Fairness of labour law challenged
Emergency leave, paid sick days given to all except autoworkers
Autoworkers, who drive one of the most important sectors in Ontario’s economy and produce one of Canada’s top exports, are not entitled to the same protection under the province’s sweeping new labour law as most other employees.
The Fair Workplaces Better Jobs Act passed last month, which increases the minimum wage to $15 an hour, also grants all workers 10 days of personal emergency leave for illness, injury, bereavement or other emergencies and includes two paid sick days. All workers except autoworkers, that is.
Autoworkers are exempt from the provision under a cabinet decision that wasn’t announced with the rest of the fanfare.
Tens of thousands of people who work in auto manufacturing, parts, warehousing and marshalling (receiving vehicles and storing them for delivery to dealers or buyers) are entitled to only seven days for personal or family illness or emergencies, none of them paid. A separate provision grants three additional days, also unpaid, for bereavement.
The exemption, part of the government’s review of the Employment Standards Act that led to the sweeping reforms, was implemented last January as a “pilot” after lobbying by automakers. City News reported that discussion of it began shortly after former Toyota Canada chairman Ray Tanguay was named the federal and provincial government auto adviser.
“It seems like this is an exclusion,” said Dino Chiodo, former president of Unifor Local 444 in Windsor, now the union’s national auto director.
“That’s not right. If you’re going to administer changes for employment standards, the change should be equitable for all sectors.”
Autoworkers represented by Unifor — like those who work for Fiat Chrysler, Ford and General Motors — enjoy better provisions than the new law, “but there are a lot of workers in the auto industry that are not unionized who are not entitled to this,” Chiodo said.
Toyota and Honda are not unionized, so their workers depend on the company’s favour and Ontario’s labour law for protection and benefits.
The government is trying to balance the workers’ rights with the industry’s needs, Michael Speers, spokesman for Labour Minister Kevin Flynn, wrote in an email to the Star.
“Our government is committed to the success of the province’s auto sector in a highly competitive global economy, and committed to ensuring that this success is shared with its employees and their communities,” he stated.
Why doesn’t this exemption apply to other industries, like aerospace? asked Chiodo. It’s because “auto has put a lot of resources into getting this removed so they don’t have to pay for it,” he said.
“Companies are lobbying the government, saying you’re going to make us uncompetitive, put us out of business, and clearly we know that’s not the case.
Government has to make a decision — do they believe this? Is this something that could thwart investment? General Motors made billions of dollars in profits. So when they’re talking about two paid days, wages are less that five per cent of the cost of a vehicle. I don’t see it bankrupting the company.”
Some automakers are reported to have expressed concern that employees see the law’s provisions as an extra entitlement in addition to the provisions in their contracts.
They also expressed concern about employees abusing personal emergency leave, noting absenteeism, especially on Mondays and Fridays and days before and after holidays.
Many employers have challenges with attendance, Chiodo said. It’s management’s job to manage employees, and they have policies to mitigate problems.
The auto industry is also asking for exemptions from a bill that will address how companies schedule workers, Chiodo said. That bill is coming in 2019.
The NDP questioned the exemption to personal emergency leave in the legislature when it began. The party’s labour critic, Cindy Forster, former mayor of Welland, is calling for the government to eliminate the exemption and planning to introduce a private member’s bill in the spring.
“Are we not supposed to be putting in legislation that improves the working lives of all workers in this province as opposed to kowtowing to corporations who are making billions of dollars in profits?” she asked, noting that many jobs in the auto sector are physically demanding.
Many employees may be protected under their contracts, she said, but protections that are enshrined in law are better.
“It’s a lot harder — the Employment Standards Act hasn’t been amended in 20 years — to get changes there,” she said. “We’ve seen a lot of employers bargaining for concessions in the last five, 10 years.”
But the “pilot” will continue, even as the government introduces other labour reforms, Speers said.
Are we not supposed to be putting in legislation that improves the working lives of all workers in this province?