In Alberta, we’ve had a story break this week about the Stelmach government bringing in new anti-union labour code reforms. It has been particularly interesting listening to the canted media coverage although much of this cant can be explained by the opposing opinion simply not being organized or not seeing a need to legitimize the union groups.
Basically, the new legislation will make EMS an essential service, thus removing their right to strike. Of course, that will not prevent them from striking if they really feel they have a grievance. If you have a bad enough grievance, you will act, legally or otherwise. Quite frankly, I’m surprised EMS wasn’t classified an essential service before now.
That’s not the particularly controversial part of the legislation, however. Based on media coverage, the legislation would make the practice of "salting" illegal as well as forbidding unions from subsidizing contract bids by union shops when competing against non-union shops. It is this that the big union groups are claiming is anti-union. More on that later.
Salting is the practice of union supporters gaining employment with a non-union employer for the purpose of unionizing that employer. This might sound innocuous on the surface, but how is it different from invading another country by having a large number of your citizens become citizens of that country and then causing that country to democratically merge with your country. It sounds all nice an legitimate on the surface but it really is coercion. It should be noted that by making salting illegal, it DOES NOT prevent the employees of a non-union shop from unionizing. It just prevents the unions from forcing the issue by having their supporters join the company for that purpose.
The other issue is somewhat thorny. It is apparently common practice for a union to subsidize a unionized shop when it is competing for a contract (particularly a government one) against a non-union shop. What this means is that even though the non-union shop may have lower costs, it can’t compete with the union bid because of the subsidy. Even if the actual cost of performing the contract is not subsidized, the cost of preparing the bid often is. The non-union shop does not have that luxury and thus has to build the cost of bidding into the final contract so it can cover those costs if it wins the contract. Either practice creates an unfair advantage to the union shop since there should be no preference for a union shop over a non-union shop. The preference should be solely based on the quality of the bid, not the means by which employees negotiate with the employer. Basically, making this practice illegal levels the playing field.
As far as the legislation being anti-union, it really is. The union groups are saying that it is in retaliation for the personal attacks on Ed Stelmach during the election. No doubt, there is an element of revenge. Attack ads have rarely worked in Alberta. Albertans do not generally like them. The union groups are also saying that they spent so much money lobbying the government to see their point of view and now that is all for nothing. The implication there is that because they spent money lobbying, they should have got their way. That’s an interesting point of view since they’re accusing the "big money" companies of doing exactly the same thing.
Even better, the union groups are saying that this is an prime example of a conservative government behaving like a conservative government. Funny, that. Albertans elected a conservative government and we’re getting one. If Albertans wanted the unions to have more power, we would have elected the NDP to govern. We didn’t. That should say something.
In this whole thing, there is an implication by the unions that only by unionizing the whole province can employees have their rights protected. There is an implication that because unions are not getting their way, employees have no rights. I challenge anyone who believes this to be true to read the Alberta labour code. There are a great many rights in the labour code. In my opinion, they are mostly balanced between the employer having the right to conduct business as they see fit and the employee rights. Sure, there are some issues with the labour code but as a whole it is quite reasonable. In fact, it is skewed somewhat in favour of long-term employees.
I haven’t read the proposed legislation so I don’t know if there are some other things being slid into it that are a bad thing but that fact that the unions are not talking about such things indicates to me that they are not there. After all, they would be using every bit of ammunition they could find.
As a final though, I challenge anyone to find a reference in the Canadian Constitution or the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which provides rights for employees specifically. Likewise for employers. Likewise for unions. Likewise for corporations. And, yes, I know employees are people and thus have all the rights and freedoms listed in the aforementioned documents. However, does any one of those rights talk about employment specifically?