Social Policy in Ontario

Unions are battered but not broken

Posted on September 7, 2015 in Policy Context

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TheStar.com – Opinion/Editorials – Canada’s labour movement is still struggling to re-shape the workplace with unions now pressing to help the precariously employed.
Sep 07 2015.   Editorial

Battered by the decline of heavy industry and sapped by the rise of “precarious” employment, Canada’s labour movement faces a difficult future. But it was born in hard times, when determined printers in Toronto committed what was then considered a crime and walked off the job in 1872 demanding an end to workdays lasting more than nine hours.

The challenge today is far different. Blue-collar jobs are fast disappearing. Southern Ontario, Canada’s industrial heartland, is being described as “the new rust belt.”

Where labour once fought to work nine hours daily or less, some people today don’t work much more than that in a week. Permanent, full-time jobs are being replaced by temporary or part-time work, with secure employment a thing of the past. More Canadians are toiling for fewer benefits — often they’re deemed contractors instead of employees — and usually they’re young people, women, recent immigrants and visible minorities.

Unions need to reach out to these people, draft alternate bargaining strategies, and set new goals if they are to continue a 140-year tradition of making a difference in Canadian society. That’s the challenge this Labour Day as union members take to the streets carrying banners and waving flags to choruses of “Solidarity Forever.”

There’s evidence of movement in the right direction. A deal struck in August between the United Food and Commercial Workers and Ontario’s 60 Loblaws Great Food and Superstores has opened a way to more predictable scheduling and better hours for thousands of part-time workers.

As reported by the Star’s Sara Mojtehedzadeh, the agreement sets up a series of test runs with a goal of implementing lasting change. The first provides part-timers with 10 days advance notice on scheduling — up from just three. If there are no significant problems after an eight- to 12-month trial, the change becomes permanent.

Erratic scheduling has long been the bane of part-time workers. The Star has in the past highlighted the stress caused by this lack of predictability, especially on parents with young children who are struggling to plan time with their kids.

The new deal includes another pilot initiative giving half of part-time staff a guaranteed minimum number of work hours, ranging from 20 to 28 hours a week, based on seniority. That, too, marks a big step forward for those engaged in precarious work.

The agreement follows an earlier breakthrough deal between Metro grocery stores and Unifor Local 414, representing the chain’s 4,000 employees across Greater Toronto. This contract, ratified in July, grants part-timers a minimum of 15 hours of work weekly, after one year of service, and 24 work hours on eight years’ seniority.

That may not seem like much to old-school veterans of traditional Canadian workplaces. But these employees previously had no right to minimum hours at all.

The pact also gives workers five days notice on scheduling, up from just two. A union member described some staff as “practically in tears” on receiving word of that provision.

Ontario’s outdated Employment Standards Act offers workers almost no right to predictable timetables and fair hours. But many have obtained some measure of protection this summer through collective bargaining. This serves to underscore the role of organized labour as a force for social good. Indeed, there’s sound reason for Statistics Canada to list union membership as a key “indicator of well-being.”

That’s why it’s cause for concern that such membership continues to slip, with just 28.8 per cent of employed Canadians, aged 17 to 64, in a union last year. The overall unionization rate has fallen from almost 40 per cent in the early 1980s. This unfortunate slide has been especially pronounced in the private sector, where organized labour now covers only 15.2 per cent of workers.

Unions are well aware of the problem; it’s one reason they’re striving to win gains for part-time and precarious employees. The long-term future of organized labour might well depend on making inroads among these workers. Organizations such as Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union, have made a priority of reaching out to such people and bargaining on their behalf.

It won’t be easy. Part-timers, people in temporary jobs, those doing contract work, the self-employed and freelancers are notoriously difficult to organize. How well this effort will succeed remains unclear, but the well-being of a great many Canadians is riding on the outcome.

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2015/09/07/unions-are-battered-but-not-broken-editorial.html >

Tags: economy, featured, ideology, participation, poverty, rights, standard of living

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