, which may produce an unfriendly glance or a laugh. I can give you an account of my own experience, for I have twice been fired for simply wanting to join a union.
In the first instance, I naïvely approached a fellow employee regarding our joining a union. The employer got wind of my scheme and a week later I was unemployed. However, during my last week of work I was isolated from the other employees and no one would speak to me.
On my second attempt to organize, I was a little more cautious. I knew from the beginning that my employer was dead set against unions. I now found myself having to sneak around, write down names from the punch clock and then laboriously go through the telephone book to find the addresses and phone numbers of as many employees as possible. These I would pass on to the union organizer. He would contact each in an attempt to find those who were sympathetic. During this period, word was spreading through the shop, creating an atmosphere of fear, tension, guarded comments and, for some, humour.
The organizer decided to hold a meeting and notified the employees by passing out a leaflet at the plant gate. The organizer, myself and two other employees who were sympathetic showed up. Also in attendance were three employees, officials of the company union, who showed up to take down names. One week later I was unemployed again, the only one dismissed.
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In both of the above examples, workers were denied a choice.
The anger I felt when fired was intense, but the frustration was even more difficult to bear. I knew more than ever after those experiences that management cannot be trusted and that unions are necessary and must be a legitimate part of any workplace, for being subordinate to the whim of any employer denies workers their dignity and security.
Mr Shewring: The labour council would like to see even more protection for workers during organizing campaigns. The proposals provided last year by the labour representatives to the labour law reform committee, while perhaps a bit more innovative than the government was prepared to accept, did involve a very important principle. Organizing campaigns should not have to be conducted in secret, and workers should be able to choose whether or not to join a union without having to fear reprisals from their employer.
Access to lists of employees for organizing purposes is an important issue for labour as well. The government has not taken this opportunity to open up and legitimate union organizing. The recommendation by the labour representatives on the labour law reform committee was that "an obligation be inserted in the act requiring an employer, upon an application for certification, to immediately forward to the trade union a copy of the list which must be provided to the board." Access to such a list would help when determining the actual structure of a potential bargaining unit. We would like the government to take another look at this important issue.
The use of replacement workers -- scabs -- by employers over the years has resulted in most of the violence we've seen associated with strikes. The fact that employers have been able to take advantage of downturns in the economy to exploit desperate workers during strikes is a situation we would like to see ended as soon as possible.
This brief includes a copy of a letter advertising a company's strikebreaking services. The fact that it was sent to the national office of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers goes to indicate the level of discretion and lack of sensitivity employed by these outfits. The sooner such companies suffer from a cutback in business, the better for all concerned.
This labour council and the labour movement in general feel that the anti-scab provisions in Bill 40 are a significant step towards reducing future labour conflict in this province.
That being said, there are still several significant loopholes in the current proposals which bear examining. When there are provisions that an employer can shift bargaining unit work to another geographic location, to use just one example, we feel that the anti-scab provisions will not be very effective. We would like to see the government remove some of these obvious loopholes in the legislation.
Before I conclude, I'd like to add a personal note. I myself am a part-time employee with Canada Post, so I'm under federal legislation. The provision being offered to merge part-time and full-time into the same bargaining unit, from my point of view, is one of the best recommendations. It's one that hasn't been mentioned very often. It is one of the best recommendations in this bill, as someone who has experienced the fact that I've always been in the same bargaining unit with full-time employees.
In fact, when I first joined the post office we were in a separate classification from full-time employees. After the 1975 strike -- that was a good one; sometimes we have good ones -- we were in the same classification. We were all postal clerks, in effect. Before, we were part-time postal helpers. The attitude change towards the part-time employees, the dignity that was built up in the workplace as part-time employees, with full-time employees, was marked, both from management and fellow workers. That's one thing.
Another point is the fact that over the number of years that I've been at the post office dealing with the bargaining that has gone on for contract, the fact that part-time employees have been in with full-time employees has significantly added to the number of rights and benefits that part-timers have received. I can't list all the benefits we have, but I can just say that the few we don't have compared with full-time employees in the post office currently include the fact that our calculation for vacation leave is slightly different -- it's equivalent, but it's done in a different way -- and that part-timers in the internal section are not classified to work in the wicket section.
Until recently, one other difference was that we didn't get pensions for part-timers, but that's been changed with the last contract and with the change in the federal government, so pensions are now going to be available. So just from personal experience in the federal field where part-timers and full-timers are in the same bargaining unit, we find this has been a very positive impact on part-time workers in particular and the atmosphere in the workplace as well.
One point I want to make on that as well is that in my local union we have four members on the executive. Two are part-time workers. So the change has been made.
To conclude, our labour council has only been able to touch on the many questions raised by this legislation. We feel there are several improvements that could be made to Bill 40, and we hope this brief and others submitted by representatives of the labour movement will be examined by your committee with care and consideration. We'd like to thank the standing committee on resources development for taking the time to hear our views on legislation which is so very important to our affiliated union locals and to the people of Ontario.
The Chair: Mr Wilson, four minutes, please.
Mr Gary Wilson: Thank you very much for your presentation. Especially the personal anecdotes are very helpful in understanding the need for this legislation.
Mr Shewring: I couldn't quite figure out how they fitted into the brief, so that's why I did it separately.
Mr Gary Wilson: Well, you did it very effectively, and even the one that you put in the brief by Mr Freeman was very good. There are a couple of things I'd like to raise, especially with your experience in the post office, where it's felt that the level of cooperation between management and workers isn't always the best.
Mr Shewring: A wonderful understatement.
Mr Gary Wilson: I'd like you to elaborate on how you see this legislation helping in the cooperative effort of workers and management which you mention in your brief here.
Mr Shewring: It won't help us in the post office obviously, because it's provincial legislation. However, it's always been my experience that cooperation has a lot to do with some of the local people you're dealing with; that's an important thing. It almost in a way doesn't matter what the legislation says in some respects. If there's a good atmosphere in the workplace in the first place, then you're not going to have any problems. It's the same thing. It's just that legislation is there to help and to provide guidelines and, in some cases, rules. So it's difficult to quantify that in that respect.
Mr Gary Wilson: I was just thinking of the broader issue, though. Regardless of, as you say, what the legislation says, there's still the atmosphere in the workplace that's so important. From your own experience again, what difference does being in a union make to you? How does it affect your being in the workplace as far as what you have to bring to your job?
Mr Shewring: Just being a member of a union?
Mr Gary Wilson: Yes, that's right.
Mr Shewring: It's almost incredible in a way, because it's the difference between being a serf and a person in a lot of ways. I have worked in other locations without unions, and you're just a commodity. In fact I believe there was a wonderful quote in the Toronto Sun that was used where they compared workers as being commodities in effect; a worker is just another commodity, another thing to be manipulated.
One of the reasons there are trade unions is that workers are not commodities; workers are people with dignity and rights. If people are treated with respect, then there never is a problem; unions, for me, front and centre, are about respect. Sometimes the respect is learned over time, and it takes a while. When you deal with management one on one on equal footing, union and management, the respect is built up.
Mr Gary Wilson: And you think that respected workers are going to be more productive, is that it?
Mr Shewring: There's no question about that. If you're working in a unionized workplace where the union and management have consulted on many issues and worked together on many issues, employees tend to stay there for one thing, because they know that they're probably going to be paid better than in other places and they're going to be treated better than in a lot of other places. So there is a tendency towards more production, I think, just from that alone.
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Mr Gary Wilson: I'd also like to ask you, Mr Freeman, how you came to be fired, because I thought that was against the legislation.
Mr Freeman: This happened a number of years ago, at least 25 years ago. I think there was legislation in place at that time, but I don't think it had the teeth it may have today.
Mr Gary Wilson: So that suggests there's an equal balance of power there to begin with, that you can face the threat of being fired, at least, and that it can actually happen. Did you get your job back?
Mr Freeman: No, I didn't. I think the threat of being fired is present all the time whether you have a union or you don't have a union. I think management's rights gives it that right to fire you any time it likes. The only alternative we may have is grievance and perhaps going to arbitration and maybe winning it there, but once you enter the workplace, democracy ends and individual rights that we hear so much about end as well.
Mr Gary Wilson: Do you think that could be corrected in some way?
Mr Freeman: Yes, I think the labour legislation does a bit to correct that, but I think it could go a lot farther.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr Offer.
Mr Offer: I'm asking this question and it's premised on the freedom of employees to choose in an organizing drive. From your experience, in your opinion, is there any example, any thought that in an organizing drive not only an employer but maybe in just some isolated instances the union organizing would engage in intimidation, coercion or misinformation?
Mr Shewring: Are you saying the union or the employer or both? I'm sorry, which?
Mr Offer: My question was: We have heard of instances of employer intimidation, coercion and misinformation; and in fairness, we have heard on occasion that it wasn't just one side, that there are examples where maybe in an organizing drive the unions were also. I'm asking this keeping in mind, for me, the protection of the workers to choose and a freedom of choice.
Mr Shewring: I think I get your question now. Personally, in my experience I have never, ever heard of any kind of intimidation on the union side of an organizing drive, certainly not in the province, from what I've read and heard.
The experience with my union, which is the only one I can really relate to, has always been fairly straightforward, honest and clear when it comes to organizing. In the federal sector we have a $5 membership fee, which is kind of odd. In fact I'm in a situation where I'm hanging on to a card that is signed and I can't process it because they haven't paid the $5 fee, which is sort of ridiculous. This is a casual employee who is hard to get in touch with.
But I can't see, when you're originally trying to organize a union, where an employee could be really intimidated. The employees have the opportunity to choose whether or not to sign a card, and if they don't sign a card, then they don't take part in that part of the process. So I don't see anything on that.
Mr McGuinty: Gentlemen, in your brief you make reference here to amending the purpose clause. You state you'd like to see it amended to include a statement to the effect that it would say, "to recognize that effective trade union representation is necessary to advance equality between employees and employers."
Mr Shewring: Yes, that's it.
Mr McGuinty: I've got to be honest with you; I take strong exception to that. I don't know if you understand how extreme that is. That would be like an employer sitting there and telling me that unions have no place in the workplace and that they cannot make a valid contribution to Ontario's economy. That's how extreme it comes to me.
You've got to understand that this is a severe indictment of all employers. Now employers are people; they're like you and me. There are good ones and there are bad ones. They're not pumped out of some infernal nether region to wreak havoc on the people of Ontario. They're like the rest of us. For instance, I wouldn't be so averse to seeing something that says, "Representation by a union is a valid option," but you are saying: "It is absolutely necessary. There's no two ways about it. If you ain't got a union, there's no fairness in the workplace." How can you hold to that?
Mr Freeman: Could I answer that question?
Mr McGuinty: Sure.
The Chair: Of course you can.
Mr Freeman: I think if you read the brief submitted by my local, we address that, and perhaps I can read it.
"Also a threat to the worker is the global corporate agenda referred to as `competitiveness'...for it will dictate the relationship between employer and worker, with little protection for the worker. With `competitiveness' as the agenda, an employer will, more than ever, be subject to the pressure of the marketplace and may not have the luxury of being `good' to his or her employees. An individual worker employed in these circumstances will be completely powerless in determining or controlling his or her environment. It is a scenario where only those who can compete survive, and those who cannot are cast aside. This is the world that neo-conservatism and big business has wrought. The only hope then for workers lies in their ability to unite and through their collective strength demand justice and control of their lives."
Perhaps I can read you this part:
"So it is not good enough to simply say or suggest `government will not get involved or have a problem with business so long as business is good to their workers.' This attitude almost completely places the worker in a position of subordination to the whim of the employer. There is no democracy for workers attempting to earn a living in that environment; it is the source of frustration for many and its manifestations can be found in worker low self-esteem and alienation."
I quoted from The Tyranny of Work by James Rinehart:
"The precise character of subordination varies from workplace to workplace, from the arbitrary and paternalistic exercise of power in small shops, laundries and restaurants, to the impersonal bureaucratic authority of large factories. In small workplaces (usually not unionized) workers have little or no protection against the personal and absolute dictates of employers or supervisors."
Mr Runciman: I have just a few brief comments in respect to your presentation, and I appreciate your appearance here today and your coming all the way from Peterborough.
On page 3, you mention the results of efforts by the business community and I guess the chamber of commerce and you indicate one or two ill-informed, negative letters. I'm not sure what "ill-informed" means, but in any event, then you talk about many spontaneous letters in support of labour. I'm not sure how you reach that conclusion either. Maybe you phoned these people who were out to see if it was spontaneous or not, I'm not sure.
I find it passing strange, to say the least, Mr Chairman, that Mr Freeman comes here and testifies as to the justification for this legislation, citing problems that he faced over a quarter of a century ago. I have difficulty in understanding the relevance of that particular testimony.
Mr Freeman: When was the last time you worked in a factory?
Mr Runciman: The last time I worked in a factory?
Mr Freeman: Yes.
Mr Runciman: Not too long ago, as a matter of fact. I also served as a union president and a contract negotiator, and I think perhaps my experience is somewhat more relevant than yours. It's certainly not a quarter of a century ago.
In any event, I also find it interesting that your representative here today, as president of the district labour council, is also a representative of a public service union. It's interesting. We had a CUPE group before us earlier, and now Canada Post. I think if we take a look at some of the most difficult statistics in respect of labour relations in this province for the past number of years, disproportionate numbers are related to public service unions. I think that's an interesting fact that should be noted.
I'd like to hear from the president, Mr Shewring, with respect to what the economic environment is like in Peterborough generally. What's the situation there with respect to unemployment? How does the economy look?
Mr Shewring: Very poor. In fact, at least in the last couple of statistics I've looked at, we have some of the highest unemployment, certainly in this part of the province, over 11%. I think it's over 11% in the city certainly. We've had a number of plant closures over the last two years, so it has been a pretty bleak situation in our area.
Mr Runciman: I just wonder if, in preparing your brief, you've spoken to any people. I'm talking primarily about small business people. When you're in the public service union I think that people -- not totally, of course; they're starting to suffer as well to a degree and the CUPE representatives talked about reality -- but they have been, for the most part, insulated from a lot of the distress that's present in the current economy.
I was just talking to a small business person outside who doesn't have an opportunity to appear today.
Mr Shewring: Talk to the Liquor Control Board of Ontario workers. I don't think they're --
Mr Runciman: That's right. I agree with you. I said there are some people who are being impacted, but not as significantly perhaps as people in small business.
He indicated to me that if this starts to impact on his business -- he has about eight or 10 employees, and let's not get into a free trade debate -- it's simple for him to simply move across to Watertown, for example, just 50 miles south of here and ship his product and materials back into Ontario and not be faced with the kinds of difficulties this legislation and other initiatives could present to him, and probably have presented other matters and this one as well. It's a further straw on the camel's back, if you will.
I'm just wondering how you've conducted your research in terms of looking at the impact on your area. Have you talked to any small business people who have been suffering, to try and get feedback from them as well as simply your union brethren?
Mr Shewring: We have a committee in our labour council which deals with the Ontario Labour Relations Act, and we also have committees of the labour council which reach out to the community in general, including some small businesses that have spoken to us. Most of the small businesses we have dealt with -- and there haven't been that many, I admit, but there have been a few -- see no impact on their businesses. Of course many of them are one-, two- or three-person employment situations.
We haven't seen anything, and the only reaction we've seen from business is to the chamber of commerce campaign really. Other than that, basically it was that one week and a few letters. That's been it as far as the campaign concerning the Ontario Labour Relations Act. What struck me about the campaign in particular was that it really didn't deal with the actual provisions. It was sort of: "We're against it. Write to Bob Rae and say we're agin it." That, to me, didn't provide an opening for a lot of dialogue, unfortunately.
The Chair: I want to thank both of you for appearing here today on behalf of the Peterborough and District Labour Council. We appreciate your interest and your eagerness to participate. You've made a valuable contribution. Have a safe trip back home.
We will recess until 1:30.
The committee recessed at 1204.
AFTERNOON SITTING
The committee resumed at 1331.
KINGSTON FRONTENAC HOME BUILDERS' ASSOCIATION
The Chair: It's 1:30, and we're ready to start. The first participant this afternoon is the Kingston Frontenac Home Builders' Association. If those people would please come forward, have a seat, give us their names, titles, if any, and proceed with their submissions, trying to save at least the last half of the half-hour for exchanges and questions. Go ahead.
Mr Bruce Sheen: Good afternoon, honourable panel members. My name is Bruce Sheen. With me is Mike Schell, president of the Kingston Frontenac Home Builders' Association, and Gary Eskerod, a member of the home builders' association and an owner-operator of a local business. We are here to make a very short presentation this afternoon.
We're here representing the Kingston-Frontenac home builders. We have 170 member firms, representing a cross-section of businesses, most of which are connected to the housing industry. The number of jobs which are directly related locally is approximately 3,000. We are part of the Ontario Home Builders' Association, an association that is responsible for producing 80% of Ontario's new housing. This is one of the areas that depends heavily on a healthy economy to survive.
The reason we requested an opportunity to address this panel can be summed up in one word: fear. Fear for the future of the great province of Ontario, the leading province in Canada, in fact among the largest trading groups in the world. This prosperity has been achieved by a diversity of businesses, large and small, and with very little labour strife.
In most times, Ontario is seen as a good place to invest. However, even before this bill being put into law, the world is starting to hedge on investment at a time when that money is desperately needed. In fact, the Kingston and Area Economic Development Commission decided not to waste its money by sending a delegate to the Hanover trade fair this year. The reason: European banks were advising businesses not to invest in Ontario due to the uncertain labour relations environment.
Fear for the future jobs of our children: In a province that is already heavy in regulations, bureaucracy, licensing and policing, it makes it very expensive to do business in any area. Why do we need to add more laws in an area that is working quite well as is?
We already have some of the most comprehensive health and safety regulations in the world. We have a great hospitalization system, we have unemployment insurance, we have the minimum wage act and we have a collective bargaining system that, despite what the current government says, has produced a healthy labour environment.
In order for this legislation to have the desired impact, to help the worker -- and the key word is worker -- there has to be someone to work for, a business. I'm afraid that this legislation will so discourage the entrepreneurs, those willing to put their ideas, energy and money at risk, that there will be precious few jobs to be had.
Fear that the Ontario government is not listening to its constituents: that it is driven by special interest groups, specifically organized labour, a group representing 35% of the people of Ontario, and when the public sector is factored out of that equation, we have around 10%. These are people who use Quebec as an example of good labour relations legislation, an assumption that the facts do not back up. There has been increased strike activity and decreased investment in Quebec since similar legislation was introduced.
Fear that the democratic rights of the individual will be lost to the solidarity that is so necessary for organized labour to survive: This is so important that the secret ballot vote, the cornerstone of democracy, has no place in this legislation. The individual will also lose the right to work during a strike.
We have a fear that this legislation will be pushed into law before any kind of government study is done to determine the long-term social and economic effects of having to live in the labour-management environment created. The only such studies I've heard of have been done at the request of the business community, and the results of these studies spell major job loss and a loss of investment in the province. Even the most inconsequential bills get some sort of a study done before they're passed.
In closing, I would like to say that the fears I have spoken of today reflect those of the members of the Kingston Frontenac Home Builders' Association, a membership in a segment of society that is among the hardest hit by the current economic times and uncertainty. We would ask that you alleviate our fears by providing some sort of documented study as to what the future holds should this bill pass as it is currently written. Thank you for your time.
The Chair: Thank you. I congratulate you on a presentation that is concise and brief and to the point enough to permit valuable exchanges. Mr Offer, please, we have seven minutes.
Mr Offer: Thank you for your presentation. I was listening closely to your presentation, and I think you're right. This bill is in a lockstep that it's going to be the law by Thanksgiving. Hopefully the form will change, but there's no question that's one of the things the government, by its time allocation, has done. I think that has caused a lot of the problem, because people are having concerns with how ready the government is going to be to deal with any changes.
There are those who try to indicate that business and business interests are just opposed to any change, period; that the opposition from the business community is hysterical, that it borders on fearmongering and misconception about what the bill is. I'd like to get your position as to what you feel should be done with respect to this particular area in the law.
Mr Sheen: As previously stated, I feel there's not too much wrong with what's happening right now. We seem to have a fairly stable labour-management relationship in most areas we deal in. It's a case of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," as far as I'm concerned, and I don't feel it's broken.
Mr McGuinty: You made reference this morning -- I saw you on the television screen -- to your former membership in the union.
Mr Sheen: Yes.
Mr McGuinty: I've heard of incidents in the past -- and, quite clearly, I believe them -- of employers abusing employees within the context of a drive to organize a union, and I'm assuming there are incidents on the other side as well, because it's human nature. I want you to tell me a little bit about your incident, so we can have that on the record.
Mr Sheen: Sure. I was a member of the Steelworkers, I was working at Alcan, a young guy, probably the second job I had out of high school. I had no opinion as to whether unions were good, bad, indifferent. That was a condition of employment and you were part of the union.
We had a strike vote when I was there. We were expected to show up at the union hall and we were expected to vote strike. It's very difficult to raise your hand and say no, as a young guy just coming in here. From the moment you come through the door, all the guys you're working with are saying, "We got to stick together, we got to do this," and this is the way it is. It's just a very intimidating way to work for a person who doesn't feel he needs or wants that. In fact, that's one of the reasons I left that job.
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Mr McGuinty: Were you present at the time there was a drive under way?
Mr Sheen: No, no, it was well established.
Mr McGuinty: It was already in place.
Mr Sheen: Oh, yes. That was part of the condition of employment when I went in.
Mr McGuinty: How prevalent a feeling do you think that is?
Mr Sheen: I feel it's very prevalent. I also had to work and go through picket lines. In fact, even today we have the boys out front with the signs. I know if I had this restaurant, I wouldn't have been very happy, because a lot of people just don't feel comfortable going through that kind of thing.
When you work with a guy and then the time comes when he's on strike, non-union, I have to go to my job, and they make it very difficult and very uncomfortable for you to go through that line. Sympathy goes right out the window. It's like they forget you're going to be working with them when you get back off strike. It's a strained atmosphere. I think anybody who has witnessed anything like that would say the same thing.
The Chair: Mr Runciman, please. I should indicate you have some seven or eight minutes, if you wish.
Mr Runciman: Okay, thank you. You mentioned your job. You're in a non-union firm, did you say?
Mr Sheen: Now?
Mr Runciman: Yes, right now.
Mr Sheen: I'm in a non-union firm right now. When I was relating going across a picket line --
Mr Runciman: I understand that.
Mr Sheen: -- that was a different job.
Mr Runciman: Who do you work for?
Mr Sheen: I work for a local home builder. It's called Avalon Homes.
Mr Runciman: And you're the chairman of the labour relations committee?
Mr Sheen: For the Kingston Frontenac Home Builders' Association.
Mr Runciman: What's the state of labour relations currently? How many businesses and how many employees are covered by the association and what's the state of the labour relations currently?
Mr Sheen: It's very good. We have member firms, some of which are unionized, some of which are not. We have individuals. We have small and large business involved in there. It's quite a harmonious relationship, especially, let's face it, since it's hard times for construction right now and we get good cooperation all the way around.
Mr Runciman: Is there any feedback from your membership in terms of rank and file people who are working for businesses in the area in respect to this legislation, other than management? Are you getting any feedback from the workers?
Mr Sheen: I'm not in a position to get much feedback from the workers. The people we employ, our subtrades, are generally small trades. They're two or three people. You talk to them, and as a small business, a fair number of them -- I was talking to an electrician. I ran into him at the bank today just before I came here. I don't generally wear a tie, but I was wearing a tie and he said, "What's going on?" So I said I was coming down here today, and he just threw up his hands and said, "Boy, oh boy, that's bad news." He's a small businessman. Three guys work there, and he's afraid of what's going to happen with this.
Mr Runciman: You mention in your statement something about a Hanover show, I guess it was, to try and attract investment. Could you elaborate on that a little bit? I'm not familiar with that. Perhaps one of your friends can.
Mr Gary Eskerod: Another hat I wear is that of the vice-chairman of the economic development commission.
Mr Runciman: For the --
Mr Eskerod: Greater Kingston area. In that particular situation we have an option, of course, within our mandate to promote the community in ways we see fit. We had intended to participate in the Hanover trade fair to promote this greater Kingston area.
Mr Runciman: Have you done this in the past?
Mr Eskerod: Yes, on three occasions, I believe it is. The decision was taken not to do so because the atmosphere is just not conducive to investment in Ontario at this time.
Mr Runciman: Who's telling you that?
Mr Eskerod: We've heard that one was the Deutsche Bank made a comment to its investors, and in the recent past we've had two occasions where, during the first meeting, major investors looking at this community, one from out of the country and one off the continent, have expressed that concern first, "What effect will this legislation have on our operation?" We consider that to be very, very serious.
Mr Runciman: This reference you made to the Deutsche Bank, the comment, is there something in writing in respect to that?
Mr Eskerod: We're digging to find that. Prior to this meeting I got the approval of the director of the commission and he will, under oath, validate that statement, because he's the one who brought it to me. They're trying to find it. It's in one of the publications within the development community.
Mr Gary Wilson: Thanks for your presentation. Good to see you again, Bruce. As you know, there's just been that unfortunate announcement of the layoff at Alcan, and that is 53 workers. I think part of the feeling of regret of course is that these are seen to be very good jobs, well-paying and solid jobs in the community. I think it's generally recognized that they are so good because they are unionized. Would you not agree that the union has some role in producing the jobs that are at Alcan today?
Mr Sheen: There's no doubt. May I comment on some of the factors that I saw when I was there?
Mr Gary Wilson: That's the other thing that I wanted to say; that you, from what I gather from your answer --
The Chair: It was me he was talking to.
Mr Gary Wilson: I think he asked me, Mr Chair. I didn't know he was asking you.
The Chair: Go ahead.
Mr Sheen: I think what you were getting to was the fact that that type of atmosphere was not for me. Is that what you were getting to?
Mr Gary Wilson: No.
Mr Sheen: The reason why I would not want to continue on with a job like that?
Mr Gary Wilson: Not really.
Mr Sheen: Was that part of it?
Mr Gary Wilson: That's not really what I want to discuss. I think it's been raised that you can respond in an individual's way to those kinds of circumstances. But I think one thing is, you said you were just out of high school when you got that job, so you weren't there when the plant was organized. I think you'd agree that the other workers who had more seniority than you probably had a different perspective of what was at stake and that, through their experience at least, they would have a different outlook on the need for a strike.
Mr Sheen: I'm sure. But I also was kind of taken with the fact that a lot of them had either farms or something else going on the side. That strike time came and they weren't hurting as bad as you would expect.
Mr Gary Wilson: Are you suggesting they wanted, needed time to work on their farms?
Mr Sheen: No, they didn't need the time, but they weren't going to hurt as bad if they did not have the job at Alcan.
Mr Gary Wilson: Okay. Well, we've heard other submissions from both employers and unionized workers who have stressed how hard it is to go on strike, that you never recover.
Mr Sheen: Oh, no, I hated it. It hurt me. I'm not saying myself, but I'm saying a lot of the older guys, that was the situation they were in. It wasn't going to hurt them as much. Some people really do get hurt, but enough of them don't. They're still covered.
Mr Gary Wilson: Also, I just want to touch on the idea of solidarity, which you seem to think is maybe less useful in that kind of situation, because it strikes those of us who have followed this issue that there is an incredible degree of solidarity among the business community on this aspect; that is, the idea of fear that has been repeated by most presenters from the business side about this, and there isn't really a lot to back that up by the community at large.
For instance, you and I are both in this community. I would say that there aren't a lot of people who are saying to me, "This is dreadful; Ontario's on the brink of ruin here." It's not so well recognized by the community at large, partly because, as you've admitted, through Alcan in particular, but generally, we have a very solid community here. So the course is, the future we don't know.
You have cited the example of a German bank as saying, "Investing in Canada is risky," apparently because of our labour relations. I'm a bit surprised they have it pinned down that exactly, when we have the example of the trade deal, the recent GST and our overvalued dollar as being examples of why it is so rough to do business here; that they would cite that as an example. But more than that, do you know what the unionization level in Germany is?
Mr Sheen: No, I understand that, and I've worked at UTDC and I've worked with a lot of people from a company called Steyr in Austria. That's a company town, so I understand very much that the feeling is somewhat different there.
Mr Gary Wilson: Exactly. One of the things that Germany is cited for is its very productive economy. A lot of European companies --
Mr Sheen: Then I'll go back to my days in the union and productivity. I worked in sheet metal. One of the things that was bargained for in one of the sessions was that we had to do so many pieces per hour, let's say 12 pieces per hour. The object was, do it so that it comes out to about 11 1/2, don't hit the 12. I know we could have done 20 because when Stanley Cup time came, there was a TV back in packing and we had our work done so we could get back to see the game and then we had enough left over at the end of the night just to finish off our shift when we were on 4 to 12. I'm not making it up. That's the kind of thing that just didn't sit right with me. I didn't want to work in that environment, so I got out. It's a person's choice and that's all I'm looking for. This seems to eliminate a lot of choice.
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Mr Gary Wilson: Right. So you're going from that one experience to say that all unionized workplaces are very unproductive?
Mr Sheen: No. I can only go by my personal experience.
Mr Gary Wilson: Yes, but you admitted it's kind of limited. You were right out of high school when you were in that circumstance.
Mr Sheen: I was in another union, as well, the brotherhood of electrical workers, and I worked at the PUC. Although the atmosphere was a lot different there, a great bunch of guys to work with, there were some guys who were just getting carried and everybody realized it, but it wasn't a very -- I don't know how to say it -- active union or whatever. It was actually a really great place to work; I really enjoyed that.
Mr Gary Wilson: But again, look at the example of Germany, which is highly unionized and is a very productive economy and is one of the reasons that is used to support good labour relations legislation. So again, it depends on the broad experience. You say since you've been out of the workplace; that's a few years ago and that's another reason we feel that there is the need for this legislation, that things have changed in the workplace and these changes have to be accounted for.
Mr Sheen: Could Gary just comment on that?
Mr Eskerod: I'd like to respond, if I may. First of all, if the organized labour is such a positive thing in Europe, why then would the greatest financial institution there be concerned about investing or suggesting its people invest in an environment that appears to be going in that direction? That is one thing I'd like to say.
The other thing is, I too have been a member of union. I was in the international brotherhood of papermakers and I worked very hard in that job. I was told on many occasions, and this was some time ago, so I'm not as familiar with the current trend, to slow down, leave some work for someone else, don't work so hard, don't press so hard, it'll be there tomorrow, it'll always be there tomorrow, and that was uncomfortable.
I'm not suggesting that all union or organized environments are like that, but, like Bruce, I think that it should be a matter of choice. I would not stand in the way of my employees if they chose or if I caused them to want to choose to be unionized, because I am the one who would be responsible for that happening as manager. Poor management will bring it. I would not stand in their way, but I would also not make it a condition of employment that those who don't choose to must join that organization. This is a free society we live in and I believe that freedom of choice is critical. You folks, or part of you folks, are proposing legislation that will take away those freedoms, and those freedoms apply not only to me as a manager and an owner of a business but it applies to your supporters.
Mr Gary Wilson: We see it that we're actually adding freedom. We're not forcing anybody into unions. We're just making the choice easier, where they want to make it. But beyond that, Gary, this idea that there are certain ways of working things that suit the individual can lead to problems; that is, that individuals will work at a pace and in a way that is harmful to their coworkers and that's where health and safety legislation comes about.
It's not always clear to individuals and perhaps employers why this legislation is there, the health and safety, but in this community alone we have people walking around without limbs and other injuries because of workplace accidents that have now been addressed through good health and safety legislation, often at the promotion of unions, that unions have brought to the fore. So it's made the society that much better.
You'd agree yourself: the loss of time and the social cost of injuries at the workplace, the damage to families and to the society at large through lost production. That's one of the very definite ways unions have increased the productivity of the workplace: by making them safer. As long as workers have that kind of standing that they're not easily replaced, as they do in some places -- and that's one of our concerns with Mexico, for instance. Without strong labour legislation workers have a lot less value; they're easily replaced. Yet we know the pain and the hardship that causes to the society in general. That's not the kind of community we want to live in.
Mr Eskerod: The health and safety regulations we operate under are imposed on us with or without organized labour.
Mr Gary Wilson: I'm saying that organized labour has a very strong role to play in promoting them.
Mr Eskerod: If I may, just one last comment from me. There is more discord, from my point of view or perception, between organized labour and management on this legislation than I have seen in 25 years of business. There is more polarity taking place right now than I have ever seen. You can feel it in this room. I just appeal to you: Listen. Sure, you may hear the noise, but listen to it. There are intelligent, well, thinking, reasoned, rational people on the business side of this equation who are saying to you, "Do a study." If you accept that there is one intelligent, reasoned, rational business person who has made the assessment that this is going to have a horrendous impact on the economy of the province and on the jobs of your supporters and my employees, listen and do that study; then do what your judgement tells you to do.
Mr Gary Wilson: Well, I think it's clear, again from the examples we've used, that this legislation will actually produce more cooperative and productive workplaces. That's the decision we have -- it's changed a lot, as you admitted. It's been a while since you've been in that kind of setting. What we find now, looking at other examples and from our own experience, is that the cooperative workplace will be the far more productive one, and that's the way we have to go because of the changes that have occurred in the workplace.
Mr Hayes: Just on the comment you made in regard to health and safety legislation having been imposed on you without labour involvement: I was part of the labour involvement in my role as a health and safety representative, and I can tell you that labour lobbied very hard to get decent legislation and changes in the Occupational Health and Safety Act for the protection of workers. So there was labour, management and the government involved in that.
I'd like to ask Mr Sheen a quick question here. You talked about having pressure put on you by the workers about not going on strike, a we-all-gotta-stick-together solidarity type of thing. My understanding is that Alcan has had two strikes in a matter of 30 years or better, and both of those times there was a secret ballot vote whether to accept, reject or go on strike. Were you there when this happened? And if it was a secret ballot, I'm wondering how you felt the pressure or intimidation or whatever.
Mr Sheen: No, unless I was misreading what we were voting on, it was a hands up.
Mr Hayes: Anyhow, this is the information I have. I'm just wondering, because we're talking so much about having secret votes, and yet you say with a secret vote you have pressure put on you. On one hand it's good to have that and on the other hand it isn't.
Mr Sheen: There's still the pressure. I don't necessarily agree. I know I was in a hands-up situation, whether we were voting to have a secret ballot vote, whatever.
Mr Hayes: So what you're saying is that the one strike you were there and you never did put a check on a ballot.
Mr Sheen: I never put a check. I was on strike.
The Chair: I want to say thank you to Bruce Sheen, Mike Schell and Gary Eskerod for being here this afternoon and speaking on behalf of the Kingston Frontenac Home Builders' Association. We appreciate your interest, we appreciate your readiness to participate and we're grateful to you. Take care.
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AEROSPACE INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION OF CANADA
The Chair: The next participant is Aerospace Industries Association of Canada. If those people will please come forward, have a seat, tell us their names, their titles, if any, proceed with their submissions. We have your written submissions, which will be made an exhibit and form part of the record. Go ahead, please, and please try to save time for questions and dialogue. As you can see, they can be some of the more enlightening elements of this process.
Mr Fred Sutherland: My name is Fred Sutherland, president of the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada, a position I've held for two months. Prior to that, I served in the Canadian air force for 33 years. My final two appointments were commander of the air force and vice-chief of the defence staff. With me is Peter Broadhurst, chairman of our human resource committee and vice-president of Litton Systems Canada. We thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.
First, I'd like to present a brief profile of the aerospace industry, which is one of the three principal high-tech industries in Canada.
We do have a formal presentation, of which you have a copy. However, given your recent admonition to us to keep it brief and in recognition of the horrendous exercise you've been going through for the past several weeks, let me applaud you for your alertness. I would have expected to see about 14 sets of glazed eyes, suffering from information overload or cerebral saturation. But you could be forgiven if you were in that state. The fact that you're not bears witness to your conviction and your dedication.
As I mentioned, we do have a formal presentation. In the interests of time, I will briefly highlight that and then, in what may be a rather significant departure from previous presentations, I would like to address members of this committee on a rather personal level.
The aerospace industry: In 1991 the sales totalled $9.4 billion. Of this, approximately 70% or $6.6 billion were exported primarily to the United States, Europe and Pacific Rim countries. About 45% of the total productive capability is located in the province of Ontario. The business is capital-intensive, and together with computer electronics and telecommunications, the three industries invest more than 50% of privately funded investment among research and development intensive industries in Canada.
To be specific, our aerospace companies alone invested in Canada over $700 million in research and development and over $350 million in plant and equipment in 1991. Almost all of these investments are shared equally between Ontario and Quebec, where 90% of the Canadian aerospace industry is located. We employ 60,000 directly in well-paid, high-value-added jobs, indirect employment is estimated at about 35,000 and I will leave it to you to estimate the unquantified but significant induced employment and multipliers our industry generates through derived demand for secondary industries.
The Ontario government's recent decision to assist in the successful restructuring of Boeing-de Havilland into the Bombardier group to me represents a major acknowledgement of the role the Ontario government believes the aerospace industry should play in the province's economic revival.
The industry is largely foreign-owned, including some major companies with world product mandates. However, the industry also sustains a good number of indigenous medium- and small-sized Canadian companies as suppliers to Canadian prime contractors. These number about 200 to 300 and have an estimated turnover of about $1 billion to $1.5 billion.
We pride ourselves on being one of the few Canadian industries operating at the forefront of technology while concomitantly contributing to Canada's positive trade balance. We've attached for your information a reprint of an article in the Globe and Mail indicating that we, along with nuclear, are two of the net exporters in the high-tech segment of our country.
The remainder of our presentation highlights our specific concerns, concerns I'm sure you've heard from a myriad of other people, but the themes are probably constant with only subtle nuances to reflect the specific circumstances of those presenting. However, I do commend to you for early reading pages 12 and 13 of our presentation, which includes very specific examples, not theory, not conjecture, where proposed legislation has already impacted on member companies.
What is not in our presentation but struck me on the way down on the train is that in reading the Industrial Policy Framework for Ontario, which the government recently produced, there's a very high degree of congruence between what is being espoused by the government in that document and the characteristics and strengths of our industry: the need for more research and development -- as I just told you we are national leaders; the requirement for more value-added manufacturing -- that is the essence of our industry; the need for continuous innovation, increased technology capability, developed linkages and networks and building international capabilities and so on -- these are all characteristics of the aerospace industry in Canada and in Ontario. That is why other countries and other provinces in this country and states in the United States are realizing the importance of aerospace as a key element in their respective industrial strategies.
Against that backdrop of congruity, I'm sure you will understand our profound perplexity at the incongruity between the recently announced government industrial policy framework and the impact on our industry of the bill under consideration. In its simplest expression, this incongruity would read: "Yes, aerospace is exactly the kind of industry we need, embodying the characteristics we see as essential to achieve the competitive advantage we seek for our province. Notwithstanding, we are proposing to bring about a series of changes to the OLRA which will significantly mitigate that competitive advantage." Is it any wonder that the left-hand, right-hand metaphor leaps to mind?
In trying to characterize the situation I referred to a book which some of you may have read, The March of Folly, written in the mid-1980s by Barbara Tuchman. I'm leaving a copy, free gratis, for your clerk in the hope that some of you, in between reading the numerous briefs that have been presented to you, will find time to read excerpts from it.
The Chair: Are you leaving that with the clerk or with the Chair?
Mr Sutherland: The Chair, sir.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr Sutherland: The book was widely heralded and acclaimed as an epic study of blundering statecraft that sweeps from the wooden horse of the Trojan war, through the provocation of the Protestant secession by the Renaissance popes, through the British loss of America and finally the American experience in Vietnam. In my opinion it should be mandatory reading for anybody in political life, including those who purport to advise that person. Barbara Tuchman defines the essence of folly as the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to the interests of the constituency or state involved. She then lists four criteria: It must be perceived as folly in its own time, not with the benefit of hindsight; a feasible alternative course of action must be available; it must be of a group and not an individual leader; it should persist beyond one political lifetime.
If this sounds pedantic or gratuitous, I am sorry, but I make no apology, for I firmly believe that in circumstances such as this and in the process in which you are involved, probably with millions of words, lots of rhetoric, polemic and lots of emotion, a return to basic and immutable first principles might take you above the political fray and increase the efficacy of your judgement.
I expect that each of you sitting around this table with the MPP signs entered political life with the altruistic motivation of serving your province and the people of Ontario -- a very laudable undertaking. With your political role comes great responsibility; specifically, to govern as reasonably as possible in the interests of the state and its citizens. With that responsibility comes duty.
Again from Tuchman: "Duty in that process that is governing is to keep well informed, to heed information, to keep mind and judgement open enough to perceive that a given policy is harming rather than serving self-interest, self-confident enough to acknowledge it and wise enough to reverse it. That is a summit" -- her word -- "in the art of government."
In this very personal appeal, we, along with the many people, I expect, who have appeared before you in opposition to the proposed amendments, are simply asking you to do your duty, to reach that lofty summit of which she spoke and which I just mentioned. Let us not allow this to become another chapter in The March of Folly.
Let me bring it down to a more personal level, hypothetical I hope. If this legislation goes forward in its present form, unamended, and if it passes third reading, and if on voting day you stand proudly in your places and vote for passage of the legislation, once the hand clapping and back slapping has subsided, I would ask you in a moment of quiet reflection to sit down and pen a note, "Dear son, dear daughter, dear grandson or granddaughter," as the case might be, and ask that person to hold it and open it on graduation day. It should read something like this:
"Dear son, daughter, grandson or granddaughter,
"As you today graduate and prepare to embark on your career and enter the Ontario job market, the dynamic market which characterizes our economy, I would like you to know that in the fall of 1992 I proudly stood and voted for a piece of labour legislation which has helped to create this dynamic economy you are now entering."
If the prophecy comes true that way, then you can proudly be with that person when the letter is opened. But if all of the so-called fearmongering that you've heard over the past three weeks is true or even partially true, and if one of the ramifications of this legislation is some of the direct consequences that have been predicted by many people at this and other tables, then you'd better find yourself a bloody good way to get to that letter before your son or grandson or daughter or granddaughter opens it.
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The Chair: Thank you, gentlemen. Mr Runciman, six minutes, please.
Mr Runciman: I want to assure Mr Sutherland that he won't have to worry about that and the children he's referring to won't have to worry about that, because the next Conservative government is going to rescind this legislation. So I just want to make sure he understands that.
A couple of things. I'm sure this is going to be raised. You make reference at the outset to the fact that the aerospace industry is shared equally between Ontario and Quebec.
Mr Sutherland: Ninety per cent of it.
Mr Runciman: Yes, 90%. And obviously we've heard some references made to the Quebec experience in respect to replacement workers, for example, although we know this legislation will give Ontario the most comprehensive labour legislation in North America, so in many ways the Quebec experience isn't comparable. But in this one element of it, with respect to replacement workers, what has the industry's experience been in Quebec?
Mr Sutherland: Well, the industry has been part of the strike situation in Quebec. There have been strikes at some of the major Quebec-based aerospace industries. I can't give you the specifics, but --
Mr Runciman: Well, I'm on the same side as you are in this and it seems to me that this is the sort of argument that you should be prepared to deal with, because you're talking about just-in-time delivery. We're talking about a whole host of concerns, and I think this is perhaps a major factor in respect to that.
We have the government telling us that Quebec has survived this, even though we can look at a variety of statistics that say this is not the case. Hopefully, I will hear something from your industry in respect to, "Look, we have seen business lost to Quebec province as a result of this movement out of the province and investment dollars looking elsewhere." Do you have any track record in that respect?
Mr Sutherland: I can't give you the specifics. We could certainly provide that, Mr Chairman, through your clerk, if you so desire. We have a couple of instances, and I won't name names, of companies that have moved out of Quebec in the aerospace sector.
If I might just go back to the point you made, one of the key elements in the current economic climate in which we find ourselves, in an increasingly global competitiveness arena, is that things such as just-in-time delivery are absolutely key. Illustratively, we point in one of those examples we give you that every Boeing aircraft has a component that's made in Ontario. If you're Boeing, you want to make damned sure that you're going to get those things just in time or get them overhauled when they're down. If there's anything, regardless of what it is, that impacts on the certainty of delivery, then you are going to start asking yourself some severe questions: Do I really want to have that plant in that province or that country at the same time we have surplus capacity in our own country and we have our own layoff problem?
There's a vacuum in the United States, and I don't think it takes much to sway a very pragmatic, business-based decision that: "We cannot afford that uncertainty. We will repatriate that to ensure certainty of delivery." It's absolutely critical in our industry.
Mr Runciman: What's your labour relations experience in Ontario in the last five to 10 years? How many strikes have you experienced?
Mr Sutherland: Once again, I can't give you the specifics. There have been a couple of significant strikes in the industry.
Let me add to that, if I might. One of the things our industry is doing, and I would expect any other manufacturing and perhaps other industries are doing, is that for the reasons you've probably heard ad nauseam around this table, for some of the reasons I've just discussed, for total quality management and all those other things, it's absolutely incumbent on any business enterprise, as a key element in this success equation, to foster the most harmonious relationship possible with its labour force. It's in their own best interests. Whether you believe in unions or don't believe in unions or whether you are unionized or non-unionized almost becomes academic. The primordial objective is to create within your own organization the most harmonious, cooperative labour relations, and that's not legislation. That's cooperation and partnership, which is also a cornerstone of this green document.
Mr Runciman: I very much appreciate your submission, and I simply want to say that I think it would be very helpful to those of us who share your perspective on this if you could provide the information I've made reference to, because I think it's a real weakness in your argument, if I may be permitted to say so. One of the points we've taken with the government is that it hasn't done a study in respect of the impact, and here you have a very clear experience with your particular industry in a jurisdiction that has had somewhat comparable legislation in place for a period of time. I think those are the kinds of facts that should be made available to all of us so that we can make more informed decisions.
Mr Sutherland: Sorry. Mr Chairman, do I understand that you want us to provide the committee with a comparative --
Mr Runciman: That would be helpful, from our perspective.
The Chair: You can provide that to the clerk, in this instance. The clerk would be pleased to receive that from you.
Ms Sharon Murdock (Sudbury): Thank you very much. Actually, I'm in total agreement with everything you just said to Mr Runciman. When I was on the consultations in Ottawa in January and February, we had an appearance before us of the Canadian Advanced Technology Association; we got into a discussion, brief because of time constraints, on the flat management style. Due to the complexities and technological nature of the entire industry, you had more of a team management approach to getting the job done, which is more along the European and Japanese model, I would think you'd agree.
I notice in the Globe and Mail article you supplied at the last page, aerospace had a trade deficit of $1.6 billion just four years ago, and now you're one of Canada's success stories. I would like to know how, in the last four years, given the tremendous recession we have, you've done that.
Mr Sutherland: It can be cyclic. A major aircraft buy will tilt the figures one way or the other. Because of the magnitude of the programs involved, if you're talking a multibillion-dollar acquisition program in defence from the United States or from Europe and so on and so forth, those balances can change very quickly.
Ms Murdock: In aerospace, are all your locations organized, or are some not organized and some are, or how does that work?
Mr Peter Broadhurst: Generally, it's about 40% organized; if we take the smaller organizations, 60% is not organized.
Ms Murdock: I know Mr Runciman has asked for the actual data, but just from experience, in terms of the last 10 years, have you had strikes?
Mr Broadhurst: Yes, we've had a couple that got a considerable amount of publicity. I guess the adventures of de Havilland over the period of time have been very well written up and I think most people understand some of the issues that were involved in that. Similarly, there have been some instances at McDonnell Douglas, which is another major problem, which again has been extremely well written up. But in general I think the labour relations within the industry have been very good, both at the organized labour plants and also in the non-union plants.
Basically, as Fred has outlined, it has been recognized that where you have high value added and highly paid people competing in the global market, if we are going to pay ourselves $20-plus dollars an hour, we're going to insist on people doing more than just taking orders. So throughout the industry there has been this move afoot to get more cooperative relationships between the people actually doing the work on the shop floor and the management. In fact, there's a whole level of middle management, I think as the article indicated and as your discussions with CATA mentioned, that has disappeared. Those tasks are being picked up by the people on the floor with such things as self-directed work teams and that kind of approach.
We are dealing with very highly capable people, highly skilled people. I think the labour relations within the industry have been good in that respect. There has been an area of mutual respect.
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The area that we have the problem with, which was outlined earlier on the JIT situation, is when we go to talk to customers, particularly in the United States and overseas, who are worried about deliveries. If you're somebody like Boeing that has a $50-million airplane sitting on the ramp waiting for a particular part or component in order to deliver it to your customer to get paid, you take a great interest in how that delivery could be held up and what could cause it.
Ms Murdock: In Windsor, we had Budd Automotive come and explain that situation. They had a very wild reputation in the 1970s and into the early 1980s for wildcat strikes. Finally, they realized they were doing themselves out of a job and have had a different kind of relationship. They said that in one of their strikes the situation came to the point where they had to get some flats or whatever to a major client or they were going to lose it, and if they did lose it, basically the company was going to go down the tubes. As a consequence, the union and the management worked it out and delivered the flats during the strike in order to save the company. It's the fear that has been expressed by many of the groups that we're having difficulty understanding.
Mr Broadhurst: To come at your question from a slightly different angle, you talked about us having these tremendous sales successes over the past few years. At the present moment, recognizing that the US is a major customer of our industry, as a result of the downturn within the industry in the United States, particularly the defence industry, there is about a 30% surplus of capacity down there with companies in that. It's also projected that over the next five years there will probably be another 25% to 30% reduction in volume, and those facilities --
Ms Murdock: Reduction?
Mr Broadhurst: Reduction in the defence side of the business. So there is a surplus of capacity and a surplus of capability in the North American market. That is why we have this tremendous fear factor that we must appear to our customers as being a reliable, capable and high-quality source of product for that particular thing. That's why we're extremely twitchy about anything that might constrain that.
Ms Murdock: Mr Hope wanted to ask you a question.
Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): As I was viewing your presentation, looking over it twice, you made reference to the replacement worker issue and just-in-time. I take it that most of your organizations run through your collective agreements, so once every three years you'll go to the bargaining table and negotiate. You talk very positively about working relationships; I guess it all deals with attitude, the management's attitude and labour's attitude, to work together and resolve. If it takes a negotiator to negotiate a collective agreement, then that's one of the key elements.
But dealing with just-in-time, you talk about your part suppliers who supply you with parts. What I've been examining and trying to pull up more information on is that you have more problems on the 401 with traffic tie-ups in making actual deliveries to your customers. Also, you have more difficulty with financial institutions calling in their notes without notification on some of the small supply businesses you deal with. That must lead to more problems with producing your product than this actual piece of legislation.
I hear what you're saying about attitude and cooperation. It's your goal never to have a strike, or somebody's going to get in trouble if there's a strike. But the issue I reflect on that affects just-in-time is the financial institutions. In my area, we deal with part suppliers. Part suppliers are being victims of banks walking in the same day and dropping a note on the desk, and they're locking the factory up, which is creating new, major problems. Also, the traffic tie-ups on the 401 are on a daily basis. Yet we're more focused on a three-year term of a collective agreement. I'm just trying to get things in perspective here.
Mr Broadhurst: The position we've taken is that all the points you raised are part of the overall problems of being in business, particularly in our kind of business; in general, they tend to be unavoidable. As to the situation on the 401, you can never really have a regularly scheduled crash; they tend to happen at random.
But we feel this particular legislation is an avoidable situation from the point of view of constraints on the JIT approach. There are two points within the legislation that, in very general terms, perturb us.
One is the preamble. Until now, the purpose clause has indicated it is to ameliorate labour relations. The new purpose clause talks about it as being to encourage unionization, which is a fairly fundamental change.
The second thing that worries us to a great degree and that, to come back to Fred's point, is in our opinion bad law -- and you're lawmakers -- is the fact that it puts so much into the hands of the labour relations board to establish regulations. As you probably know from dealing with quasi-government situations, quite often you have trouble detecting where the regulations are, compared to what was in the enabling legislation that came about.
That is an area of concern to us, that as the legislation is in place and the regulations are drawn up, we may very well find ourselves in a position which causes real concern. This would not necessarily be the relationship to the formal union; it was going to be the wildcat situations and those kinds of areas, which is a whole new ball game, and of course anything new and not clearly understood is a source of concern to business people.
Mr Hope: There was also another --
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Hope. We've got to move on to Mr McGuinty.
Mr McGuinty: I'm not sure if I have a question, gentlemen; more of a comment, I guess. I want to congratulate you at the outset for your presentation and particularly for the note of moderation you've sounded. One of the things that has disappointed me with respect to a lot of the presentations is that there's a lack of recognition of the vital role that both business and unions play in this province and the capability they have, in working together, to strengthen our economy.
I'm very pleased to see the specific examples you've outlined on page 13 of the difficulties you have already encountered as a result of the proposed law contained within Bill 40. Notwithstanding your congratulations at the outset and the committee members continuing to be awake and alive to all the subtleties of each presenter, I've got to tell you personally that I've grown particularly tired with respect to one aspect. I've grown tired of the finger-pointing and the name-calling and the allegations and the innuendo, of the suspicion and even the contempt in which one side often seems to hold the other. Sometimes I think I'd like to do what I do with my kids, in this sense. To give you an example, we've got three boys in one bedroom. They've got to make their beds in the morning, but they can't fold the sheets unless they get two working together. So sometimes they run out of the room and say: "He's not going to help me. We can't make the bed." I say: "All right, boys. Back into the room. You can't come out until you make the bed." What it forces them to do, sooner or later, is cooperate, and they get the bed made.
But we're not making beds here now; we're talking about strengthening the economy. I'm wondering what it is that we can do as legislators to compel business and unions to cooperate. Unfortunately, this very process in which we are presently engaged is entirely counterproductive, to my way of thinking.
NDP Premier Harcourt had a much better idea. He wants to reform their labour legislation, so he set up a tripartite process. He's got government, he's got labour and he's got business, and he's put them in that group and said, "Cooperate and come up with something."
Mr Sutherland: You've probably heard from a lot of people -- at least, I hope you've heard it from a lot of people -- exactly what you're saying. I think the gentleman who was sitting here in the previous presentation asked for something similar. What this proposal might have done is sent a shock wave through the system such that from the business perspective they realize that, "Hey, if we don't like this, what is the alternative?" It seems to me that the most logical, productive alternative is to do what you suggest: Back to the drawing board.
On a very personal level, I cannot help but think, for the reasons we cited earlier and you've heard ad nauseam around this table, that in a contemporary, global, competitive, damned tough economy globally, strikes and lockouts can only be considered at best an anachronism. I mean, to go back to your family illustration, if you and your wife have an argument, she doesn't lock you out or withdraw service of cooking and all that sort of stuff. You sit down and work it out, hopefully, in a productive fashion.
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The loss of a single workday due to lockout or strike is a day lost for ever, and it's a day that Ontario or Canada increasingly cannot afford, because the damned world is passing us by. If anybody in this room or who comes to this table doesn't realize that, then I suggest they're not in touch with reality.
Paradoxically, this is not a zero-sum game. There are going to be winners and losers if this process unfolds without change. The winners, in the short term, if there must be winners, will probably be the trade union people who are supporting the bill. The losers, ostensibly, will be the business community. The biggest losers of all are going to be the people of Ontario because of the projections that might unfold for this economy; and, paradoxically, cruelly paradoxically, in the longer term, the poor people themselves who are supporting the bill, in the fullness of time, because of what might happen to the Ontario economy. Even if only half or a quarter of the dire projections come true, it will impact on them. So it might be a short-term gain, a pyrrhic victory, for long-term pain and economic difficulty.
The Chair: I want to say to you, Mr Sutherland and Mr Broadhurst, thank you for appearing here today on behalf of the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada. You've obviously provided a valuable bit of input into the process of the committee. The responses of the committee members attest to that. So we thank you kindly. We're grateful for your interest and for your participation and trust that you'll take care.
Mr Sutherland: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
CAW CANADA
The Chair: The next participant is Canadian Auto Workers, Canada. Please come forward, have a seat, tell us your name, your title. We've got your written submissions. You can read it, highlight it, do with it as you wish, but please try to save time for exchanges.
Mr Glen Myers: I'll try to be as brief as possible. My name is Glen Myers. I'm a national representative with the Canadian Auto Workers union. On behalf of the Canadian Auto Workers union, I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome you to Kingston and let you know that I very much appreciate the chance to speak with you today with respect to our views on Bill 40.
By way of background information, I think I should tell you that my current role with the CAW is with our servicing department. In this capacity, my primary function is to work with established bargaining units throughout eastern Ontario to help them negotiate their collective agreements, process and arbitrate grievances and more generally to build relations between our members and their employers which allow both parties to succeed and prosper.
Prior to assuming these duties, I was attached to our organizing department and had the opportunity to work with groups of employees who wanted to become part of our organization. So I have had firsthand experience not only in dealing with these workers but also with the process people must go through if they wish to enter into collective bargaining with their employers.
The Ontario Labour Relations Act, and in particular the proposed amendments, are extremely important to all working people across our province, union or non-union, female or male, from every ethnic origin and in every sector of our society, because the act sets out conditions and controls which not only govern employers but also employees and their unions, should they choose to become organized.
I believe the vast majority of people in this province, from whatever political persuasion you like, would have to agree that without a Labour Relations Act, the state of employer-employee relations in Ontario would be chaotic, unproductive, unmanageable and unbearable. Those few who might not agree with this assertion would relegate our society to those we see in Third World countries where there are no labour laws and where they cannot provide the goods and services to sustain themselves, let alone be competitive in exporting goods and services to other countries around the world.
The critics of the proposed amendments might agree that yes, we need labour laws, then argue that we have them and they don't need to be changed, especially right now. I would suggest to those individuals and businesses that not only are there compelling reasons to modernize the act, but as well, the timing of these changes could not be better.
At a time when the business community and the federal government are telling us that the way we do business with our customers at home and in other countries must change through liberalized trading laws, such as the Canada-US free trade agreement and now the North American free trade agreement, and by being more competitive and by placing our economic emphasis with the service industries rather than in the manufacturing sector, and that these changes must be ushered in if we are to maintain a strong economy and a progressive society, well, at a time when such dramatic changes are taking place to business practices in our province and around the world, not to mention all the changes which have taken place over the last 15 years since our labour laws have last been reviewed, I for one find it very strange indeed that this same business community tells us that we do not need to change the way business is done between employers and their employees. To suggest that such dramatic changes have to be made to the way we do business with our customers and trading partners but not to the way business is done between employer and employee is to offer half a response to a changing world.
As for the specific changes being proposed, I believe the overall effect will be not to tip the scales in favour of unions, as some suggest, but rather to expedite the process by which the Ontario Labour Relations Board determines the true desires of workers involved in the certification process, whether they be in favour of or against forming a union. As well, I believe they will reduce the number of days lost to strikes by banning replacement workers, who not only prolong strikes but who are also naturally less productive than the regular employees who are walking the picket line.
More specifically, having been involved in the certification process on many occasions, I can tell you that it often takes a year or more of labour board hearings for a panel of board officers to determine the true desires of oft-times small groups of 20, 30, 40 or 50 workers. Why does it take so long? One of the main reasons is because of what I call the tag team approach taken by companies and groups of workers who may be opposed to those who want to organize. While the current legislation prohibits companies and workers opposed to unionization from working directly together to oppose the union, their respective legal counsel works the system to make false allegations, distort the facts and camouflage the truth in an effort to delay and prolong the process. To anyone who has observed these hearings, this tag team approach is obvious and sometimes quite blatant, and certainly common knowledge among regular observers of these proceedings. I shudder to think how much this tactic alone has unnecessarily cost taxpayers over the years, and it's time it's stopped.
The only way to stop this gross misuse of the current system is to ban petitions during the certification process. In this respect I don't think the legislation goes far enough. If workers truly do not want a union, my experience as an organizer tells me that they will not sign a union card in the first place. However, when asked to sign an anti-union petition by an opposing worker, there is a natural fear that if management sees the petition without their names on it and if the union is unsuccessful, then repercussions will surely follow.
I do believe that workers should be able to change their minds about being represented by a union, but if a majority of the workforce sign union cards, then the union should be allowed to bargain the first contract. Then, if employees are not satisfied with the representation they receive, they can decertify the union during the open period at the end of the term of the first collective agreement or any subsequent agreement.
Speaking of first contracts, we do welcome the amendment which allows increased access to first-contract arbitration, but I must say only as a last resort. The preferred method is to sit down and negotiate a first agreement, or any agreement for that matter. But getting workers certified is only the first hurdle. Employers sometimes refuse to recognize their employees' democratic decision to organize by refusing to bargain, or simply go through the motions without bargaining seriously in another effort to delay the process. This amendment should help in that regard.
With the growing trend to place greater emphasis on creating jobs in the service sector that I mentioned earlier, the proposed amendment dealing with the right of part-time workers to form bargaining units is not only timely but also welcomed by workers who have lost their jobs in manufacturing and can only find jobs in the service sector, which has such a high percentage of part-time employees -- which, I might add, is not by accident. Employers in the service sector caught on long ago that if you want to avoid having an organized workforce, just hire part-time workers and you won't have to contend with decent wages and benefits that organized workers expect and deserve.
As well, provisions that will allow domestics and professionals to organize are long overdue. I can't think of any reason why these people should not be allowed the same basic rights that other workers have. As a matter of fact, in 1986 I was one of 27 Canadians to participate in His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh's sixth Commonwealth study conference, which was held in Australia. I might mention I noticed Bob Huget here today. The first time I met Bob was at that conference, and I haven't seen him since. It's good to see you again.
The Chair: Aren't you going to say hello, Bob?
Mr Bob Huget (Sarnia): Yes. Hi.
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Mr Myers: The purpose of this study conference was to bring representatives from business, government and labour together so that representatives of each group can get a better understanding of each other's concerns and objectives.
During our tour of various locations in Australia, I had occasion to meet a supervisor in one of the factories we were touring, and he gave me this lapel pin of his union. When I explained to him that in Canada supervisors in factories were not allowed to join unions, he said to me: "Well, mate, I've only one question for you. What kind of democracy would stop any worker from joining a union?"
I find it interesting that when you look around the world at some of the strongest economies, those same countries, such as Australia or European countries like Germany and others, all have strong, progressive labour laws, including laws such as Germany's, which require union representation to sit on the boards of directors of companies. When I see all kinds of business groups and associations springing up to oppose this government and the proposed changes that Bill 40 would bring and I know that many business members of these groups operate in these other countries, it makes me wonder who they're trying to kid when they say that these changes will drive them out of this province, when they continue to operate in countries with much stronger labour laws than those proposed under Bill 40.
I realize that this committee will and has been hearing submissions from a great many groups and individuals, some of whom are small business people, who seem to be concerned that these proposals will suddenly cause masses of workers to join unions.
Speaking as a former organizer, I can tell you that trying to organize workers is one of the most interesting studies in human nature one could ever experience. There are many reasons why workers will sign a union card, but, let me tell you, just as many why they won't.
Expediting the process, which these proposed amendments will do, will not change workers' attitudes towards unions. It will simply allow the Labour Relations Board to determine more quickly what the true desires of the group of employees are as a whole, and in the process save the taxpayers of Ontario a lot of money.
Let me close by saying that I think this government has done a thorough review of the Labour Relations Act and the proposed amendments, which are not only long overdue but also reflect the changes that are taking place in our economy and society, and we in the CAW commend the government for these efforts.
If I may, I'd like to leave you with two last thoughts. First of all, every day across this province, and indeed our country, business people meet in boardrooms, airports, hotels and anywhere else they can to negotiate the terms and conditions of the sale of goods and services into contracts, and that's just business. Workers sell their labour to make a living, so if they want to sit down with their employer and negotiate the terms and conditions of the sale of their labour with the employer, they're not being disloyal or subversive, they're not rabble-rousers or instigators; it's just business.
Secondly, when businessmen make decent profits, so often we see them take them outside the country to invest elsewhere, but when workers make decent wages, they spend those wages on goods and services in their own communities.
I want to thank you very much for your time and I'll be happy to answer any questions I can.
The Chair: Thank you, sir. Five minutes per caucus. Mr Hope, please try to save some time for Mr Hayes.
Mr Hope: I certainly will. Glen, it's good to see you, as you're a Chathamite, I see, from Chatham.
Mr Myers: I'm a Kingstonian now.
Mr Hope: Glen, there's an area I want to talk about that I tried earlier to get a handle on. Three-year collective agreements come up once every three years. You, representing a lot of plants, are probably faced more with dramatic experiences of work stoppage or shortage due to the transportation of product and just-in-time, and with financial institutions walking in and dropping the note on employers, than are due to labour-management relations.
I'm just trying to determine what's actually going on here, as we're hearing both the business and labour perspective. In your opening remarks, you talked about working on behalf of the employees and the employer, cooperation and working together, and I'm just wondering if there's something you could add from the perspective of the real problems that are sometimes faced.
Mr Myers: A couple of points, just to touch on what you seem to be getting at: Yes, I did mention in my remarks that more generally, my role is to see to it that employers and employees our organization deals with succeed and prosper. That's not a one-sided ambition. As previous speakers have said and as I'm sure all of you know, one side cannot exist without the other. If a company is on the skids and workers realize it -- or they should realize it -- then they have to either modify their demands or, in some cases, take cuts to keep that business afloat. That's not unusual to see these days, and it happens all over.
In terms of some of the particular problems that smaller companies face, particularly in auto parts, a lot of small companies are running lean and haven't got a lot of capital to keep them going. Their credit lines at the banks are being cut off, and not only is that an immediate problem for the business at hand but for the people they supply.
To that end, I do have a letter to George Peapples, president of General Motors. It was sent to him by Buzz Hargrove, president, Canadian Auto Workers union, on that very topic. If the committee likes, I could read it or submit it for its perusal. It's not that lengthy, but it goes into the various things you're talking about. The point is made that Bill 40 doesn't inhibit "the ability of Ontario parts manufacturers to be reliable providers of components of vehicle assemblers" in the province, and that more time is lost as a result of not only traffic problems on the 401 but certainly --
The Chair: You're quoting from the letter.
Mr Myers: Yes, I am, actually. I'm trying to find the point I was trying to make here.
Mr Hope: Just submitting the letter would be quite appropriate.
Mr Myers: Yes, I'll just submit the letter and you can go over it. I think it would probably take too much time to read.
With things like just-in-time as well, if a parts supplier has a major breakdown in equipment, then obviously the customers who are waiting for those parts, because of the just-in-time system, might have to send workers home, have a layoff until a parts supplier can get a piece of equipment operating again. So yes, there are problems associated with just-in-time, but I can understand the rationale behind it in a lot of ways: it cuts down on warehousing costs etc.
If I want to emphasize anything in what you're speaking about, it is the fact that we both have a vested interest in this whole situation. If we are to make this transition from manufacturing to service, as we seem to be doing in this country, particularly in Ontario, because we've been the heartland of manufacturing, then those workers who lose their jobs in manufacturing and have to go to the service sector for a job -- a lot of the jobs in the service industries are part-time jobs -- very often find themselves taking on two or maybe three part-time jobs.
Because of the fact that traditionally they've been low-paid, I think it's very important that those people in that sector particularly have access to the certification process, should they choose to go that route, because it is the certification process and the fact that they're organized and collective in their dealings with management that have allowed industries like the manufacturing industry to achieve the standard of living we've enjoyed in this province for many years now. I think it's important that this be said, because they do spend their wages in the community; and if they're going to go to a service sector, where they haven't got the ability to organize as part-time workers, then I guess we can expect to see the standard of living drop dramatically in this province.
Mr Hayes: Mr Myers, we hear arguments on both sides. One side says there's a level playing field here, that if it works, don't fix it, that it seems to be going quite smoothly. Yet the other side has come to the hearings and talked about some of the harassment or coercion or intimidation or even firings of people who attempted to join a union.
I know you touched a little bit on what the state of relations would be if we didn't have a Labour Relations Act now, even as it is. But in your opinion, and I'd like to know, how drastically would these amendments really change the balance of employer rights versus employees' rights, and could you give us any specific examples?
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Mr Myers: I could give you many examples of organizing drives I was in charge of where people were fired or people were taken aside and, maybe not fired, but told either to back off their organizing activity or they would be; that happens. If somebody suggested it's human nature that people overreact when they find out that perhaps their employees are going to organize, well, it is an overreaction, because it does happen.
A case in point right here in Kingston is a company by the name of Bosal that makes exhaust systems for imported vehicles. We began an organizing drive there some four years ago. There are about 80 people in the workplace, not a huge workplace. Shortly into the organizing drive -- I wasn't in charge of that particular one, but our organization was, and I know we were sitting at around 15% to 20% of the workers signed up to cards, hardly enough to make an application. But we had just gotten the drive started, and the company came out and made statements and gave letters to the employees -- I can't quote them because I don't have the letters with me -- to the effect that should a union come in, there would be devastating consequences in terms of the business, and it led the workers to believe that the place would close.
The Ontario Labour Relations Board, when it reviewed these circumstances, decided that even though the union only had between 15% and 25% of the workforce signed up, in no possible way could a democratic vote be taken because it wouldn't express the true desires of those workers because of the interference by management.
I know there's a rationale out there, and sometimes it's a pretty hard argument to make that we shouldn't agree to a vote in every certification process. I know that argument's been put to you, probably, and I've certainly heard it from the business community. Why not? It sounds very democratic, and it makes it a tough argument to get around. But a lot of those workers who wanted a union, if there had been a vote, would have voted no, because what are you going to do? Are you going to vote for something that will cost your job? Obviously not, even though you might think it's the way to go.
So the board realizes that votes can be tainted because of such actions. I'm not saying it happens in every organizing drive; it certainly doesn't, because most employers are smart enough not to make those statements, because they are in fact illegal, but it happens.
As an organizer, I'd like to tell you that we go to organize a bargaining unit only where workers have called us and asked us to come in and organize. We don't go into places where we haven't been invited by workers, and not just a couple of workers; we have to get a consensus whether there are enough that a significant majority could be had. When we start an organizing drive, we're very cognizant of the fact that the board scrutinizes and questions witnesses and may call any card signer to see that it was a true statement of desire on his or her part.
I always tried, as an organizer, to impress upon people who were working with me to get cards signed, because I couldn't get into the workplace to sign them up personally. You have to rely on employees to go around and sign people up. I had to rely on them, and therefore I instructed them very explicitly not to engage in anything that could be remotely construed by the board to be coercion, intimidation or any such practices. If people said no, you might make an argument, you might make your point to them as to why they should, but if they insist that it's no, then you leave them alone and let them decide. It is a democratic society we live in, and I tried to impress that upon them.
I can only speak from my own experiences, but certainly we're aware of the board proceedings and we are aware that it does scrutinize both sides for not engaging in practices that could be considered coercive.
Mr Offer: Thank you for your presentation. You will know that during these hearings, we have heard individuals and groups come before the committee and say these changes will cost jobs and investment. On the other hand, we've also heard individuals come before the committee and say there will be no effect on jobs or investment. I was somewhat intrigued by your presentation, because you alluded to the NAFTA, and though I do not know the position of your union on that at this time, it seems to me you would think it absolutely essential for your members to be fully aware of what the impact of the NAFTA agreement would be. I'm wondering if you could confirm that.
Mr Myers: There's no doubt that we communicate very strongly with our members on matters such as NAFTA, and our message to them is quite clear. We do have a position on it. Just to let you know what that is, our position is that, with respect to Mexico and North American trade, in autos particularly, because that's the predominant industry we deal with, we should have a style of agreement similar to the auto pact that had been in place for many years with the US. That's the type of agreement we should be negotiating on a tripartite basis with Mexico and the US.
Mr Offer: I think I understand what you're saying. I think you're envisaging that type of agreement because you're aware of what the impact would be to your members.
Mr Myers: Right.
Mr Offer: So if that is your position with NAFTA -- and I think it is reasonable in the extreme -- and if, on this bill, we have some people saying jobs and investment will be lost, with others saying they'll be gained, don't you believe that in order to build some sort of cooperative spirit, the government should undertake an impact statement on this bill, putting to rest as best it can those concerns about what this bill might do, which you are almost demanding the federal government do with the NAFTA agreement? Why not the consistency in two areas which people, for or against, recognize are going to have a fundamental impact on the economy of this province?
Mr Myers: With all due respect, Mr Offer, there are two points I would raise in response to your question and concern. First of all, our position on NAFTA is to present an alternative to NAFTA. The auto pact type of package that has sustained our automotive industry in Canada for many years -- and very well, I might add -- is hardly the same as the type of liberalized, free trade style of agreement that has now been negotiated with Mexico. They're diametrically opposite. The thrust of the auto pact style of agreement is to say that if you purchase a certain amount of vehicles, then you're going to build a certain amount of vehicles. All right?
The other point I would make is that I personally don't need, and I don't think CAW needs, an impact study either on NAFTA -- we've never called for that -- or this. You don't have to be Houdini to figure out that NAFTA, as it stands right now, is going to cost this country jobs. You don't have to be Houdini to know that Bill 40, when you see part-time workers who now don't have the right to organize -- I don't need an impact study to tell me that workers get fired during organizing drives. I don't need an impact study to tell me that with so many people losing their jobs in manufacturing and going to the service sector, those barriers to organizing have to be taken down.
Mr Offer: The issue isn't organizing; the issue is jobs and investment. If you can be so clear and so certain that NAFTA is going to cause job loss, what do you say to those -- and I'm not saying this -- who would say, "Maybe it won't"? What do you say to those who say this bill is going to cause investment loss, is going to cause job loss, is not going to create a job? Why, instead of us talking about things we don't have on the table, isn't it most responsible, in this new era of competition, to have government say, "We think these provisions are necessary for a variety of reasons, and we believe the responsible approach for all workers in this province, for the economy in general, is to look, on a sector-by-sector basis, at what this means to the province"? What is someone so afraid of?
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Mr Myers: I don't think we're afraid of a study.
Mr Offer: Not yourself.
Mr Myers: Contrary to the suggestion of certain members of this committee that this whole exercise is nothing more than a public relations effort -- which I happened to see on television when the hearings first opened -- that's not why I'm here. I'm here to present my experiences and my input, and I think you're here to listen to those, and I know you're hearing it from both sides. I consider this whole exercise a study on the potential impact of this legislation.
By the same token, with respect to NAFTA, I have to go back to the Canada-US free trade deal. If the ramifications of NAFTA are going to be similar to that, I don't think we need to spend taxpayers' dollars on an impact study. I think we know what's going to happen.
Mr Runciman: I like Mr Offer's analogy with respect to the position the CAW is taking on NAFTA versus this particular legislation. You talk about Houdini, but it seems to me that your approach and the approach of a lot of people in organized labour could be a sort of an Alice in Wonderland approach, because I have difficulty with what you're saying.
As to some of the things you're talking about, service jobs and organizing the service industry because they have traditionally been low-paying jobs, I have a lot of service jobs in my riding in the tourism industry, and I know they're having an extremely difficult time now, even with the recent change in the minimum wage. Some of these very small businesses are having an extremely difficult time surviving. It's just one other thing in terms of the tax load, the increase in hydro costs etc that is eroding their competitive position.
You talk about spending money, that these people spend their money in the province versus business people making profits and investing outside of the province. We have a particular problem, in this part of the country anyway, with cross-border shopping. People are not spending their money in this province; they're going across the border where business and industry are producing products at less cost than what we can do in this environment.
I have a big company, and there are a number of them in my riding, like Black and Decker. These are multinational corporations with head offices outside of this country. We can argue that the Ernst and Young study doesn't hold water; 295,000 jobs lost, and you say it doesn't hold water. We've been pursuing the government and organized labour to come up with a study that will contradict that, but we haven't been able to achieve that commitment yet.
I'm just concerned about this sort of approach from organized labour, that things are going to continue to get wonderful, improve in this province despite making these changes in the depth of the worst recession we've seen since the 1930s. You say this is the time to do it anyway. I can see that, from your perspective and the fact that you have an NDP government in place in Ontario, it may be the time, but when faced with all the other facts that confront us, I don't think it is the time at all to be introducing these kinds of significant changes which are going to make this the most comprehensive labour legislation in North America in terms of legislation affecting labour relations.
I'm really looking for why you have such a rosy scenario about the implications of this legislation despite everything we're hearing from the other side of the equation. Whether you buy it or not, they have spent money and conducted an impact study, whereas you folks have not done that. You simply say: "No, things are going to be great. These fears are just imagined, and they're not going to really occur."
Mr Myers: Having met with individual workers for years, trying to organize them -- and, as I said in my brief, the attitudes about unions by workers are no different than those of society as a whole -- there are a lot of reasons why they want to join and there are a lot of reasons why they won't. I don't think those attitudes are going to change by expediting the process by which the board determines the true desires.
I'd like to give you an example of something else you said. You mentioned cross-border shopping. I can localize the example, I guess. You talked about parts of my brief that dealt with companies taking profits and investing them elsewhere.
I represent workers in a plant in your riding in Brockville: Gilbarco. They manufacture gasoline pumps. Recently, a contractual raise was due to the workers. We weren't in negotiations. It was midterm in the contract and they were due for a contractual wage increase.
Gilbarco, like many other small operations -- that particular operation is small, although Gilbarco is a fairly large company. The plant manager approached the union committee and asked if they would forgo the contractual increase that was due to them on the same day that he rode into work in a $30,000 company foreign car. It doesn't give the workforce a good impression in terms of "What's he doing to help our economy?" It's pretty tough to convince a worker to give up a contractual raise of 50 cents an hour when the plant manager drives into work that same day in a new $30,000 import. It doesn't leave a very good taste in their mouths.
Yes, some of our members and workers do cross-border shop. In a lot of cases they're laid off and haven't got that much money and they're looking for a bargain, I guess. We obviously don't think that's wise on their part but, by the same token, they're following the example the business community sets by going cross-border shopping for labour. I've had that argument thrown at me by workers who cross-border shop when I try to instil in them that it's not such a good idea.
Mr Runciman: Management is the source of all their sins.
Mr Myers: No, I'm not saying that, but when you lead the way, people follow.
The Chair: Mr Myers, I thank you on behalf of the committee, you and CAW, the Canadian Auto Workers, for your participation in this process. You've made a meaningful and valuable contribution. We thank you and your membership.
Mr Myers: It's my pleasure. Thank you very much.
KINGSTON AND DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL
The Chair: The next participant is the Kingston and District Labour Council. Would those people please come forward, have a seat, and give us their names and titles if any.
Mr Charlie Stock: Good afternoon. My name is Charlie Stock. I'm president of the Kingston and District Labour Council.
Part of my brief incorporates two letters I'd like to present at the end of this to the Chair regarding some thoughts.
On behalf of the Kingston and District Labour Council, we're pleased to be able to make this presentation and written submission to the resources development committee. We're here today to respond to Bill 40, the government's proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act. The labour council will try to give the members of this committee information as to what we support in the amendments and why we support it.
The right to organize has been extended to a number of groups currently excluded. Our council supports the proposed amendments which remove the exclusion of domestics, agricultural, horticultural and forestry workers, hunters and trappers, and professionals.
Clearly there is room for improvement in this collective bargaining process in our province. To achieve the relationships the government is pursuing, amendments to the Ontario Labour Relations Act are necessary.
Some people will say business will leave the province if these changes occur. These individuals should question why General Motors Corp is making business decisions about downsizing and talking only about plants in Ontario while investing millions of dollars in Sainte-Thérèse, Quebec, where the provincial government has legislation dealing with replacement workers.
Many jobs have been lost in the Kingston area, and I ask the question, if these labour law amendments were shelved, would the plants that are closed, such as Kingston Spinners, Olan Mills, and J. P. Coats, reopen? Would the workers be recalled from all the workplaces that have experienced downsizing and massive layoffs? Please don't let the critics confuse this issue, such as the media campaign we're experiencing.
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Security guards who belong to a union should have the right to choose which organization they would like to join; again, the freedom to decide. Basically, my message is that if you want a union, it should be up to you. Give workers the freedom to choose. Certainly the amendments which have been proposed are dealing with the issue of fairness. Not all workers in the province of Ontario want to belong to a union, but they should have the freedom of choice to vote yes or no in a democratic fashion.
Kingston and District Labour Council endorses the changes to improve collective bargaining and reduce industrial conflict.
Replacement workers: This is surely the most controversial section of the proposed amendments. The use of replacement workers and possible prohibitions against this practice have been the subject of considerable debate since the introduction of replacement worker legislation in Quebec. Such restrictions will only apply during a lawful strike or lockout, and this must be authorized by a strike vote in which at least 60% of those voting authorize the strike.
The passing of these amendments should eliminate the emotionally charged and hostile picket line confrontations of the past. For example, here are two letters related to recent situations in Kingston.
"1. We, the members of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, Local 414, from S & R Department Store, feel that the amendments being made to the Labour Relations Act are exactly what are needed now and were needed during the fall, winter and spring of 1990-91 when we were on strike. The anger and hurt that was felt by all of us on the picket line during a very cold and bitter winter will be embedded in our minds for ever.
"The insults and ridicule that we suffered from people who were uninformed enough to believe that the company was hurting as badly as they would have liked us to believe was indescribable.
"The humiliation and frustration of having scabs cross the picket line every day for over five and a half months to do our jobs while all we wanted was a fair settlement was almost unbearable.
"It is time for these amendments so future generations of working people will be protected and not have to endure the pain and hardships that we had to endure during our long and bitter strike.
"The business communities and chamber of commerce in Ontario must be living in the 1930s with their Neanderthal way of thinking to believe that changes are not desperately needed to an act that has not been changed or amended in over 15 years."
"2. In August 1990, after negotiations failed to achieve desired salary increases in the renewal of the contract for the workers of St Lawrence Place, Kingston, a strike vote was taken.
"Both St Lawrence Place and its Burlington branch, St Charles, are part of the Paron Construction empire in this province. Ramada Inn and the condominium tower adjoining the St Lawrence building complex on prime downtown land were and may still be part of that empire."
Of the two places we're talking about, the department store, S & R, is about half a block from this hotel, and the other place is a block and a half the other end of the street.
"Listed as Kingston's `premier retirement home,' St Lawrence Place is premier in so far as the high rates it charges and the demands it puts on its employees are concerned, but not so premier in the wages they pay their employees, being among the lowest-paid in the field throughout the province.
"Local 183 of Service Employees International Union, at St Lawrence Place, is composed of about 40 women, for the most part, part-timers, who for various reasons have joined the workforce.
"It must have taken a great deal of courage to have decided on a strike vote, because it meant a cessation of their ability to participate in the support of the family -- for some, perhaps, the only support of the family -- strained family relationships, and the loss of independence, pride and dignity to subject themselves to the elements while manning the picket line from August to mid-December.
"Surely the vote to strike was motivated by frustration if not by despair. A strike, never experienced by these employees before, was the last resort open to workers, having reached an impasse with management negotiators; the last and, in this case, fruitless attempt to win over management interest in bringing the main issue to a speedy and agreeable conclusion, and to show management the unity of purpose the workers have in that endeavour, believing in the justice of their expectations.
"After four long months, these courageous people were, by necessity and mounting difficulties, compelled to accept 65 cents over two years -- to have sacrificed so much for so little. The lowest increase that 65 cents represented is about 60 cents an hour less than today's current minimum wage, by the way. The employer and the workers would never be quite the same again.
"During the whole strike period, the owners of St Lawrence Place employed a company of security guards at great cost, money that could easily have gone towards settling wage increase demands. Their prime interest seemed to be to intimidate these women strikers by calling in the local police force for mainly imagined and often seemingly induced transgressions of strike rules. Though management had always demanded the very best of their knowledgeable employees, now they were willing to hire scab labour, these people largely untrained opportunists, insensitive to the reason for the people manning the picket line they had to cross, many like thieves in the night. Thieves they were and thieves they are.
"The residents for whom the employer had previously shown concern were now not too concerned to inconvenience at the usual high monthly rates and regular yearly increases. Not logical, not just, and certainly, in my opinion, lacking in wisdom, an employer most people would rather not work for if not out of convenience, necessity or insecurity.
"Employers like that of St Lawrence Place very often complain about the lack of industrious, reliable and dedicated workers, yet do not seem obliged or responsible to pay fair wages or offer decent working conditions in order to have and keep good people. Profits may be lower, but a knowledgeable employee earning a fair wage can be the difference between business and no business.
"Workers in a country like ours should not be expected to exist at a poverty level or be forced to retain two or even three jobs in order to make a living, or we should stop criticizing in our pompous way the less industrialized countries, where this is a rule of life. Workers should not feel guilty when making rightful demands of their employer or be forced to strike in order to attempt to get justifiable wage increases.
"Things may have been different for the workers of St Lawrence Place if anti-scab legislation had been written into law. We will now accept nothing less of our provincial government than that it do so, and give us a realistic minimum wage as well. We voted for this government, trusting in it and promises it made. Fulfil these promises or lose our support."
The writer of this letter is doing so out of respect and sympathy for his fellow worker. He has never been involved in a strike before, has always had an abhorrence of strikes and, if anything, up until now has been management-oriented.
In an emergency, the amendments provide that the employer can hire replacement workers without consulting the union, but the employer is required to inform the union as soon as possible. The union can then insist that the employer use striking bargaining unit workers to perform the emergency work. The board is granted the power to determine whether the circumstances described exist, to modify the actions taken, subsections 73.2(11) and (12), and to expedite proceedings into alleged violations of these sections, subsection 104(14).
Overall, the amendments will assist the parties in focusing their attention and efforts on the real issues before them. By eliminating disputes regarding scab labour, the law will facilitate the work of the parties in concluding a collective agreement expeditiously.
The board's interpretation of subsection 73.2(3) enables the employer to use replacement workers or striking workers with union consent in order to prevent danger to people, the workplace or the environment.
The council supports the new statutory provision, section 75, concerning a back-to-work protocol which parallels that of other provinces such as Manitoba and Quebec. This amendment will apply whenever the union and the employer cannot agree on the terms for reinstating striking employees at the termination of a lawful strike or lockout. Where there is no agreement on reinstatement, the employer is now obliged -- "shall reinstate" -- the striking or locked-out employee to the position held before the strike unless there is "not sufficient work."
Where work is insufficient, employees must be recalled in accordance with their collective agreement's recall provisions. Where these do not exist, the recall must be in accordance with "each employee's length of service." Striking employees are explicitly "entitled to displace" non-bargaining-unit replacement workers.
This amendment will have a positive impact on those few lengthy strikes where employees and their union have little bargaining power left. It will also throw into question whether an employer, following an employee's reinstatement, can discipline or discharge an employee for conduct during a strike.
In conclusion, we would like to take this opportunity to thank the resources development committee for taking the time to hear our views. We trust that our concerns will receive serious consideration in the final writing of this legislation, which is so very important to our members and the people of Ontario as a whole.
I was just going to give the last page of this attached brief for your information, but after listening to the district chamber of commerce this morning quoting Professor Carter, there are some parts of this newspaper article that I think are worth my reading out:
"And if Ontario does adopt the new reforms, says Professor Carter, it will simply be `catching up to other jurisdictions.' Research carried out by the Ontario Federation of Labour shows that Manitoba, for instance, has adopted 11 of the 13 key reforms. Quebec has adopted eight reforms, including the so-called anti-scab legislation. The federal government and Saskatchewan have adopted seven, British Columbia six, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island three. Even Tory Alberta has adopted five key reforms....
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"An in-house Ministry of Labour study suggested that some of the reforms would save money for both sides by reducing litigation, thereby improving labour-management relations. Many other reforms are expected to be cost-neutral. The study's authors expect the reforms to result in a slight to moderate increase in union organizing in Ontario; they are unsure, however, if this will necessarily cost employers money. Some studies suggest that unionization increases productivity and competitiveness.
"In the heat of a strike, unions and management sometimes forget that they have a common interest. `Unions do not want to put employers out of business,' says Professor Carter. He suggests that most of the resistance to the reforms come from non-union employers and not from unionized corporate giants like those in the automotive industry. `My sense is that the largest employers in this province are not going to the wall on this.'
"Professor Carter predicts that the NDP's labour reforms will eliminate some of Ontario's nastier strikes and foster better labour-management cooperation. They are aimed, he says, at encouraging a unionized, high-wage economy, based on the reasonable assumption that Ontario cannot compete with such low-wage economies as Mexico's. "`We have been going that way,' he says, `since the Second World War.'"
With that, thank you very much, and I'm open for questions also.
The Chair: You gave us two letters. One is from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, Local 414, and that's signed. The other one --
Mr Stock: It's from a worker at St Lawrence Place who feels too intimidated to sign it. His name is on the envelope that's before you.
The Chair: Okay. We'll not receive that as an exhibit then. You've made reference to it in your submission.
Mr Stock: Very well. I gave it to you in the envelope with his name on it.
The Chair: I understand that. But it's either going to go in with the envelope or it's not going to go in. Do you understand what I'm saying, sir?
Mr Stock: The important thing is that the people of the committee have heard the views.
The Chair: Fine, thank you. Mr Offer.
Mr Offer: Ms Fawcett is next.
Mrs Fawcett: I thank you for your presentation and I understand now the retirement home that you're speaking of would have maybe some essential services that would be part of what is provided at this place. I'm just wondering how a strike would affect a place like that where replacement workers would not be allowed in, in reference to seniors who are unable, let's say, to take care of themselves. That's why they are at a place like that. I'm wondering how that all works out. Could you explain?
Mr Stock: St Lawrence Place is a retirement home; it's not a chronic care type facility. It's not the type where people need constant care. As a matter of fact, it's all à la carte, and if somebody wanted help with a bath or wanted his or her toenails trimmed or anything like that, you pay as you go. In the act, the way I understand it, the reforms will cover off essential emergency-type situations. It wouldn't have an impact on St Lawrence Place if there was a real need in the case of emergencies or what not.
Mrs Fawcett: I'm just thinking in terms of, let's say, basic cleaning and the health regulations and things like that. If people were on strike and those kinds of functions couldn't be performed, then there would come a point where the residents would either have to leave possibly or the place would have to shut down.
Mr Stock: Or perhaps the company's bargaining committee will have to sit down in good faith and come to an expedited collective agreement.
Mrs Fawcett: I agree. I'm agreeing with you. If there are wrongs there, I am much in favour of the workers' rights and so on. But right now, I do have some concern, let's say, for the residents who would be there and just how that would all work out.
Mr Stock: I would suggest to you that the employees of St Lawrence Place have just as many concerns for the people they are taking care of and would not unnecessarily want to see anything negative happen to them. These people, through their experience in a very prolonged labour dispute, had nothing. At $5.40 as a settled wage increase, it's hard for me to fathom that an employer is paying out that much when the minimum you're going to pay to be able to live at St Lawrence Place is over $2,000 a month. If the owner of St Lawrence Place was as concerned for the residents as he appears not to be concerned as far as a fair wage for the people working there -- I think that's where the whole thing comes down to.
Mrs Fawcett: I have no trouble with your thinking there in the concern for the residents and the workers getting a fair wage, but in a situation like that, I think there are a few extenuating circumstances and I'm just wondering how they'd be resolved.
Mr Offer: As you were going through your presentation, something came to mind and I'd like to get your thought on this.
In the organizing drive, in Bill 40 there is no duty on the part of the organizers, however they've decided to come in, either at the request of one worker or not, to serve a notice that there is an organizing drive commencing, to post a notice informing workers of their rights or indeed to inform the employer that there's an organizing drive being undertaken. Would you support a change in the legislation that would sort of take an organizing drive into the open, that when an organizing drive is being commenced, there be an obligation on the part of the organizers to inform through notice of rights and responsibilities that it is being undertaken?
Mr Stock: No. My perception of what you just asked me is that you're really insulting working people's intelligence. If somebody comes knocking on my door and asks me about my ability or whatever my feelings are on a certain trade union activity or any other activity, I'm not naïve enough to think that a working person is not smart enough to understand what's happening. I don't understand why you would have to think that there's somebody so blind or scary or --
Mr Offer: I'm sorry. I don't think it should be read that way and I'll tell you why.
Under Bill 40, as you're in favour of the abolition of petitions, there is still, as we hear from the government, the right of a worker to use what is termed a petition prior to the filing of an application. It would seem to me that the way in which we can ensure that all workers know their rights is to be certain that all workers are aware of what's going on. This is far from being an affront to workers. This is more in the lines of protecting the workers' right to choose and change their minds.
Mr Stock: Certainly workers deserve the right to choose and make up their minds and certainly they're intelligent enough to do that.
Mr Runciman: Mr Stock, what do you do for a living in the area?
Mr Stock: I work for Northern Telecom.
Mr Runciman: What's the labour relations experience there for the last 10 years or so? Any problems, any long-term strikes? How are things?
Mr Stock: We've had strikes at our workplace, yes. My local union is not confined just to Northern Telecom. My local union is part of Bosal Canada. It's part of UTDC, which is now Bombardier, and part of the defence works which just recently shut down.
Mr Runciman: You say you've had strikes. How many in the last 10 years?
Mr Stock: In 10 years?
Mr Runciman: Yes.
Mr Stock: I would say three.
Mr Runciman: Of significant duration?
Mr Stock: No.
Mr Runciman: Are there specifically areas of this legislation that you can point to that would have helped you out of those situations?
Mr Stock: I can think of lots of situations around here. In my own local?
Mr Runciman: Yes, I'm talking about the specific strikes. I assume a lot of them were based on wage increases, benefits and those kinds of things.
Mr Stock: Our collective agreement is in a master form, so it's not just what's happening here in Kingston. It's what's happening in Belleville, Brampton, London and, until recently, in Saint John, New Brunswick. It's a master agreement, so you can't localize an issue for this area.
Mr Runciman: When you're saying you have a strike, it's not at the Kingston site. It's a broad strike.
Mr Stock: It goes across the province. If there's a strike, it would be across the master agreement.
Mr Runciman: I see. Were most of those strikes based on wages and compensation?
Mr Stock: Several issues.
Mr Runciman: I'm trying to get your feel on whether you felt any specific elements of this legislation would have seen you avoid those strike situations.
Mr Stock: No, but I think the bargaining relationship right across the province, if you could get to the point where employers, bargaining agents and the government are working together, you'll end up with a better situation, not just where I work but right through the province.
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Mr Runciman: Is Northern Telecom a continuous operation, or is it an eight-hour, 12-hour kind of thing?
Mr Stock: Some parts are continuous; some aren't.
Mr Runciman: In the Kingston site?
Mr Stock: They have from time to time been on a seven-day operation.
Mr Runciman: Reflecting on the last strike, was the company able to operate the plant with the management staff?
Mr Stock: During the last 10 years, the company has never attempted to operate the facility through the course of a strike.
Mr Runciman: So you haven't had a personal problem with the question of replacement workers.
Mr Stock: I have a personal problem with the idea of seeing people in our community, which we have seen here, affected negatively in a situation which this legislation would certainly correct.
Mr Runciman: You made your views clear. I'm talking about your own personal experience at Northern Telecom. Obviously, as you said, you haven't had a problem.
I'm curious about the whole question of continuous operations. You're being very aggressive here. Obviously you feel strongly about the legislation, but I'm just curious about this one element of it. Having worked in the chemical industry, knowing you have CIL and a number of other of those kinds of operations in the Kingston area, do you have any sympathy for the ownership of those kinds of businesses in respect to trying to keep their operations running in a strike situation? I gather your goal simply is, if you go out on strike or the employees go out on strike, there's a total shutdown and that's the situation you want to see them experience.
Mr Stock: We never go to the bargaining table to bargain a strike; we go to the bargaining table to negotiate a collective agreement. We exhaust many, many hours through the collective bargaining process before we end up in the situation where there'd be a labour dispute.
Mr Runciman: But I'm saying that you obviously have no sympathy for the owners and management of continuous operations. It can take weeks to get an operation up and running, at the cost of thousands upon thousands of dollars, and I gather that in that respect you have no sympathy for that sort of situation at all.
Mr Stock: At the Northern Telecom plant here in Kingston on Gardiners Road, we have never through the course of a strike had the facility and its extrusion equipment shut down. If it's going to be shut down it has to be properly shut down, and we all want jobs to come back to. We certainly want our employer to be successful, because if we're not successful, then there won't be any jobs later anyhow.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr Wilson.
Mr Gary Wilson: Thanks a lot, Mr Chairman. I want to leave some time for my colleagues.
The Chair: All of them?
Mr Gary Wilson: Mr Ward, at least. I think they'd all like to say something in response to this brief. Thanks a lot, Charlie, for this response. It's too bad to see Mr Runciman leaving. He seems not to have gotten the message very clearly that what you feel strongly about is not so much the legislation but what the labour relations have done up to this point. You've made it very clear what the workers at St Lawrence Place had to go through to get a very substandard settlement. Perhaps you want to repeat that, about what it means to a worker to earn those wages in our society; as you point out, less than minimum wage.
Mr Stock: It's less than two years since the labour dispute at St Lawrence Place, when those people, beginning at the bottom, were only making $5.40 an hour. Most of them were part-time; obviously, if they had families to support, they had to go out and find a second job. These people are not greedy workers; all they're trying to do is make their workplace a better working environment and to take care of their families and raise their standard of living, not by a substantial amount but by a fair amount.
The idea that because they were out for that length of time they perhaps weren't concerned about the people they're over there taking care of is absurd. They care and they care sincerely. But they also care about trying to raise their standard of living, and not one of those workers, I will assure you, when they thought they were getting into a labour dispute -- they'd never had a labour dispute there before. This was the first opportunity, and I'll tell you, not one of them ever dreamt their employer would treat them that drastically, for such a long time.
Most of the time, when we're talking about replacement workers, it's people who require very little training; and especially in the current situation, where there is a high unemployment rate, people can be intimidated into going and taking other people's jobs.
Mr Gary Wilson: It seems that Mr Runciman believes sympathy for the worker does not leave room for any sympathy for the management or the employer. Yet you've pointed out that certainly in your own negotiations you want a job to come back to. It's not as though you're trying to drive the employer out of business, as the implication of some of the submissions appears to be, that workers become unionized only to drive employers out of business.
In your submission you also point out that companies have left this very city before the legislation has appeared. As you say, they're not going to come back simply if we scrap the plans for this legislation. In other words, there are other factors that go into making that decision.
But to talk about the attitude in the workplace for a moment, one of the members of the Liberal Party suggested that it's almost like a family dispute; certainly one of the management representatives agreed with that, that it is family-based. But can you imagine families treating each other like this? For instance, on the picket line it's the workers who have to put up with the loss of income and the rough conditions on the picket line. Do you see that this is anything like a family setting, that workplace relations are on that basis?
Mr Stock: I certainly wouldn't like to see my family treated that way. If business is the head of the family and it is doing that, I guess that's why we created children's aid societies and a few other outfits to take care of problems like that.
The Chair: I want to thank you, Mr Stock, and the Kingston and District Labour Council for your interest, for your participation and for your valuable contribution to this process.
Mr Stock: Thank you very much.
The Chair: We're grateful. Take care.
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KINGSTON COMMUNITY LEGAL CLINIC
The Chair: The next participant is the Kingston Community Legal Clinic. Mr Done, please come forward, have a seat, tell us your full name, your title, if any, and proceed with your submissions.
Mr John Done: My name is John Done. I have the honour of being the director of the Kingston Community Legal Clinic, and it's on behalf of the clinic that I'm making these presentations.
I've prepared a paper. I hope all of you have a copy of it. You'll be glad to know I'm not going to read from that paper. I'll try to highlight a few remarks. I hope I don't need the whole half-hour, but perhaps there will be some questions as well.
I'm here to talk about a fairly narrow issue in the labour relations reform. The narrow issues that seem to be involved are, firstly, the ability of some people to join trade unions who previously weren't allowed to join trade unions, and secondly, the process of certifying a trade union as a worker's bargaining agent, and the extent to which both of those issues will likely have the result of increasing the degree of unionization in this province.
The comments I'm going to make to you this afternoon are purely the result of my background as the director of the Kingston Community Legal Clinic. I've worked at this clinic as a lawyer for the last four years. Our clinic is typical among most of the 75 community legal clinics in the province. What we do at that clinic is provide free legal services in the areas of poverty law. What I mean by poverty law are workers' compensation, which seems to be affected, in my view, by these amendments; we do welfare family benefits work, and we do unemployment insurance advocacy as well.
What we find is that many of the people who come to us with employment-related complaints come because they've worked in hazardous workplaces, they've been injured on the job or they've been fired unjustly. Of the people who come to us at the clinic, the overwhelming percentage -- I would hazard to guess about 90% of them -- are non-unionized workers. They come to the legal clinic for advocacy because they haven't got a union to represent them. They have no one to speak on their behalf when they encounter a difficult situation of fact or law. Often, in my view, these people are fired because they have no protection. When a situation develops at work that puts their job in jeopardy, they have no one to advocate on their behalf, to negotiate on their behalf and to tell their side of the story.
I suspect that many of the people who come to us are injured because they're non-unionized as well. I wish I had some statistics on that, but what I mean to say is that people who are injured are frequently injured because of a failure to comply with the Occupational Health and Safety Act. The employer doesn't maintain a safe workplace. In situations where unions exist, I suggest that there's a greater compliance with the Occupational Health and Safety Act. If there's an unfair situation at work, a worker has access to the shop steward. A worker has a voice where they can say, "Do something, employer, about this workplace," and as a result, there are fewer injuries.
But what happens when somebody is injured or when somebody's fired unfairly? If a union exists, they can file a grievance if they're fired and they have somebody who can negotiate and, if it's a matter worth pursuing, who can appear on their behalf at a grievance hearing. If somebody is injured and is no longer able to work, he can go to his union representative and the union rep will help him with his problems with the Workers' Compensation Board. Any of you who've had any experience with the Workers' Compensation Board know it can be a black hole of bureaucracy. The law is complicated and the bureaucracy itself is complicated, but these unionized workers have somebody to speak on their behalf.
What about non-unionized workers? What happens to them? First we have to consider, what about all the rights we have in Ontario? At first glance, an Ontario employee is well protected. In my view, with all the faults in all these statutes, our Workers' Compensation Act is progressive, we have progressive occupational health and safety legislation, we have a Human Rights Code that is probably the measure for any other jurisdiction in the world, we have the Pay Equity Act and we have a number of laws that apparently benefit workers.
The problem is that all the rights an employee has are hollow unless the employee knows what those rights are and has access to somebody who can speak on his or her behalf. Non-unionized employees frequently have no one to speak on their behalf, and their level of understanding of what their rights are is often less than in a unionized workplace.
When somebody who is a non-unionized employee is injured and he has difficulty with the Workers' Compensation Board, where does he turn? As the situation now exists, there is some form of advocacy. We have a system of community legal clinics, we have the office of the worker adviser, we have the unemployment help centre and we have constituency offices.
The problem with all of these is that they don't have the resources to meet the demand. At the legal clinic we've been turning away people for years, and what this means is that often they don't get their workers' compensation, so they have to go on welfare. That results in an expense to them, to their family and to the public as a whole that has to support this person. All of these systems are strained. I'm sure that any of you who've had experience with the worker adviser office will know that typically they run a serious backlog, and they're not everywhere in the province, like a union can be.
What unions therefore do by providing advocacy and education is bring some life to all of these rights. They mean that when somebody has a problem at work, maybe his working life won't be unnecessarily disrupted, maybe his income won't be necessarily disrupted, and maybe he won't have to turn to his family or the public for support.
These are important issues, because this committee has heard ideas like competitiveness and the cost the Labour Relations Act might have to the province. I can't argue that there aren't some costs and I can't really make an argument about competitiveness, but what I can say is that when people's rights aren't respected or when people don't have advocates to speak on their behalf, that has cost to the public as well. We have to look at both sides of the balance sheet.
Finally, what about the specific people covered by this legislation? I find it difficult to understand how anybody can argue against the idea of people like domestics being entitled to join unions. These are the sorts of things that ought not to be up for discussion. When we talk about people like domestics or agricultural workers, often we're talking about immigrants, we're talking about the least articulate and the people who are the least able to promote their rights.
I'm asking you to support this legislation at least in so far as it encourages and allows people to have a ready means of advocacy and education about their rights. By doing so, hopefully that will save everybody money and grief. Those are all of my comments, if any of you have any questions.
Mr Runciman: I have just a couple of brief questions and comments. John's presentation goes on at length about non-unionized workers not having advocacy services and that unionization is a panacea that's going to solve all of their problems. I find it interesting when he talks about non-union people not having advocates, and perhaps I'm misinterpreting this, but it strikes me as a condemnation, if you will, of the elected representatives for this area.
It seems to me that there's a role to play, not only for elected representatives but for municipal officials and the civil servants at the provincial and federal levels whose responsibility it is to ensure that the legislation that John is speaking so highly of is properly enforced. If indeed it isn't, I think that these individuals have the opportunity to turn to their MPP, their MP, whomever.
They also have another office, the Office of the Ombudsman, in the province of Ontario which they can turn to. So it strikes me as passing strange. I gather that John's experience in Kingston and The Islands has been that all of these agencies and individuals are failing the non-unionized employees of this area. Perhaps John may want to comment on that.
Mr Done: Yes. Thanks for those remarks, Mr Runciman. Unions certainly aren't a panacea. There are good unions; there are less effective unions. What about other people who provide services? Kingston Community Legal Clinic, and I hope all of the clinics in the province, ideally works with people's elected representatives, as do other organizations like the office of the worker adviser. In fact community legal clinics owe their existence to elected representatives, because it's the elected representatives who, through ministries like the Ministry of the Attorney General, give us money to provide our programs.
It doesn't take anything away from the other advocates in this province to say that the demand for services in the areas of workers' compensation, unemployment insurance, family benefits and general welfare and all of the things that happen when a person loses his job or becomes injured is tremendous and overwhelming. What we have to look for are cost-effective ways so people can advocate for themselves. With a union, that means having a checkoff.
The timeliness of intervention is important as well. By the time somebody comes to Kingston Community Legal Clinic, he has lost his job and he is injured. We can only do so much at that time. A union exists at the workplace and can intervene when it's important.
What about the Ombudsman? The Ombudsman will assist an injured worker only when somebody has pursued the workers' compensation matter right clear through the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal. The Ombudsman doesn't act for anybody before the Workers' Compensation Board and doesn't appear on somebody's behalf at the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal. As much as they do, they don't do everything.
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Mr Runciman: I agree they don't do everything but one of these is working I guess. I've certainly appeared with constituents of mine at WCB hearings and WCAT, so I think there is a role indeed that perhaps you have glossed over, John. Perhaps I'm incorrect in that. Have you ever had any personal experience as a member of a union? Have you belonged to a union?
Mr Done: No, I never have. Under the Labour Relations Act, at least as it has existed so far, I haven't been allowed to bargain collectively because of my status as a lawyer.
Mr Runciman: Have you ever had any experience as a member of a political party?
Mr Done: Yes.
Mr Runciman: Which party, may I ask?
Mr Done: The New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party before that.
The Chair: You have lots in common with more than a few New Democrats. Some have reverted.
Mr Offer: It's like a tidal wave.
The Chair: Not to their credit.
Mr Gary Wilson: I'd like to just continue this a moment because I think Mr Runciman has lost the thrust of your argument. He seems to be saying that you enjoy being the voice for the injured workers and people who have been chewed up by the system, and he's trying to reclaim some of that role for himself. I think, as you said too, there are good unions and bad unions, good employers, bad employers and probably good representatives and not so good.
But the idea I think of what you're trying to say is that workers themselves should have the voice to look after their own interests. It's far better for workers not to be injured and not to have substandard salaries so that they can have a decent standard of living. This is what the role of legislators probably should be, to guarantee, or at least to work towards, those kinds of circumstances.
Mr Done: Yes, Gary, what unions mean is a greater degree of compliance. There's a check at the workplace. Employers are less likely to try and treat somebody unfairly if they know that they have to account to somebody. If an employer only has to account to a single worker, who may or may not be articulate and who may or may not know all of her or his rights, that's less of a check than having a union. Unions provide a great deal of resources. They provide education, they provide research and they're there for you if you have a grievance or if you have to go to the Workers' Compensation Board.
The resources in this province simply can't do all of that. If there isn't timely intervention and effective educated intervention, then people are frequently caught in a downward spiral of poverty and some of them never emerge.
While I enjoy my job, I don't enjoy being required to appear on people's behalf. Community legal clinics everywhere will tell you that they're overworked. We don't usually have the luxury of saying, "I'm sorry, I can't appear at some of these hearings for you." If people need money to eat, that's what we have to do. The statistics, the observations we have at the clinic, speak for themselves. We don't represent many unionized employees because the unionized employees have somebody to turn to.
When a union acts for somebody, the union is acting as a result of the dues people pay. When the community legal clinic acts and when the office of the worker adviser acts on behalf of somebody, it's because of the taxes we all pay.
Mr Gary Wilson: I was wondering too whether you have any experience with people coming to your clinic who have been put in the position of being forced into the role of a replacement worker, for example, because they have been collecting UI and it has been suggested to them that unless they apply for a job like that, then their benefits can be cut off, or even if they're on welfare and able to work, that also puts them in that kind of pressure, so that they are put in a very difficult position with regard to replacement workers. Again they are very vulnerable.
Mr Done: Maybe I can respond to the question more generally, just speaking about the desperation that people experience when they are unemployed. I don't doubt for a moment that to the extent there are jobs available for replacement workers that people will take those opportunities. I know that when CKWS was on strike, there were people who came from far away to Kingston hoping to get some of those jobs.
When people are unemployed, sometimes they don't get their unemployment insurance. Often they don't get their workers' compensation benefits. By the time somebody comes to our clinic with a complaint about workers' compensation, it can mean years, not just days or months, before these complaints are resolved.
On the food banks, the number of food banks in the province is a testament to how desperate people are. It seems to be apparent that where replacement jobs exist, people will do that because they feel an obligation to feed themselves and to feed their family.
The Chair: Mr McGuinty, a member of the bar.
Mr McGuinty: John, it's good to see you again. I think it's been about six years since we were on 77 Metcalfe together, right?
Mr Done: It's been a long time.
Mr McGuinty: I wanted to compliment you on your presentation and for reminding us of what it's like at the street level and dealing with the real effects of the recession and unemployment.
You've made reference to domestics. There's certainly no doubt in my mind they are a special group which requires some type of legislation that would assist them to enforce their rights. Unfortunately, Bill 40 will not provide them with that assistance, because the Labour Relations Act as it presently stands provides that in order to have a bargaining unit, you have to have at least two people. Also, domestics work individually with one employer, so they will not gain any benefit under Bill 40.
But I want to take you to something else. You're in the business of advising people of their rights and then, if necessary, helping them to enforce those rights. When there's an organizational drive under way in a workplace, it is actually possible for a union to come about to be certified without an employee ever knowing there's a drive under way. That is theoretically possible.
Mr Done: Yes.
Mr McGuinty: I want to raise a question that my colleague Mr Offer raised earlier. What do you think of this idea? If there's a drive under way, we want to put this thing on the table. We want to bring it out into the open, post a notice: "These are your rights. There's a drive under way."
One of the things that has concerned me time and time again as a result of all the submissions we're hearing is that you know all of the goings-on when a drive is under way. I believe a union should be allowed to get in there and to organize, but I think it should be done above the table, and not below, where it's visible to all. People have said, of course, that I'm completely naïve, that there's no such thing as a good employer. They're all bad and not going to allow that kind of activity to take place.
Anyway, let's just talk about the notice. What do you think of this idea of a notice?
Mr Done: I'm going to confess, Dalton, and perhaps it's because I know some parts of the amendments better than others, that I don't understand how an organizing drive can take place without somebody knowing it.
Now I imagine that in most workplaces it would be fairly apparent when this organizing drive's taking place, but I think if what you say is true, to the extent that this happens, I'd have two comments. Generally, I believe in the freedom of choice, and hopefully that's what I advocate for. I believe that people have the right to have the information necessary to make an informed choice, but at the same time, none of the legislation I've ever worked with is perfect. I think that, as people who make public policy, what we do is we balance rights against the others and we try to come up with something that's optimal.
I would hope that if the possibility that you've described exists, that is the sort of thing that could be plugged, but I hope it wouldn't be plugged with the result of serious damage to some of the more progressive reforms in the act.
Mr McGuinty: Now taking you at your word there with respect to the answer you have given me, essentially you find it difficult to believe that everybody wouldn't know anyway. If everybody knows, what's wrong with posting it and making it official?
Mr Done: Is this the organizing drive?
Mr McGuinty: Yes.
Mr Done: I think all I could say is, again I don't have much knowledge of the idea of posting, but it sounds, from the way you've described it to me, as if this is something that could, if it's necessary to include this in the act so that people are aware -- this isn't a particularly educated response here, but I'd say, why not? That kind of thing doesn't hurt.
The Chair: That completes our time for this particular presentation. I want to thank you for coming here, sir.
Mr Done: Yes. Thanks for listening to me.
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ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION, LOCAL 444
The Chair: Next is the Beechgrove Children's Centre, if the people speaking on behalf of Beechgrove Children's Centre will please come forward, tell us their names and describe their titles, if any. We've got your written submissions. Go ahead.
Mr Gavin Anderson: Thank you very much for having us here today. If you don't mind, I'm going to try to read this presentation -- it might be a little bit more efficient -- and then the two of us will entertain questions. I am Gavin Anderson and with me is John Smith.
I'm here wearing two hats today, like most people in this complicated society. I'm employed as a clinical social worker in the Kingston office of Beechgrove Regional Children's Centre. Beechgrove is a crown transfer agency and receives 100% of its funding from the Ministry of Community and Social Services. The centre delivers a wide variety of assessment and counselling services to emotionally disturbed children and adolescents in a six-county catchment area that includes Lanark, Leeds-Grenville, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington, Hastings and Prince Edward.
I am also president of Local 444 of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. OPSEU is the sole bargaining agent for the 102 full- and part-time unionized employees of Beechgrove and our labour-management relationship is governed by the OLRA. I appear before you today primarily as an officer of my bargaining unit. I wear this hat with pride, knowing that the work of our local stewards helps brings stability, security and harmony to our workplace.
Although our responsibilities differ markedly from those of our managers, the leadership of our local is committed to the same ideals that inform our agency's mission statement. Our members want to bring the highest-quality mental health services to the children and families we serve, and we endeavour to do it with efficiency and sensitivity. Our workplace is a productive one, because the union has negotiated a fair collective agreement and there is a well-understood and effective means of resolving grievances when they occur.
What follows will largely relate to the concerns our local has regarding the proposed amendments to the OLRA. It will not touch on every aspect of the reforms. However, we wish to convey to the committee at the outset that the union is solidly behind the overall direction taken by the amendments proposed in Bill 40.
Our intention is to bring before you some of the issues which affect us at our workplace. Before beginning that exercise, however, I wish to introduce a brief but important digression.
I mentioned at the outset that I am a social worker with Beechgrove Children's Centre. When I wear that hat, I work with sole-support parents and adolescents. I am in daily contact with the marginalized workers who stand to gain the most through labour reform. I see the effects of poverty and vulnerability on the lives of those people who live without fair wages or protection from workplace abuse.
Let me tell you, as a therapist with two university degrees and 15 years' experience, no amount of sensitive listening or wise counsel can do for unorganized, disenfranchised workers what a union can. Anything which enhances the ability of working people to stand together and speak with one clear voice enriches the individual lives of those workers and the lives of those who depend upon them for material and emotional support.
Earlier this very week I was speaking with a 16-year-old client who recently began working part-time for a neighbourhood fast-food restaurant. His job has helped him learn about responsibility and hard work. He has a bit of money in his pocket and a sense of himself as something other than a delinquent. Working has been good for him, and, of course, the fast-food restaurant has profited from his labour.
When I asked this fellow if there was a union at his work, he told me there was none. He told me that anyone who talked union at work would be fired instantly. I asked if a boss had told him this and he said: "No, it's just something that I learned. I don't know how." I asked him how things might change if there were a union and he told me that he would get his 15-minute breaks like he's supposed to. He said it made his feet sore to stand for hours and hours without a break.
For all the good and appropriate things this adolescent boy is learning about himself and the real world of work, it strikes me as very troublesome that he's also learning to fear the bosses, to not talk about organizing or insist on getting his rest period for fear of losing his job.
I thank you for your indulgence and now return to the main purpose of our presentation.
Sectoral bargaining: My local's first commentary pertains to the issue of sectoral bargaining. Our employer is a children's treatment centre. There are dozens of crown transfer agencies just like ours across the province, with the same mandates, the same classifications and the same job descriptions.
In its February 1992 brief, It's Our Turn! Reforming the Ontario Labour Relations Act, OPSEU put forward the union's position regarding the consolidation of bargaining as distinct from the consolidation of bargaining units. It is a useful distinction across many sectors, but I will not use my time to repeat the arguments presented in that brief.
What I will do is elaborate on some of the disparities that we see right here in our workplace. I am presently working with our managers to settle a classification dispute regarding our nurses. In the course of researching this issue, I discovered that the nurses at Ongwanada Resource Centre, an agency which partially overlaps our sector, receives salaries that are over $6,600 higher than our nurses make. This is a disparity of 17% for nurses doing identical work at two agencies which are less than one kilometre apart.
There are many other examples of widely varying salaries and benefits within our sector. The result is frequent staff turnover. Employees move about as opportunities present themselves. It seems our agency is always advertising in the expensive careers section of the Globe and Mail to replace clinical and technical staff who have jumped to the Ontario public service or to other transfer agencies. The cost in recruitment and orientation, not to mention the lost productivity, is enormous for Beechgrove, yet my manager tells me that his colleagues in larger centres such as Toronto experience even greater staff turnover.
It would be bad enough if agencies in the broader public sector were losing talented workers to the private sector, but what we see here are costly migrations within the same family of employers.
Another hidden cost to the disjointed system of unconsolidated bargaining within sectors is the price of negotiating so many individual contracts that essentially define the same working relationships. As dues-paying OPSEU members and as taxpayers, we feel indignant that we are underwriting the costs of both parties in this endless series of redundant bargaining.
The present practice of going it alone at the bargaining table also leaves both sides exposed to the risks of whipsawing and other negotiating ploys which occasionally win isolated advantages for one side or the other but generally add nothing but suspicion and resentment to the bargaining process.
For many years I worked in an agency in Quebec which was very similar to Beechgrove. In Quebec, major issues such as salaries, pensions and job security are bargained centrally, leaving the nuts and bolts issues of the workplace to be negotiated locally. This system resulted in provincial parity and a continuity not experienced in the present Ontario model. It also removed artificial tensions from local negotiations, as the employer did not have to defend salary offers that were not within its control.
This issue is to become even more salient to our local in the near future. The ministry is currently restructuring children's services in this area. There could be as many as seven separate agencies responsible for identical services, each acting as a separate employer at its own negotiating table. This local will be actively pressing for consolidated bargaining for the seven agencies, just as we are active in OPSEU's campaign for sector bargaining within the province-wide children's treatment sector.
At this point we are asking that the amendments to the labour law empower the OLRB to consolidate bargaining in the broader public sector at the request of either party.
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Certification: On the surface, this is not an issue that would seem to be very relevant to our local. We are already certified. The abovementioned ministry reorganization, however, will result in many changes in our workplace. It is quite likely that Beechgrove will not exist within two years and the bargaining unit will have to be reorganized to accommodate the new employment structure.
To elaborate, there are around 14 children's treatment centres currently operating in our six-county area. Beechgrove is the only regional centre, and the only one with offices and employees in every county. The others, with the exception of Sunnyside Children's Centre in Kingston, are small. All are centred in one city or county.
When the reorganization is completed, there will be a single centre in each of the six counties as well as perhaps a separate centralized residential facility serving all six counties. Employees of the present 14 centres will be reallocated to the new centres.
The complication will be successor rights and the certification of new bargaining units. Three of the 14 present centres are affiliated with OPSEU and a fourth is affiliated with the Canadian Union of Public Employees. The other 10 centres are not unionized.
Members of this bargaining unit are likely to find themselves employed at each of the six or seven new employers. In some instances we will form the largest single block of employees; in others we will be a minority, outnumbered by workers who were previously not unionized.
Our interest will be to at least preserve the salary scales, pension and welfare benefits, seniority rights and other contract language that we have won over our 25 years of collective bargaining. We will want to do that by certifying and reaffiliating ourselves with OPSEU.
We applaud the government's intention to remove unnecessary impediments from the certification process and urge the committee to endorse those amendments which limit interference from employers.
Replacement workers: This local has never had to go on strike, so we have no real-life experience with replacement workers. As employees of a centre which provides essential human services, and with the right to strike, it is, however, an issue that concerns us greatly.
Our members work very closely with our clients, especially those staying in our residential units. We, more than anyone, are in a position to assess the effect a withdrawal of services would have on our clients and their families.
What we believe would make sense is for us to sit down with our managers and negotiate a service schedule for implementation should there ever be a work stoppage. In this way, our expertise could be used productively in the establishment of meaningful protocols that would fit the needs of our service users.
Disputes in this process could be resolved through arbitration. We advocate for the exclusion of essential services requirements in the OLRA and support the notion of locally negotiated service schedules to accommodate local needs.
In conclusion, I wish to thank the committee for considering these observations and ideas. I sincerely hope that some of what you have heard is useful.
Allow me a personal anecdote in closing, though: I was raised in a home where unions were viewed with suspicion and even hostility. My father was a manager in a shipping company and I remember many supper conversations dominated by his stories of alleged abuses and corruption in the unions he dealt with.
But when I was 17, I got a summer job as a dishwasher with the CNR on the dining cars. The next summer I was promoted to a third cook at a small raise but a significant improvement in working conditions. The third summer, I bid for a third cook's position again but had to settle for a dishwasher's job.
After a month on the job, I realized that the third cook on my crew had less seniority than I did. It turned out he was a trainee on some company program and had been parachuted into his position without a competition. I complained to a fellow worker and was overheard by another worker who identified himself as a union steward.
Without further ado, he marched me to one of the top floors in the CNR headquarters building in Montreal and demanded to see a boss. The boss listened to my story, and the next thing I knew I was given a position as a third cook, all back wages owed and time off with pay until I was caught up with my new rotation.
This episode had a very real impact on me. I realized that unions were not about corruption and violent confrontation. My union was there to give voice to my concerns and make sure I got a fair shake.
It is over 20 years since that summer in Montreal. I am now a local president, and of all the satisfactions I derive from my volunteer position, none surpasses the fulfilment I experience when I am able to quietly remedy a simple wrong for a young or frightened worker.
Last year two part-time workers requested maternity leave from Beechgrove. Full-time workers have a top-up provision that supplements their unemployment benefits while on maternity leave. Management held the position that part-time workers were exempted from this provision, based on a clause in the collective agreement providing them with money in lieu of welfare benefits.
The union argued successfully that the top-up was not a welfare benefit in the manner intended by the contract, and that the practice was discriminatory. The thank you that I got from those young mothers when they discovered that there would be a few extra dollars coming into their homes warmed my heart.
You on the committee and your colleagues in the provincial Parliament have the opportunity to magnify this small human triumph tens of thousands of times by reforming the Labour Relations Act. When the act becomes fairer, the workplace will become fairer. When that happens, all of Ontario wins.
Ms Murdock: Thank you for taking the time to come. Just a quick comment, and then I'll ask a question.
The exclusion of essential services provisions: Under subsection 73.2(2) they've designated, particularly in the children's services area and care of the sick and the elderly and so on, but under subsection 73.2(15) -- you have to almost read the essential services section, subsections (3) and (15), together, because in that part there's no time frame. Actually, the idea is that eventually, once it's starting to be utilized, people will negotiate as to who would be an essential service or essential replacement worker when a strike occurs; rather than doing that at the time of a strike, the recommendation is of course that you do it when you're working in at least some kind of harmony.
My question goes back to a presentation that was made to us in Toronto by the Ontario Nurses' Association. You haven't referred to it in here except in relation to the fact that you do represent nurses, so I'd like your opinion on this. Their request of us was to include the profession of nurses in the professional exclusion of architects, lawyers and so on. You probably haven't directed your mind to this, but I am wondering if you have any thoughts on the subject.
Mr Anderson: I'd be hesitant to get into that. We represent nurses because we represent everybody. It's more of an industrial union than a trade-based union, so our nurses are in the same bargaining unit with other professionals, with other support staff. We often make reference to ONA pay scales, for instance, as evidence of some disparity between our nurses and other nurses working in the province, but I wouldn't want to comment on that union's position regarding their status as professionals. I'm sorry, I really can't.
Ms Murdock: That's fine. I just wondered, because it was the only presentation of that type, and I wondered if it was going to interfere or cause problems with any other.
I know Mr Hope has a question. He's looking at me intently.
Mr Hope: Thank you for your presentation. I got in here a little late, after your presentation, but one of the things I noticed going through it was that you made reference to young people coming into workforce. Maybe I'm going to stray a bit, but in our education system we forget to talk about labour history. We do talk about business practice, entrepreneurship, but in order to create a more cooperative relationship, which we're talking about in the modest enhancements of the labour relations reform, would it be an approach to put labour history programs in place to make people understand more? I'm asking for your view, because you made reference to yourself understanding the benefits of a trade union.
I'm just wondering, would it be to the benefit of the province of Ontario and maybe to the society of Canada in general to implement more labour history in our school system, so that whether you walk out as a big businessman or as a worker on a shop floor or wherever the workplace is, you'll have a better understanding of the trade union and its involvement in society? I'm asking because you made reference to the age categories.
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Mr John Smith: I'd like to answer that. As a child and youth worker, when I came into the workforce 22 or 23 years ago, child and youth work wasn't a profession. It was a job, and it was a job for a short period of time. It wasn't until I received support from unions that I decided this is a profession and that the work I do is valuable.
Young people coming out of colleges were used in our field to give cheap labour. There has been a history of using child and youth workers for a period of two years, and there was always talk of a two-year burnout. After the two-year period, which included pay raises and seniority, people left. There was lack of support, and because of that lack of support and stresses on the job, people left. It wasn't a job where people could raise families. It wasn't a job where people had sufficient support and financial gain to continue on the job.
Young people need to know more about organizing and their rights so they can pursue a career such as child and youth work, which wasn't a career before. Child and youth workers do a very important job in this field.
Mrs Fawcett: Thank you for your presentation. I have grave concerns, as you do, especially around the replacement worker provision. As you are a children's service that really requires expertise, there might be some instances where even replacement workers being brought in would not be exactly what was required. In fact, if there couldn't be any replacement workers, then things might really be in jeopardy for children. I know Ms Murdock tried to allay your fears, but the wording of that particular clause with the word "may" and so on -- could you explain to me why you are a little worried about that particular provision?
Mr Anderson: We're not technical experts on the legislation, so rather than trying to describe what we believe the legislation states, we're trying to put our view forward and leave it up to the legislators to shape that into the law and the amendments. What we're basically looking for is the opportunity, using our expertise, to sit down with our managers and to negotiate locally a service schedule up front and, as was suggested before, perhaps in advance of any future breakdown of negotiations, so that should we find ourselves in a strike situation, we could pull out this service schedule which would clearly identify what the obligations of the union were in terms of providing services.
If the law does that, if the amendments do that and if that's the effect of the law, then we will be satisfied. How you write that in or how you make that happen, I'm not sure. But if you understand what we would like to see happen, then we'd have the confidence that you'd work that into the law if you can.
Mrs Fawcett: Then, as you have said here, you advocate for the exclusion of the essential service provisions in the OLRA.
Mr Anderson: We would not want to see some sort of global statement that this sector is an essential service and therefore does not have the right to withdraw its service or its work. We would prefer that, as we do have the right to strike in a general sense, although nobody's anxious to enter into that type of situation, rather than just having some kind of global designation that, "No, your child and youth care workers cannot leave their work," we sit down with our managers and negotiate that.
It may well be, particularly in our residential facility, that we agree that this is the minimum amount of support that has to be provided and it will be provided by union workers according to this schedule, working with or without managers; just generally defining and being done well in advance of the dispute and being settled through arbitration if the two parties are unable to settle on that service schedule.
Mr Runciman: I have a couple of comments outside of the brief. You're talking about the effects of poverty and vulnerability in the lives of people who live without fair wages, protection from workplace abuse. You seem to be, if you follow the text, equating fair wages and protection totally with unionization.
There's also obviously a presumption that jobs are going to be there to achieve those fair wages and protection through unionization. As you are in the public sector, I guess I understand that. That seems to be a view in the public sector, that jobs are somehow magically going to be there for ever and a day.
I'm just wondering how you deal with the other side of these arguments we're hearing as legislators, that this legislation is going to result in significant job losses in the province. It's one thing to say we want fair wages for everyone, and I'm sure we all do, but to get fair wages we first have to have those jobs. How do you respond to those arguments we're hearing about job losses and the devastating impact -- those are words that are being used -- on the economy?
Mr Anderson: If I could just back up a moment, your reference is to the first part of the text. In my work, I see people who are oppressed by a large number of things. To condense it down to simple form, if I deal with somebody who's hungry and depressed, the first thing he needs is food. The first thing that has to be addressed is the objective circumstance of them not having food, then we can work on the depression.
I don't mean to imply that once somebody's in a union he's going to enjoy perfect mental health or happiness. What I am saying, though, is that when I see people come into my office who feel abused or even tyrannized at work or are not getting fair wages, then what those people need in the first instance is some kind of organization at the workplace. They may also benefit from counselling and the type of support I can provide as a social worker.
In terms of jobs, my feeling is that with a lot of the people I see, it's not so much the lack of jobs, it's the movement from job to job to job. Jobs are out there in some of these service industries. They manage to find jobs, not always high-paying skilled jobs; often jobs, as an example, in fast-food restaurants, things like that. These jobs are not going to flee. Harvey's and McDonald's and Swiss Chalet are not going to go to Mexico or Taiwan because of this legislation. There will still need to be people to fry french fries and sling hamburgers, and I don't think it's reasonable to say these people should be denied the right to organize and to negotiate directly with their employers.
What our local is saying on behalf of those people who are not as yet organized is, let's support reforms that make it easier for people in these sort of marginalized workplaces to organize so that they can take care of their own business.
Mr Runciman: That is, in my view, a very convoluted response, to say the least. It's not dealing with what I talked about, the 295,000 jobs projected to be lost. You're saying we're not going to lose Harvey's or McDonald's. You're saying in respect to this kid working at a hamburger spot that they should unionize Harvey's and McDonald's. I guess what you're doing is endorsing $10 hamburgers.
One other thing I wanted to make a reference to here is that you're talking about the disparities, about consolidation of bargaining. I guess I have some problems with that as well. You say you're indignant as taxpayers, but as a taxpayer myself, I have some problem with the idea of consolidation, because I don't necessarily believe that's going to be in the best interests of taxpayers. In fact, I think it tends to put the employer over a barrel to a significant extent, that he doesn't have the kind of bargaining flexibility we'd have without consolidation.
You mentioned salaries at Ongwanada, $6,600 higher. You mentioned comparisons with ONA pay scales. Do you ever take a look at comparisons of your pay scales, as an OPSEU-represented organization, with pay scales in the private sector? Do you ever take a look at what a secretary who works for your organization is making versus a secretary who works in the private sector? Do you ever take a look at those things?
Mr Anderson: I have some awareness. Salaries vary. I'm a social worker and more interested in what social workers make in the private sector, and many of them make considerably more than what I made.
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Mr Runciman: If you're an indignant taxpayer, you may want to take a look at how your salaries compare with workers in the private sector and people who are concerned about bottom lines. Thank you, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: Thank you. Go ahead, sir.
Mr Smith: I was just going to make the comments around fairness in the job place and salaries in the private sector. Working in the private sector most of my career, because most of my employers were not unionized employers, I noticed that our wages as workers were lower wages. Whenever we asked for more money we were given the idea that we were working for a non-profit organization, and in those non-profit organizations somebody was making money. In every one of those organizations I worked in, someone was becoming a millionaire, and they were becoming millionaires at the cost of the workers not making the salaries they deserved.
Mr Runciman: Better move to Cuba then. That's the last bastion.
The Chair: People speaking on behalf of Local 444, OPSEU, I want to thank you. Perhaps a visit to Cuba would be an interesting exercise, Mr Runciman; I'm not sure. Perhaps some MPPs will visit there and come back with some direct reports. I know I won't have a chance to because I'm committed to this committee.
Interjection.
The Chair: Try again, Ms Fawcett. Three rounds and you're out, and that's twice.
In any event, thank you for being here. You've made a very effective representation on behalf of your local and your profession. We appreciate your coming here and we're grateful to you.
ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION, LOCAL 432
The Chair: The next participant is Local 432. Go right ahead. Tell us who you are. Your name is in the first paragraph of your submission, but your title, and carry on with your comments, please.
Ms Lynn Park: Thank you, Mr Chairman, for allowing me the opportunity to speak. My name is Lynn Park. I am pleased to speak to you today as a member of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. The Ontario Labour Relations Act covers the workplaces of about 23,000 OPSEU members in the broader public sector.
My background includes secretarial experience in an unorganized workplace in which no benefits or pension were offered to employees. This was my main reason for leaving and joining the Ontario public service sector in 1979. Since joining the social service sector, I have had positions as a supervisor of clerical services, an income maintenance officer and, most currently, a program review officer.
I am here to support my OLRA colleagues as well as unorganized employees whose rights are limited by the current law. As a crown employee, my bargaining rights too are sharply limited. My work experience and knowledge of what working people, organized and unorganized, are currently struggling for is my focus.
I wish to comment today on the long-overdue need to address the vulnerabilities of mainly women workers, often members of visible minorities and part-time unorganized workers or employees with whom I have regularly been in contact as a social worker.
A central tenet of the work I have done for several years as a family benefits field worker is helping people, most often sole-support families, to develop abilities to help themselves, to plan for the wellbeing of their families and to find ways of organizing their futures.
Bill 40 can be judged in part on the extent to which it fulfils a similar purpose for Ontario's changing workforce. To what extent will the OLRA amendments empower those workers and their families who are frequently marginalized in precarious sectors of the economy?
My work with community and social services has brought me to the lives of many workers, especially women, young and old, who are forced to find ways of coping with all those sections of the current OLRA that inhibit union organizing and effective, timely collective bargaining. One has to wonder why working women today are compelled to rely from time to time on welfare and social assistance programs to support them.
I'm one of the lucky workers. I have a job, a job that pays benefits, and I have resources and a collective voice to bargain for my rights. Many women I deal with have few resources to turn to and little or no voice to collectively negotiate even the simplest of work options, such as flexible work hours, let alone benefits or pension.
My own personal experience of negotiating a job sharing agreement was not easily accomplished. It took one and a half years of negotiating to put into place. Imagine the limitations for those with no resources or a collective voice to lobby before an employer.
I have worked with hundreds of Kingston area women arranging monthly financial assistance to supplement meagre wages, health care benefits and strategies to fill the gaps in their family needs. Sadly, these gaps often result from having no union, no job security, or from revolving in and out of part-time bargaining units where the labour board procedures have often kept their voices weak.
Women tell me of the hardships they experience from having to stop work because of no drug plan or regular work shift, and the complications of arranging day care. These women are struggling every day to meet basic necessities and have no voice to negotiate these basic needs, let alone plan for a pension.
Some of the amendments do appear to go a considerable way in bringing down the barriers to effective bargaining for part-time workers. In the section of the bill covering bargaining unit structure and configuration, the reforms are intended to have the labour board combine full- and part-time workers in one unit.
From my viewpoint, this is the kind of change that is needed. Aside from all other obstacles to getting a union certified, this reform will at least create fewer weak bargaining units. The province's labour laws have to recognize the reality of the new workforce, with its thousands of permanent part-timers. When these employees are able to benefit fairly from collective bargaining, I believe many of the families that I assist will break from the cycle of poverty, and in this way our entire communities are much richer.
The ability to negotiate living wages, benefits, meaningful job security provisions, even pensions, should hopefully be facilitated by the amendment that enables the board to combine two or more units of the same union with the same employer. I think lowering the amount of bargaining fragmentation is another important step in building economic security for many families.
Assisting families as they cope with financial hardship has convinced me that Bill 40's reforms in the areas of the organizing and certification processes are critical. For too long the outdated assumptions of the act have failed to deal with the patterns of many women's work. While fortunately the systemic barriers to non-traditional jobs in industry and elsewhere are slowly falling, the OLRA is stuck in the past. It is very important to get into law fair access for union organizing activities and picketing at work sites like malls. Small workplaces are the norm for most of the clients I work with. This fact ought not to deny them organizing opportunities.
Similarly, to deal with obvious power imbalances in so many women's workplaces, reforms to facilitate quick hearings on complaints of illegal discipline or dismissal are vital. The relative ease with which the democratic rights of marginalized workers can be frustrated has got to be addressed. I am pleased to see this issue covered along with the elimination of anti-union petitions. These have regularly been shown to be the result of intimidation or threats.
In my work I see people go through a host of struggles. They recover from job loss, cope with inadequate or costly child care, scramble to retrain and re-enter the workforce. After 15 years of no reform, it is clearly time that we eliminate the obvious barriers to working people's rights to organize.
The changes are modest, and there are important omissions, such as the power the labour board should have to facilitate sectoral bargaining. You will have heard much on this from representatives of workers in the smaller workplaces.
I hope you will strengthen your resolve, despite the criticism, and bring Ontario's labour law in line with the 1990s realities and needs of working women and other groups of disempowered workers. Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
1640
Mr Offer: Thank you for your presentation. I think you'll not be surprised that much of the work you do day in and day out is very well understood by MPPs certainly, and I think you've probably had a great deal of contact, as some of the issues which you've addressed are ones that we also, unfortunately, address on a day-by-day basis. It would be nice if there were less need, but we all know that's not what's going on right now. I certainly recognize, as all will do, the issues that you address.
I guess I have just one difficulty. It's somewhat more in line of a question. Though I recognize and agree about the issues you address, it seems through your submission that unionization is the panacea to do away with all of these issues, and I don't see that. I see it as a viable vehicle in which workers' rights can be enhanced. I have no problem with that. I just don't see it as being the only way in which a worker's rights can be protected and enhanced in this province. There is employment standards legislation, there is a whole variety of other mechanisms now in place.
I guess I would ask you, being very sensitive and sympathetic to the work that you're doing, where is it in Bill 40 that you would see help for those individuals you and I and everyone else deal with on a daily basis? Where are the enhanced benefits in Bill 40?
Ms Park: I guess I can speak to the sector of women I see, and the vehicle of unionizing would help support them in whole wide, varied facets, in education, in understanding the process to address their needs. Many women are so busy struggling with just meeting their daily needs, they're very strained and have no education or means to collectively voice their rights and their concerns to an employer.
Mr Offer: In the area of organizing -- this is a matter which has just been brought up, I think, for the first time this afternoon -- where there is an organizing drive in the workplace, would you support an amendment to the legislation that would require notice of the organizing drive to be posted where the rights of the workers are listed, where their rights and responsibilities under the Labour Relations Act are listed, in order to be free from the intimidation and coercion we've heard about?
Ms Park: I'm not sure I would agree with posting. I think it's important that the information get to workers, and I guess I would support what John Done said earlier, that when there is a driving force being taken on, many workers are aware of what's going on. I do support that the information needs to get out to everyone, but that vehicle, what form of information-sharing that takes, I guess I would leave to you to decide.
Mr Offer: I guess I'm stuck on this. I just can't see why, in a workplace where an organizing drive is being commenced, everyone would not accept it as just a given that the workers be impartially informed as to their rights under the Labour Relations Act, free from an organizer saying so, free from an employer saying so, and let them read it in whatever language they wish to read it -- just information with a freedom to choose. I just don't know why there would be such an objection or concern about full information to all the employees.
Ms Park: Again, I guess I can't speak to why people wouldn't do something that sounds quite logical. It may be out of fear or intimidation or lack of knowledge; I don't know.
Mr Runciman: I suspect that the witness, as a result of the economy in the past couple of years and the fact that we have about 10% of Ontario's population on social assistance, is seeing a lot of disturbing things in her line of employment. She mentions coping with people who have problems with the Ontario Labour Relations Act.
I would think that wouldn't be the big problem out there; it's the state of the economy, and the fact that there simply aren't enough jobs to go around. Of course, as the witness knows, we have a lot of concerns being expressed to committee members about these initiatives creating additional difficulties with the economy and fewer jobs, and in fact perhaps placing more people in dire circumstances in respect to social services. I gather you don't believe those concerns have any merit.
Ms Park: Well, I'm not an economist, but I believe if there were fairer opportunities for workers to have wages and benefits, most of that money would then come back into the economy through basic needs and necessities.
Mr Runciman: Have you ever done any cross-border shopping?
Ms Park: No.
Mr Runciman: Oh, you're the one. There's the one, Mr Chairman. Let's note this.
I appreciate what the witness is telling us here today. I'm sure she's very sincere about her concerns and her views. Taking my political hat off, I ran a small business for a couple of years with my father. It was a weekly newspaper and commercial printing business, and we couldn't afford to pay an awful lot. In fact, we lost money. We were paying minimum wage to many of our employees, and we had very few benefits, but it's not that we were prospering or becoming millionaires at the expense of our workers, as someone suggested. I think we were reasonably good employers, but you have to sell your product once it's produced, and it has to be at a price that people can afford. That's a concern, and I think this witness and perhaps others, especially in the public sector, are insulated from those realities, in my view.
They believe, in many instances -- perhaps this witness is not one of those -- that the money pot is bottomless even though this government is running an annual $10-billion deficit. I think reality is going to come home to the public service in the not-too-distant future as well.
I don't doubt the sincerity of your concerns, but I'm concerned that you're only looking at this in a very narrow way and not looking at the broader picture in respect to the impact that a bad economy has on all of us, especially the most vulnerable people in society.
Mr Hope: First of all, Lynn, thank you for the presentation. Hopefully, you're not afraid of appearing before this committee. Being the parliamentary assistant to the Ministry of Community and Social Services, I've heard from some in the private sector that they're afraid to come before this committee, afraid of reprisal. I hope you're not afraid of reprisal for this presentation.
Also, I know Mr Runciman is willing to tell where his suit was bought and where his car came from.
But dealing with the presentation, Mr Offer says that in the workplace we should tell people about their rights. I ask you, should we start in our education system to teach people about their rights as workers, the employment standards and labour relations, making more understandable the rights they have in society? As you indicated, you talk to a lot of people when they become victims. I have a similar role when they want to find out what their rights are when they've lost their jobs. They want to know about the Employment Standards Act; they've never picked up the piece of legislation before.
I'm going on a little long here, but I'm curious. Would advance information help the women you make reference to, more knowledge? It was part of the discussion paper, and I've been told by the parliamentary assistant that the business community was very adamant about making sure the workers don't know about their rights. What if we went one step further and through our education system started educating and making people well aware of their legal rights in this province.
Ms Park: I would support that. Probably my primary role is to educate people. They come with a whole variety of concerns and issues and scenarios. You never find any two clients with the same issue, and quite often they're seeking information. So any way that can be brought to the people to educate them, I certainly think there would be value in that.
1650
Mr Hope: Mr Runciman said that you work for a public sector union and think there's a bottomless pit. As you talk to these workers, these people who have lost their jobs, working just to make ends meet, to put food on the table, I guess you're sitting there thinking: "Who cares about them? I'm going after major wage increases and forget about that." Is that your approach towards what you're viewing as part of collective bargaining, that you really don't care?
Ms Park: No. Actually, I think my whole presentation is bent more towards those people who have less opportunity to bargain and need to have their wages and benefits. I'm always surprised at having, say, a bank teller approach me for social assistance and finding out that he or she needs benefits and doesn't have a drug plan, doesn't have any way to provide dental care for her children. I think my whole focus is just to put to you some of the real day-to-day issues that I deal with, that I see. I would support any collective means to help these people with a voice to be heard.
Mr Hope: You're talking about workers, some of them probably still employed. With the big fear that's going on about the modest labour relations reforms, I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who are wondering what's going on and really don't have a clue about labour relations and maybe are holding back from spending, which is having an economic spinoff effect. They're not spending in our communities because they don't know where their job is going to be tomorrow.
From your perspective in talking to people on a day-to-day basis, are you hearing people saying, "I really don't know what's going on with my employer, whether they're going to stay here," and adding fear and hurting a number of businesses in our community?
Ms Park: No. I think the people I come in contact with would support these kinds of reforms, these changes. Again, I'm not an economist, but I would see it as going back into the community. It's a community of people, and that includes employers and employees. By jointly putting in reforms that would facilitate money going back into the community, that certainly would be of value. There is no great fear that a lot of these small businesses are going to venture off into the US or Mexico. A lot of them are here to stay.
The Chair: I want to tell you, Ms Park, that the committee thanks you for your presentation on behalf of OPSEU, Local 432. You've been an eloquent spokesperson for the membership of that local, and we appreciate and are grateful for your contribution to this process. This is the completion of this hearing day in Kingston. I want to thank the committee members for their cooperation during the course of today. I want to thank those people who made presentations either as individuals or on behalf of their respective associations and organizations, and those people whose interest in this issue motivated them to come here and sit as observers.
I want to point out that not only are MPPs involved, but of course staff people. On my left is Avrum Fenson, a research officer with legislative research services. They provide an outstanding service to this committee and to other legislative committees. The proceedings are recorded by way of Hansard, and that's made possible by Pat Girouard, on my far right at the table, who works with Hansard, and by Mark Levesque and Dimitrios Petselis, who operate the electronics and make sure that everybody is recorded accurately. As well, a clerk accompanies this committee, Todd Decker, and we want to thank him for his assistance.
We have in addition David Augustyn, a co-op student from the University of Waterloo, who has been working and travelling with this committee for the last several weeks. This is his last day with the committee. He returns to school within the next couple of weeks. This committee and I join in acknowledging the skill with which he performed his role as a co-op student. We thank him for his assistance and we wish him well in his studies at the University of Waterloo. It should be noted that David's from Port Robinson Road West in Thorold, in the heart of the Niagara Peninsula.
We want Gary Wilson to please convey to his constituents in the city of Kingston our gratitude for their hospitality for the last day and a half. Subject to any other matters being raised -- Mr Runciman?
Mr Runciman: A brief point of order, Mr Chairman: As a substitute member of this committee and a veteran of the Legislature for 11 1/2 years, I want to compliment you on your chairmanship of this committee. You do an outstanding job. I also want to compliment you on that new shirt.
The Chair: God bless you, Mr Runciman. I had no choice. I made my contribution to downtown Kingston: I didn't pack enough shirts for the week.
Thank you people. We're adjourned to Toronto, until Monday at 1:30 pm. Take care.
The committee adjourned at 1656.