Canadian HR Reporter - Sample Issue

CANADIAN HR REPORTER OCTOBER 2018 6 NEWS Ontario Chamber of Commerce pushes for repeal of labour changes 'Poorly written legislation brings no balance between labour and business': CEO BY SARAH DOBSON CLAIMING Ontario's recent labour reforms were "too much, too fast," the Ontario Chamber of Commerce (OCC) is calling on the new provincial government to repeal the "drastic" labour reforms introduced by Bill 148, the Fair Workplaces Better Jobs Act. e new rules have significant- ly limited employers' ability to maintain or grow the workforce they need to be competitive, and businesses are experiencing real consequences from the "lack of stakeholder consultation and unrealistic implementation time- lines," according to Rocco Rossi, president and CEO of the OCC. "Literally, the Liberals jammed together this incredible omnibus bill — in what turned out to be an unsuccessful attempt at buy- ing votes — without substantive consultation with the business community, with no significant economic analysis." As an example, it was only on the last day of the Liberal govern- ment when it realized there was unintended consequences to the legislation around statutory holi- day calculations, he said. "When (the Liberals) them- selves have to pull back pieces on the last day before dissolu- tion, that suggests to me it's not a thoughtful process... We were raising those points; it was simply ignored. ere was no change." Even the change to minimum wage — which saw the base rate rise from $11.40 to $14 as of Jan. 1, 2018, and scheduled to rise one dollar further to $15 by Jan. 1, 2019 — wasn't included in the original draft and was added later, said Rossi. And while the OCC accepts the initial 21 per cent jump — which members are still trying to absorb — the other non-wage elements of Bill 148 need to be opened up for discussion, he said, "so that we're not dealing with all of these unintended consequences from really poorly written legislation that brings no balance between labour and business needs and, therefore, we believe, threatens future prosperity and the ability to match people to jobs." In the end, Bill 148 was much narrower than the interim report and subsequent recommenda- tions, according to Rafael Go- mez, director of the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources at the University of Toronto. "Bill 148 was a tiny, almost piecemeal set of policies that the Liberals kind of cherry-picked to think what would maximize their own political gain, and then put through the minimum wage to get maximum political support." And during the consultations before the Changing Workplaces Review, "there was nothing — si- lence from the business commu- nity, they offered nothing in the initial round," he said. "ey got caught flat-footed; they didn't think the process was maybe going to yield anything or they were cautious and wanted to react to what was submitted. Even the reactions were tepid and weak." But Rossi said there was no substantive process where the OCC was welcome and encour- aged to be there, and "it's pretty disappointing for people to say, 'Well, it's where it is because busi- ness didn't bother to talk about it' — that's just nonsensical, we had built an alliance around reaction to 148 which was simply ignored." Since the legislation came into force, OCC members have cut back on capital expenditures to shift monies to deal with increased costs, and smaller employers are particularly challenged by the new rules around scheduling, he said. "Our hope is to be able to revisit that process in a more thorough and thoughtful way with substan- tive consultation and real analy- sis," said Rossi. "All it would do is status quo ante, so I'm sure that the programs that have not all been deleted, it would be a matter of some undos. We're not talking about going back to Dickensian England, we're talking about a couple of months ago." Ontario's labour changes came about after two-and-a-half years of consultation by the govern- ment, following a process where there had been a decade of conversation on how work has changed, said Deena Ladd, co- ordinator at the Workers Action Centre in Toronto. "Bill 148 came out of an un- derstanding that our labour laws were very out of date, our wages had stagnated, there was a lack of enforcement, there were major problems that contract workers and temp agency workers and people who were really vulner- able in the workplace who relied on basic employment standards for their protections, they simply were not covered." And raising the minimum wage helps bring people above the pov- erty line, she said, while equal pay for equal work is very important when it comes to addressing the gender wage gap. "To me, (the OCC is) continu- ing their knee-jerk reaction to any changes that make lives a little easier for an average worker. Again, we're just talking about ba- sic employment standards. We're not talking about union collective agreements. We're talking about things like two paid personal emergency leave days in a year." But Ontario has a very diverse economy, said Rossi. "It's not all banking employ- ees in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) — we have people in tour- ism, we have people in agriculture, THINK > pg. 12

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