NDP rushes ahead with labour law rewrite
Who doesn’t like families? And who doesn’t like fairness?
It’s a good thing you live in Alberta, because in the coming days we’re all in store for a lot of chatter about the province’s new Fair and Family-Friendly Workplaces Act.
Also known as Bill 17, the NDP government rolled out a suite of proposed changes to workplace rules on Wednesday, and promptly began selling the largest overhaul of Alberta’s employment standards and labour relations code since the Calgary Olympics.
On Thursday, Labour Minister Christina Gray continued to tout improvements that will increase the number of unpaid work leaves for employees who are sick or need time off to care for a family member.
The labour minister even brought along two doctors from the Edmonton area who spoke about the need for protected unpaid sick leaves for workers, particularly low-income Albertans.
“What I see in my office is people are scared to take time off,” said Dr. Doug Klein, who works at Edmonton’s Royal Alexandra Hospital. “They’re concerned that they’re going to lose their job if they take those few days to get better.”
Expect to hear more talk about compassionate care and maternity work leaves in the days to come — but not so much about some of the more contentious elements of the bill, such as the potential unionization of ranches and commercial farms.
The government’s strategy will be to promote improved benefits for maternity leave, parental leave (bumped up to 52 weeks from 37 today) and compassionate care (extended from eight to 27 weeks).
In part, that’s because Alberta lags behind federal benefits and other provinces, but also because some of these changes make such obvious sense.
Many employers already offer some of the proposals, such as three unpaid days for the death of a loved one, or five days to tend to personal and family responsibilities.
“You’d be pretty hard-hearted to vote against some of those leaves — the protected leaves — and it’s sort of been lumped all together,” said Ken Kobly, CEO of the Alberta Chambers of Commerce.
The government is also updating rules overseeing youth employment standards, striving to protect young people who are making a paycheque before their 16th birthday.
The official Opposition said they’re willing to provide unanimous consent for portions of the bill that relate to protecting workers, such as compassionate care. However, Wildrose leader Brian Jean says elements in the labour code amendments need more consultation and the legislation should be split in two.
Here’s where it gets tricky for the government and the act might not seem so friendly to everyone.
For example, farm and ranch workers will now be able to unionize, something that could affect larger commercial operations such as feedlots.
Family members working on their farms will be exempt from employment standards, but most of the new rules will apply to waged workers in agriculture enterprises.
Given the outcry over Bill 6, however, this could become another combustible issue.
Grain producer Kent Erickson of Ag-Coalition, an agriculture group that formed after the Bill 6 controversy, pointed out many farmers are too busy harvesting last fall’s crop or seeding this spring to take time out to examine the new act.
“It’s such a large bill and the speed of what they want to get through is alarming,” he said.
Rules on union certification have also been altered.
A secret ballot vote will no longer be needed if more than 65 per cent of employees at a workplace sign union membership cards.
However, if 40 to 65 per cent sign a verified card, a secret ballot vote would be held, similar to the current system.
Some business groups are upset with this hybrid process, although Kobly calls it “a compromise.”
Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, agrees, noting labour groups didn’t get the ban on using replacement workers during strikes that they were hoping to see, but first-contract arbitration was included.
“The business community got some of what it wanted, and we in the labour movement got some of what we wanted.”
Another tweak means overtime must be banked at 1.5 hours for each hour worked (rather than straight time), something that has caught the attention of business groups.
“There’s just so much here, but on the face of it the overtime calculations will be the biggest pinch point,” said Amber Ruddy of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
From a cursory look at the legislation, this is a massive and complex series of reforms to workplace rules.
But with the government looking to pass the legislation before the spring session ends — it’s slated to wrap up in the next couple of weeks — Gray appears to be in a hurry.
It’s also worth remembering the government started consultations on the issue only 10 weeks ago.
“The bill is over 250 pages,” said Zoe Addington of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.
“We need time to understand what’s in the legislation and understand what the impacts are.”
Asked repeatedly Thursday why the government won’t slow down, the minister insisted most of the labour code issues are already widely understood by people on both sides of the divide.
“We know what those perspectives are and we’ve put forward a middle ground solution,” Gray said.
Middle ground depends on exactly where you stand.
But in the days ahead, we’ll start to see just how fair and friendly Alberta’s new workplace legislation really is.