Canada - 2012

print
Population: 34,010,000
Capital: Ottawa
Government tampering with worker rights is becoming a norm with anti-union practices on the rise. Heading a new majority-led Parliament in Canada, the Conservative Harper Government has taken the lead in attacking freedom of association freedom of association The right to form and join the trade union of one’s choosing as well as the right of unions to operate freely and carry out their activities without undue interference.

See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework and Collective Bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
rights in its own jurisdiction, sending strong signals to other levels of government that it’s “open season” on workers and trade union rights – this, despite Supreme Court rulings that recognise these rights as cornerstones of industrial relations industrial relations The individual and collective relations and dealings between workers and employers at the workplace, as well as the institutional interaction between unions, employers and also the government.

See social dialogue . Back-to-work legislation has become its hallmark with direct attacks to certain sectors. Not surprising is the rise of many laws under Federal, Provincial or Territorial jurisdictions that provide little statutory protection to organise, bargain collectively or strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike for a growing number of workers.
ILO Core Conventions Ratified:
87 Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise (1948) 100 Equal Remuneration for Work of Equal Value (1951) 105 Abolition of Forced Labour (1957) 111 Discrimination in Employment and Occupation (1958) 182 Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999)

reported violations - 2012

Murders: none reported
Attempted Murders: none reported
Threats: none reported
Injuries: none reported
Arrests: none reported
Imprisonments: none reported
Dismissals: none reported
Documented violations - actual number of cases may be higher

Background

In May 2011, a national election gave the Conservative Party a majority in Parliament and with it a perceived mission to pursue an agenda of cutbacks to public services and jobs, further tax breaks to corporations and fiscal austerity. The government has also shown a renewed determination to attack trade union rights.

The economic recovery in Canada has ground to a halt. The national unemployment rate rose from 7.1% to 7.5% in the last three months of 2011 as the economy lost 63,000 full-time jobs. The “real” unemployment rate, which includes discouraged job seekers and involuntary part-time workers, was 10.6% in 2011, and a sky-high 19.7% for young workers, far above where it stood before the recession in 2008. Wages adjusted for inflation have been stagnating, and most forecasters expect no reduction in unemployment in 2012.

A 2011 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report on income inequality among 34 industrialised nations reported a rise in income inequality in Canada due to widening disparities in labour earnings since the 1980s, including a particularly steep increase in the income share of the top one percent.

The gap between the earnings of men and women is significant and has ceased to close. There are also large and growing pay gaps attributable to discrimination against racialised workers and Aboriginal workers. People with disabilities and Aboriginal peoples experience well above average rates of unemployment.

The continuing decline of union density in the private sector and the erosion of trade union rights and basic employment standards such as the minimum wage have been major factors behind rising inequality in Canada.

Calls for redress by union workers through collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
have been met with attacks on trade union rights, with Canada now setting the current record for freedom of association freedom of association The right to form and join the trade union of one’s choosing as well as the right of unions to operate freely and carry out their activities without undue interference.

See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework complaints to the International Labour Organisation (ILO International Labour Organization A tripartite United Nations (UN) agency established in 1919 to promote working and living conditions. The main international body charged with developing and overseeing international labour standards.

See tripartism, ITUC Guide to international trade union rights ), unsurpassed by any other industrialised member State. The CLC has also reported historical levels of violations, with respect to a number of ILO International Labour Organization A tripartite United Nations (UN) agency established in 1919 to promote working and living conditions. The main international body charged with developing and overseeing international labour standards.

See tripartism, ITUC Guide to international trade union rights Conventions ratified by Canada, dealing with employment, equality and discrimination issues. Canada has pulled out of the Kyoto accord on climate change, signaling its agenda to protect the interests of multinational companies, a policy that it is now exporting abroad, through the trade agreements with other countries and through changes in aid policy.

ILO Core Conventions Ratified:
87 Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise (1948) 100 Equal Remuneration for Work of Equal Value (1951) 105 Abolition of Forced Labour (1957) 111 Discrimination in Employment and Occupation (1958) 182 Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999)
Population: 34,010,000
Capital: Ottawa

reported violations- 2012

Documented violations - actual number of cases may be higher

Trade union rights in law

Trade union rights continue to be officially guaranteed in federal legislation, but provincial and territorial laws are still lacking. While the right to form and join unions is recognised in both public and private sectors, the groups of workers that are exempt from protections in certain jurisdictions continue to be long: agriculture, domestic services, public health, education, social services, health care, childcare and contract workers, as well as architects, dentists, land surveyors, lawyers, doctors and nurse practitioners. At the national level, the Canada Post Corporation Act continues to restrain certain temporary and contracted-out workers from joining a union.

Further, there are restrictions through union certification rules, i.e. ‘automatic card-check’, ‘mandatory voting system’ or some combination of both. Through legislation and regulation, governments are free to toy with calculated percentages of workers (often arbitrary) that are required to legally validate a labour relations process. In addition, they add administrative hurdles to industrial organisation, even over issues such as the validating of collective agreements.

When combined with powers allowing employers a wide range of actions to interfere with attempts to create a union (either tacitly or legally sanctioned), the union certification process becomes mired in confusing steps that restrict and prohibit the scope of application of ILO International Labour Organization A tripartite United Nations (UN) agency established in 1919 to promote working and living conditions. The main international body charged with developing and overseeing international labour standards.

See tripartism, ITUC Guide to international trade union rights Convention 87 Freedom of Association freedom of association The right to form and join the trade union of one’s choosing as well as the right of unions to operate freely and carry out their activities without undue interference.

See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework rights. Resistance to them is often met with employer and government propaganda that casts aspersions about unions subverting democratic processes.

The law also protects collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
, but again provincial or territorial restrictions dominate the scene and the right to strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike continues to be circumscribed at these levels. Provinces routinely prohibit specific sectors from striking, such as teachers in Manitoba, police in Ontario and transit workers in Toronto. The exercise of the right in the public services is often limited by the obligation for many strikers to provide essential services essential services Services the interruption of which would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population. Can include the hospital sector, electricity and water supply services, and air traffic control. Strikes can be restricted or even prohibited in essential services.

See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework
 as well as by regulatory procedures that make it very difficult for unions to counter employer designations. In some situations, the number of workers declared essential has surprisingly surpassed the number actually employed under normal operations. Finally, replacement labour may be used in industries governed by the Canada Labour Code and in all provinces, except Quebec and British Colombia.

Additional information regarding the legislation
ILO Core Conventions Ratified:
87 Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise (1948) 100 Equal Remuneration for Work of Equal Value (1951) 105 Abolition of Forced Labour (1957) 111 Discrimination in Employment and Occupation (1958) 182 Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999)
Population: 34,010,000
Capital: Ottawa

reported violations - 2012

Documented violations - actual number of cases may be higher

In practice

Supreme Court ruling not implemented:

In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
was included within the meaning of the term “Association” in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, yet neither federal nor most provincial or territorial governments are taking much heed. Instead of amending legislation and practice to conform to the Supreme Court ruling, Governments are taking on ‘case-by-case’ battles at labour boards, arbitration arbitration A means of resolving disputes outside the courts through the involvement of a neutral third party, which can either be a single arbitrator or an arbitration board. In non-binding arbitration, the disputing parties are free to reject the third party’s recommendation, whilst in binding arbitration they are bound by its decision. Compulsory arbitration denotes the process where arbitration is not voluntarily entered into by the parties, but is prescribed by law or decided by the authorities.

See conciliation, mediation tribunals and the courts. Meanwhile the Federal government has introduced back-to-work legislation to impose settlements in 2011 with postal workers and two separate Air Canada strikes. The overall effect is to erode collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
, generally, whilst undermining union capacity by forcing them to spend a disproportionate amount of finances on judicial or quasi-judicial representation.

In late 2011, a Private Members Bill was introduced into the House of Commons to change the criteria for union reporting to the Canada Revenue Agency, thus further increasing financial burdens on them. It also aims at giving employers detailed information about union operations, at taxpayers expense. The introduction of a similar private members bill in British Columbia, with Saskatchewan intimating it might do the same, raises the specter of a coordinated attack in a number of jurisdictions.

Back-to-work legislation – a worrisome track record on “essential services”:

The ILO International Labour Organization A tripartite United Nations (UN) agency established in 1919 to promote working and living conditions. The main international body charged with developing and overseeing international labour standards.

See tripartism, ITUC Guide to international trade union rights notion of ‘essential services essential services Services the interruption of which would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population. Can include the hospital sector, electricity and water supply services, and air traffic control. Strikes can be restricted or even prohibited in essential services.

See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework
 ’ is being distorted by governments to broadly argue against so-called economic impacts of strikes on the economy and social well-being. On June 26, the federal government adopted Bill C-6 to impose a settlement to end a lockout lockout A form of industrial action whereby an employer refuses work to its employees or temporarily shuts down operations. of nearly 50,000 postal workers, thereby continuing its track record since 1950 to introduce back-to-work legislation by tampering with the definition of ‘essential service’. The imposition of such legislation has become commonplace, the mere threat of it often tipping the balance against a particular strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike an employer opposes. This purpose was served on June 16, when the government announced its intent to introduce back-to-work legislation to end a legal strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike of Air Canada’s 3,800 sales and service agents, forcing the union and employer to resolve differences within a few days, or face a legislative resolution. In the case of a second strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike with Air Canada flight attendants on October 13, the federal government referred the labour dispute labour dispute See industrial dispute to the Canada Industrial Relations industrial relations The individual and collective relations and dealings between workers and employers at the workplace, as well as the institutional interaction between unions, employers and also the government.

See social dialogue Board, another move to prevent the employees from going on strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike .

The Government of Manitoba is also standing by current legislation that allows employers to unilaterally designate workers as ‘essential’. Similarly, legislation widening the application of ‘essential services essential services Services the interruption of which would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population. Can include the hospital sector, electricity and water supply services, and air traffic control. Strikes can be restricted or even prohibited in essential services.

See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework
 ’ continues to deny full exercise of trade union rights in such other provinces as New Brunswick, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island.

The Saskatchewan government continues to stand by legislation adopted in 2008, which has the effect of reducing the rights to organise and engage in collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
for thousands of public sector employees. It introduced legislation to eliminate sectoral bargaining in the construction industry, allowing the establishment of employer-dominated company unions, and greatly reducing the power of unions in the construction industry by reducing their longstanding right to control the supply of labour.

Trends in undermining collective bargaining:

The Canadian government continues to implement legislation introduced in conjunction with the 2009 Federal Budget, which fixes the level of wage increases for all federal public service employees. The provisions continue to negatively impact federal public sector employees in general, and particularly those working for the Canada Revenue Agency, the National Gallery of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Canadian Museum of Nature and the National Arts Centre, who have experienced a reduction in negotiated wage rates. An egregious example of this is the current implementation to “modernise” wage parity in the federal public sector, by making pay equity an object of collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
instead of a legislated right. At the same time, it has prohibited the trade union from representing its members in the filing of pay equity complaints, a clear tampering with the rights of freedom of association freedom of association The right to form and join the trade union of one’s choosing as well as the right of unions to operate freely and carry out their activities without undue interference.

See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework .

The removal or imposition of certain issues that might be subject to collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
is also practiced at the provincial or territorial level. For example in 2007, the Superior Court of Québec invalidated the 2003 Bill-30 on collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
in the public sector, which unilaterally defined collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
units and imposed what they would negotiate, without recourse to strikes. The matter was appealed in 2009 but is still being deliberated. Similarly in Quebec, Bill-43 imposes conditions of work in the public sector without collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
. A provincial committee on trade union rights has recommended that the government amend the legislation, but without follow-up to date.

Farm workers denied collective bargaining and organising rights in three provinces: Farm workers are excluded from protection afforded by labour relations legislation and thus deprived of the right to organise and bargain collectively in the provinces of Alberta, Ontario and New Brunswick (at operations for five or fewer workers). In Ontario, the government has led the assault by appealing a lower court decision that had granted Ontario farm workers collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
rights. In 2011 it obtained a Federal Supreme Court ruling to restrict those same rights – in contradiction to an earlier ILO International Labour Organization A tripartite United Nations (UN) agency established in 1919 to promote working and living conditions. The main international body charged with developing and overseeing international labour standards.

See tripartism, ITUC Guide to international trade union rights ruling on the same matter. Corrective legislation is not on the government’s horizon.
British Columbia Teachers denied collective bargaining: The British Columbia Supreme Court has ruled against government legislation to unilaterally set aside collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
rights of local school teachers to negotiate class size, composition, student ratios, workloads and hours of work. Despite the ruling, collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
rights of teachers continue to be curtailed.
Uninhibited use of strikebreakers in legal strikes: Employers continue to employ strikebreakers at will, pointing to a lack of provisions against the use of strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike -breakers in many Canadian jurisdictions. Even in Quebec where legislation is in place, both the ‘Journal de Québec’ and ‘Journal de Montréal’ produced their papers as usual, despite strikes that lasted 16 and 24 months respectively. The government has yet to follow up on recommendations from a review by the ‘Assemblée Nationale’ to amend legislation.
ILO Core Conventions Ratified:
87 Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise (1948) 100 Equal Remuneration for Work of Equal Value (1951) 105 Abolition of Forced Labour (1957) 111 Discrimination in Employment and Occupation (1958) 182 Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999)
Population: 34,010,000
Capital: Ottawa

reported violations - 2012

Documented violations - actual number of cases may be higher

Violations

Migrant workers undermined for sympathising with unions: The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Canada has filed a complaint with the British Columbia Labour Relations Board, alleging that the Mexican consulate in Vancouver has conspired with Mexican government agencies and two agriculture operators to blacklist migrant workers who were employed at Floriala Farms and Sidhu Nurseries near Surrey, British Columbia, because they were union sympathisers. Both companies employ workers from Mexico under Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP). The Consulate also stands accused of warning other workers to stop visiting union-run support centres in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.
“Couche-Tard” stores closed down and workers dismissed for unionisation: At the Canadian convenience store chain ‘Couche-Tard’ in Quebec, the employer closed down and laid off workers from two of four stores where unionisation by the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN) was attempted, again on the pretext of financial solvency. Attempts by the CSN under the Québec Labour Code for workers to be reinstated have failed.
Court decisions in the Wal-Mart saga: In 2010, the Supreme Court of Canada agreed with a 2005 closure of a Wal-Mart store in Jonquière, Quebec, ruling the company was justified in doing so for financial reasons, and not due to the possibility of a successful organising organising The process of forming or joining a trade union, or inducing other workers to form or join one. drive by United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Canada. However, in the same year, the Superior Court of Quebec separately supported an arbitrator’s decision to grant the employees with the right to claim for damages due to the closure, a ruling that Wal-Mart since then has taken to the Quebec Court of Appeal and from which a decision is awaited.
Working conditions of Temporary Foreign Workers resembles forced labour: In 2011, the CLC has asked for the ILO International Labour Organization A tripartite United Nations (UN) agency established in 1919 to promote working and living conditions. The main international body charged with developing and overseeing international labour standards.

See tripartism, ITUC Guide to international trade union rights to rule on the working conditions of Temporary Foreign Workers that appear to resemble forced labour situations under the ILO International Labour Organization A tripartite United Nations (UN) agency established in 1919 to promote working and living conditions. The main international body charged with developing and overseeing international labour standards.

See tripartism, ITUC Guide to international trade union rights Convention 29.
ILO Core Conventions Ratified:
87 Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise (1948) 100 Equal Remuneration for Work of Equal Value (1951) 105 Abolition of Forced Labour (1957) 111 Discrimination in Employment and Occupation (1958) 182 Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999)
Population: 34,010,000
Capital: Ottawa

reported violations - 2012

Documented violations - actual number of cases may be higher
© ITUC-CSI-IGB 2010 | www.ituc-csi.org | Contact Design by Pixeleyes.be - maps: jVectorMap