Canadian Labour Reporter

service across the country, not just here, that members don't feel they have the right to push back." Jessome said employees feel too afraid or ashamed to speak up for themselves and call for improve- ments to their contracts. Compounding this issue are several new pieces of legislation — concerning essential services and the consolidation of 50 of Nova Scotia's bargaining units into four health-care councils — that are putting serious pressures on em- ployees as the parties prepare for collective bargaining, she said. "Because we've had so much change and we're dealing with so much new legislation, there's a lot of uncertainty," said Jessome. "And you don't always hear from members because people are in temporary positions or ca- sual positions and they're afraid. They're held hostage by their po- sition." Catching up to changing workplaces Working conditions, and the issue of precarious work in particular, will be a major area of focus for Unifor in the upcoming year. In Ontario, the union will be working closely with the province as it reviews changing workplaces and addresses the gender wage gap. Katha Fortier, Unifor's Ontario regional director, said the union plans to focus on updating em- ployment standards and labour relations acts to bring them up to date with today's working condi- tions. "There hasn't been a significant update in Ontario in more than two decades," Fortier said. "If you look at work in the last two de- cades, it's gone through some in- credible changes." She said Unifor will be reach- ing out to organizations in 2016 to partner on these reviews and work toward improving workplace con- ditions and addressing the issues employees are facing. "I think almost everybody would agree that the rising in- equality has led to a situation where many people are being left behind," Fortier said. "Oftentimes, Ontario sort of leads the pack in these sorts of is- sues, so we're hoping for some real progressive changes." Raising the floor One particular change Unifor will be pushing for is raising the floor for employees at the bottom of their wage scale. "We did that for retail this year and for our Air Canada bargaining where workers that were at or just about minimum wage got signifi- cantly higher increases," Fortier said. While increases were negotiat- ed at every level, the union focused on negotiating higher increases for those on the floor to support members doing precarious and low-wage work. These efforts to improve con- ditions for Unifor's most vulner- able members present a challenge, Fortier said, as the union simulta- neously works to prevent taking concessions for its members as a whole. Balancing the budget Ki Lin Tay, an associate lawyer at Levitt & Grosman in Toronto, said unions' efforts to win improve- ments for their members could be significantly affected by the federal budget. "There are a number of emerg- ing issues that have been proposed by way of the April 2015 Federal Budget which will certainly have a significant effect on the current state of labour relations in Canada if implemented," Tay said. Particularly, she pointed to a heavier emphasis on the labour market in an effort to ensure em- ployers have a pool of qualified workers to draw upon. Additionally, Tay said a major move on rationalizing the govern- ment's own employment practices by reforming and reducing expen- ditures on sick leave, disability and workers' compensation can be ex- pected to have a significant impact on unions' plans for the upcoming year. Picking up the tab Perhaps more than anything else, Tay said, the Ontario Lib- eral government's highly publi- cized $3.7-million payoff to vari- ous public sector unions in 2015 will have a lasting ripple effect on 2016's negotiations and labour re- lations. The provincial government's practice of paying money directly to unions to cover expenses during collective bargaining came under harsh criticism in 2015. "As a result, there is a potential that unions may begin looking to the government or other par- ties to subsidize costs incurred in protracted bargaining, and an even greater likelihood that union members and the public will be holding unions accountable to re- port with respect to funding, costs and expenditures in light of the ap- parent conflict of interest borne out by the union payouts in 2015," Tay said. "Practices such as those em- ployed by the Ontario government this past year are certainly atypical and controversial, and once the dust settles, the outcome may very well affect how other unions pro- ceed in negotiations." 7 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2016 CANADIAN LABOUR REPORTER NEWS < from pg. 1 Unions to address changing workplace issues in 2016 Photo: Mark Blinch (Reuters) The highly publicized $3.7-million payoff to Ontario unions in 2015 will have a lasting ripple effect on 2016's negotiations and labour relations, according to Ki Lin Tay, an associate lawyer at Levitt & Grosman.

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