12 hours Ago By Yvette Milner
The current government is going the wrong way on public tendering and other labour laws. Read this article for free: Already have an account? To continue reading, please subscribe: * The current government is going the wrong way on public tendering and other labour laws. Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? Opinion The current government is going the wrong way on public tendering and other labour laws.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew has made a promise to increase unionization in Manitoba and is following up with the labour policies that are currently being implemented. The labour laws that are being introduced do not favour a competitive workforce in the construction industry. The repeal of Bill 7, the public sector construction projects tendering repeal act, the repeal of mandatory secret ballot vote for unionization and the changes to ratios for journeymen to apprentices will move Manitoba backwards, not forward.
Merit Contractors Association and our members believe in a business environment where construction contracts are awarded based on corporate merit. Seventy per cent of tradespeople work in open shops where belonging to a union is not a condition of employment. Unfortunately, in Manitoba, the repeal of Bill 7 will result in companies being discouraged from bidding on provincially funded projects.
Instead, bidding access will be restricted to specific unionized contracts affiliated with the building trades, as is the case in other provinces such as British Columbia. As a result, approximately seven out of 10 Manitoban construction workers will be excluded from employment on such projects unless they or their employer pay dues to a building trades union. No matter how you look at it, that is forced unionization.
Less competition and increased cost to the taxpayer will be the result of these policies. The decision to repeal Bill 7, which bans project labour agreements, is just wrong. A Building Trades union opinion piece that was published on Oct.
16 in the , headlined , implied that open shop/non-union employers don’t pay fair wages, don’t comply with safety legislation, don’t employ a diverse workforce and don’t comply with employment standards on job sites, which couldn’t be further from the truth. We believe that the evaluation of public projects should be based on quality and expertise and objective criteria to ensure a productive workplace where there are opportunities to train employees, not a race to the bottom as Tanya Paulson, executive director of Manitoba Building Trades, suggested in her opinion piece. The Labour Relations Amendment Act eliminates the mandatory secret ballot vote for union certification.
Everyone deserves a secret ballot vote but, under the current government, construction workers when deciding to unionize will not have this right. In a democracy, we don’t choose our government by a show of hands. Instead, we give every citizen the right to express their choice clearly and freely in the security and privacy of the voting booth.
It is disturbing that now, in Manitoba, in construction we are moving to a card check, sign the card system. There is no opportunity for each employee to reflect and to privately state their preference, as every other voter does, with no consideration for the sort of persuasion and pressure that may have been brought to bear in securing signatures. In Manitoba, we also have the change in ratio for journeymen to apprentices back to 1:1 from 2:1.
This is a decision which is concerning, and will reduce the number of apprentices in the system. Recruiting and retaining a skilled labour force is of utmost importance to the construction industry, as it is in other industries and as it should be to the government. The ratio change will reduce the number of apprentices in the system, reduce the ability for employers to hire apprentices and hamper the province’s ability to increase a skilled workforce.
The fairness and balance in construction in Manitoba is gone. Yvette Milner is the president of Merit Contractors Association of Manitoba which is the only business association in the province that exclusively has a membership of Open Shop Contractors. Merit has 170-plus member companies representing over 6,000 employees.
Advertisement.
