Hudak proposes sweeping changes to strip unions of power
PC leader Tim Hudak has proposed legal changes that would make Ontario the equivalent of the worst right-to-work states of the US.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1217880--tim-hudak-u...
Many of the regulations he would like to scrap were enacted or bolstered by previous Conservative governments. Still, Hudak complained the situation has become untenable. “In many cases union leaders have become so powerful that many employees in effect have two bosses — their actual employer and the people who run their union.” To correct that, he would like union membership to no longer be mandatory and would outlaw the “forced paycheque contributions” unionized workers make to political causes. A PC government would also end the closed tendering for government contracts and curb “the artificial restriction on the number of our youth able to enter the skilled trades” through apprenticeship changes.In their plan, the Tories also urge secret ballots in all union certification votes and allow private companies to compete with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board to provide coverage. ... In their plan, the Tories also urge secret ballots in all union certification votes and allow private companies to compete with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board to provide coverage.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said Hudak’s proposal would undo years of gains for Ontario workers and do little to generate employment. “It’s a mass gutting of labour laws in Ontario. It’s certainly not something I hear is necessary,” she said,
What a prick. He was on P&P and it was all I could do not to throw my shoes through the tube. Greedy little bastard.
Could Hudak invoke the Notwithstanding Clause to override the Rand Formula?
I'm just curious about one thing (never having been in a union or involved in that movement): What is the problem with holding secret ballots in certification votes? That seems like common sense to me (but again, don't know much about the issue). If anyone has a clarification, that'd be appreciated. Thanks
Get lost, Mr.Tea.
What the fuck is your problem? I asked a legitimate question about something I'd like to know from people who may be able to explain it.
The problem with secret ballot certification votes is that it makes it a lot harder to organize unions, as employers can (and regularly do; union-busting is a big and lucrative industry) pull all kinds of ditry tricks between the time that the cards are signed and when the vote takes place. It tips the scales heavily in favour of the employer.
Thanks for thhe explanation, genstrike.
Hudak's proposals have implications for all of Canada because other Cons will be watching to see if he can win with such an upfront attack on unions. If he wins, other Cons and some right-wing Libs will imitate him. If he loses, they will probably still do it but keep quiet about it until elected, just like Governor Walker in Wisconsin. The union movement (both public and private) and progressives across Canada need to actively fight this because its likely coming to a province (or territory) near you soon. If Hudak succeeds, one of the few voices left for a decent standard of living for the middle, working and poor classes will be greatly weakened.
And I noticed that the greatest focus is on public sector unions - essentially in Canada Harper Inc. shut down private sector unions' strikes for the (cough) economy. And public sector they suggest is the problem with why costs are so high.
In Hudak's Power and Politics interview his examples of the alleged problems caused by unions focused entirely on the manufacturing sector. That is, firms (such as Caterpillar, etc.) are moving not only to Third World countries or China, but also to the US because of right-to-work states. So he has private, as well as public sector unions, in his gun sights.
Jim Stanford provides some talking points and appeals for more ammunition:
U.S. right-to-work thinking now infecting Canada
What they say about fascists and their first order of business. Good essay by Jim Stanford.
They don't believe in free labour markets. Labour unions are at least as natural their corporate lobbyists and right wing think tankerists bending the ears of the Harpers and fat-cat senators alike.
Fascism and free labour markets are generally incompatible.
Does anyone know the current extent of constitutional protections of labour rights?
There was the 2007 Supreme Court decision which sort of, kind of, said that collective bargaining was a right protected by the Charter. Then there was that rather amazing decision by the Alberta Labour Relations Board in 2009 that ordered the Alberta government to insert the Rand Formula principle in its labour code within 12 months, citing the earlier Supreme Court decision as authority. I have no idea what happened after that... did Alberta appeal? Did they comply?
Québec was the first jurisdiction to legislate the Rand Formula (1977). It entered the federal code only in 1988. Not sure when Ontario adopted it. But until the ALRB decision, I never guessed that it could be seen as a constitutional right.
Resident lawyers, please weigh in!
I also watched that Tim Hudak segment on P&P. Solomon tried to shoot him down, but with Hudak, it's like talking to a brick wall. It's scary how convinced he is that he's right. This is the future of conservativism - extreme right wing unforgiving positions - we've seen this in the USA for the past generation now in the Tea Party and elsewhere, and its migration north with the fucking Harper government. I get the impression that the Harper government is really the Koch Brothers in disguise. I wonder what Hudak's ties are to the Kochs?
Hudak's not right, he's Right. As in "Might Makes Right".
He's a full-blown, out-in-the-open, got-the-T-shirt, flying-the-fucking-flag FASCIST. As his hero Ronnie Raygun once said, "Facts are useless things." When you're a TRUE BELIEVER in the corporatist cause, reality and history are whatever you will them to be. Intelligent discussion is for wimps and losers to waste their time on...
That's us, BTW - and if we don't stop these bastards soon, Timmy will actually be right about something for a change.
For a vision of Ontario under Hudak, go back to the Mike Harris years. Ugh.
As bad as Harris was (and he was horrendous), Hudak's policies and attitude (as Boom Boom noted talking to him during PandP was like speaking to a brick wall appears even more hardcore in the same way that that the 21st century Republicans are even more extreme than the 1990s version.
It doesn't seem really necessary in cases where a strong majority of a workplace has signed up for union membership. It also - depending on how long it takes to arrange the vote - gives the employer a chance to persuade (which I suppose is reasonable) or intimidate (which isn't) employees into rejecting a union. As an example, it's thought this may have happened with respect to a recent vote on unionization at Holt Renfrew.
@ Unionist: Thanks for the info. I've been observing Labor's (sic) response to RTW initiatives in Michigan, one of which is to put forward their own ballot initiative to include collective bargaining rights in their state constitution. I'm thinking that Canadian Supreme Court rulings, vis-a-vis the Rand Formula, puts Canadian labour activists in a better position to firm up Constitutional protections. If my rudimentary understanding of constitutional law serves me correctly, the fact that Britain does not have a written constitution, lends much gravitas to legal convention, and by extension, to its influence on Canadian jurisprudence. If so, one might argue that adherence, for almost 70 years, to a Supreme Court justice's arbitration ruling, might also have accrued that force of convention to the Rand Formula. While political education, and countering negative opinions about unions is important, shoring up and expanding legal protections, based on a body of law, is, in my view imperative.
The amazing thing is,these anti-worker policies and political parties are supported by working folks...It's obvious,the rich are an extreme minority so how do these fascist bastards continue to gain support and power?
Simple,I guess..a gullible and uninformed public..Barnum was right.
For those who seem to believe workers need government-imposed secret ballots to protect themselves against being bulldozed by union thugs, here's some information (note that the first paragraph refers only to federally-regulated workplaces):
Labour Law in Harper’s Canada: New Directions, New Challenges
Nobody should ever support any dilution of labour rights and laws.
Further to my post #14 above, it appears that the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench held that the Alberta Labour Relations Board didn't have the jurisdiction to declare that the Rand Formula needed to be included in the Alberta legislation as a Charter requirement. Source.
Of course, I could be reading it all wrong, which is why I'm still waiting for our lawyers!
In the meantime, my best guess is that the Rand Formula is not (as of now) a constitutional requirement. Which would help explain why only British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland, as well as the federal Canada Labour Code, currently include it.
And here's a pretty good op-ed on Hudak's proposals:
Cohn: Tim Hudak’s Tory vision for a low-union, low-wage Ontario
Some working people base their attitude towards unions on one or a few personal encounters with unions. For example, if they are inconvenienced by a strike (can't make a delivery, buy or sell some product etc.) they fail to analyze why this is happening and overgeneralize that unions must be bad. When I was single, I lived for a while with two guys, one of whom hated unions because he had lost the opportunity to get a job because it went to someone who was already a union member. No matter how much I argued with him about the benefits of unions, he could only look at them from his narrow personal framework. Some workers like the sensationalism of right-wing TV (Sun and Fox) or newspapers (too many to mention) and start consuming their anti-union diatribes.
Hudak proposes legions of free agents without agency.
The big question to Tim Hudak ought to be why it is that feels Ontario ought to look more like Alabama than it currently does.
Jim Stanford again, this time in the Globe & Mail:
Wisconsin's disease crosses the border