By Doug Nesbitt and Scott Price
While organized labour has loudly pronounced the triumph of anti-scab legislation in federal parliament, Manitoba’s recently-elected New Democratic government has introduced two major labour law reforms that have largely flown under the radar, even in Manitoba. Automatic card check certification and anti-scab reforms are now in second reading in the Manitoba legislature. Only British Columbia and Quebec have anti-scab laws.
Automatic card check certification, or simply “card check” means the labour board will certify a union as the sole collective bargaining agent in a workplace if a majority (or super-majority) of workers in a workplace sign union membership cards. This method bypasses the board-supervised vote that takes place after the employer has an opportunity to wage an anti-union campaign. It is why the business class consistently lobbies against “card check”.
Card check in Manitoba now requires a simple majority to be certified, down from a 65 percent super-majority. This is an improvement on the British Columbia card check law of 2022 which requires a 55 percent super-majority to be automatically certified without a board-supervised election. Manitoba now joins Prince Edward Island and Quebec as the only provinces with true, unconditional majority card check.
Manitoba’s anti-scab law is a long time coming. During Manitoba’s previous three eras of NDP governments, anti-scab legislation was never introduced despite mandates from party convention and organized labour. Beginning with its shameful acceptance of strikebreaking at Griffin Steel in 1977, the Manitoba NDP has championed dubious alternatives to anti-scab, such as the divisive Final Offer Selection in the 1980s and Gary Doer’s strikebreaking 60-day arbitration law.
Labour reforms buried in omnibus budget bill
Manitoba’s Premier Wab Kinew was at the recent Manitoba Federation of Labour convention championing these new labour reforms. Kinew received applause and praise from union members, but the government has done its best to keep the reforms out of the public limelight.
The labour reforms are buried in the so-called Budget Implementation and Tax Statutes Amendment Act, or Bill 37. It is a large 89-page “omnibus” bill that changes all sorts of different laws.
By burying the labour reforms in this omnibus bill, Kinew’s NDP government does not have to present separate labour legislation to the public, and helps the government avoid opposition and public scrutiny in legislative committees. The opposition PCs are hypocrites, but they are right in calling the omnibus bill undemocratic, just as Harper’s omnibus bills were undemocratic.
Lack of confidence
The government’s omnibus tactic betrays a lack of confidence in the labour reforms, and sends a clear signal that organized labour is, at best, a junior partner in the Manitoba NDP.
At the Manitoba NDP’s convention in October 2022, delegates voted unanimously for anti-scab as party policy. Immediately afterwards, Kinew was in front of the media downplaying anti-scab by claiming that the public didn’t understand it. Over the following year, leading up to his party’s victory in October 2023, Kinew did not campaign on anti-scab or card check.
In December 2023, Minister Marcelino directed its appointed Labour-Management Committee to review anti-scab and card check. No further details were shared to the public. Three months later, the NDP attacked the opposition PCs, claiming they had filibustered the labour bills being introduced. Still, the draft bills were kept under wraps. Radio silence resumed for a month until the omnibus budget legislation, Bill 37, was introduced on May 6 by Finance Minister, Adrien Sala. The buried labour reforms were not mentioned when Sala brought forward Bill 37 in the legislature.
Why are Kinew, Sala and Marcelino afraid of defending automatic card check and anti-scab against the opposition Tories and their anti-union friends in the business community and establishment press? In debate over the Second Reading of Bill 37 on May 27, Mark Wasyliw was the only NDP MLA to defend the labour reforms, stating that anti-scab stopped employers from starving out strikers and placed an emphasis on anti-scab stopping strikes altogether. Wasyliw briefly mentioned card check, stating union membership is “the path in Manitoba for middle class.”
The NDP’s conduct on the labour file has meant that these two very important labour law reforms have been pushed through without any effort to educate Manitoba’s working majority, or initiate a new round of labour organizing. They are reforms without power.
Targets for union organizing
With Kinew’s government focused on passing Bill 37 into law, organized labour must now make the most of anti-scab and card check. The success of card check is now entirely dependent on whether or not the unions have the resources and leadership required to begin unrolling serious organizing strategies.
With card check, union wins will increase, as they are now in British Columbia. However, without plowing new resources into organizing programs, the gains will be more easily contained by employers and their allies.
There is no lack of organizing targets in the province. Sobeys supermarkets in Manitoba are non-union. If UFCW 832 has no strategy to organize Sobeys, now is the time to develop a plan and put it into motion.
The popular Winnipeg coffee and bakery chain, Stella’s, is another target to consider. Four years ago it closed down its flagship store after scabbing failed to deter a first contract strike. During the strike, Stella’s also collected taxpayer money from the so-called Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, the notorious pandemic slush fund for the business class.
Also in 2020, union-busting scabs were used at a unionized Tim Hortons owned by rich franchisee, JP Shearer, who owns at least five other Tim Hortons stores in Winnipeg. The workers had organized with Workers United and were locked out over a 10 cent pay increase.
In addition to organizing larger non-union workplaces such as Sobeys and Amazon, workers and the unions have an opportunity to employ company-wide, multi-store organizing strategies instead of the failed route of single-store “hot shop” organizing.
The costs of labour peace
The last time the NDP was in office in Manitoba, labour peace took precedence over building union power. Strike levels fell to zero in some of the later years of the NDP’s 1999-2016 dynasty. All the while, union density flat-lined and even declined in these years.
The costs of labour peace during these years was raised by Jim Silver and the late Errol Black early in Premier Gary Doer’s second term (2003-2007). In the CCPA’s Monitor magazine, Silver and Black pointed out that organized labour needed to be ready for the next Tory government by organizing and running campaigns while the NDP were in power. Those words were not heeded.
It is not obvious that senior union leaders intend to create new organizing programs and lead new organizing offensives. The Manitoba Federation of Labour has done very little to promote the new labour laws. Union members who want action will have to push inside their unions for directing union resources into organizing programs. Labour Council delegates can also conduct educational work and begin necessary networking and information-gathering required for union drives.
The astute observations raised by Jim Silver and Errol Black must be learned so the mistake of “labour peace” under the NDP is not repeated. Even with new labour laws, an organizing offensive will certainly lead to first contract strikes and nasty counter-attacks from employers. Even if the NDP are defeated in Manitoba’s next election, it does not mean organized labour has to be unprepared for job action. When labour’s most powerful weapon lays idle in favour of so-called labour peace, union power weakens. The strength of organized labour will require rank-and-file action that drags the labour leaders into taking on the union-busting business class.
Credits:
Feature photo by Colin Slark (Brandon Sun) available here.
The graphic about card-check is not quite accurate regarding Ontario. Ontario does have card-check, but only in the construction industry.
Thanks Mike – we’ve made the correction.
Labour under NDP regimes no longer can remotely qualify as junior partners as in the ever-more distant past.
Now they are silent partners with only the slightest of influence in very narrow policy spaces.
The lack of political confidence on the part of labour has been apparent since the last time the CLC dared to intervene in the nation’s political debate…1990, the Enough is Enough limited campaign against the GST.
The last time labour went all in politically on its own accord with any vigour was in opposition to the Yankee free trade deal during the ’88 election. The NDP under the late Ed Broadbent infamously softballed their criticisms of free trade during this election allowing the corporate Liberals to steal the limelight of opposition.
In 2020, the Trump renewal of free trade was not opposed by labour and was supported by the NDP in Parliament as they have done for a variety of deals since NAFTA, eg, with Israel and South Korea.
Labour is so quiet in BC under the NDP one might think someone has turned off the lights at the BC Fed and closed the doors safe in the knowledge no one will notice. Labour has been easily pacified with the single concession of a poor quality card-check and what passes for collective bargaining in the face of inflation has laughably featured wage ‘demands’ well below the rapidly expanding costs of living.
In the field of local politics, labour in BC and Ontario (examples that I am familiar with) adopts a similarly silent and secretive approach to ‘influence’ by backing candidates who talk sweetly to labour officials behind closed doors, make no real commitments and whose endorsement by labour councils are usually kept on the down-low. Based on the premise that it is politically damaging to be publicly associated with labour.
This flaccid and frankly dishonest approach is a perfect foil for rightwing union-bashers in politics who can point to secrecy and mendacity on the part of labour. One example of how this played out in London, Ontario was the election of a Mayor and majority of Council backed by the local labour council in 2018. Within weeks, municipal CUPE staff were provoked to strike by management who then easily convinced the supposedly labour-friendly Mayor and Council to back scab strike breakers. The response from labour? Meh.
So I am still waiting do we have anti scab legislation or not? The article is very wordy but not very clear. You also failed to mention the disastrous strike at versatile which led to some workers taking their own lives due to the loss of their job’s and self respect. The greedy Bulher stole the company from the workers and laughed at them the whole way through. Also the month long strike at New Flyer where the company under estimated the power of the workers who found and picketed the dirty companies hiden scab filled assembly plants. Both these strikes could have been avoided with anti scab legislation. So do we have it or not.
The labour reforms are in Second Reading. This is stated in the second paragraph. They are not yet law as far as we know. No question Versatile and New Flyer make the case for anti-scab.
I welcome both of these labour milestones especially the anti-scab one. How they are passed is moot and to be quite frank the Conservatives have never been friends of the working class even as Poliviere tries a folksy everyday man approach by claiming he is the champion of workers S/. The reality is though it is an oblique way to get these vital labour friendly pieces of legislation through, the working class will still better off. It will be up to our Unions and respective leaderships to make the most of what these two key pieces of legislation can offer in both the collective bargaining process and in organizing the unorganized.