Canadian HR Reporter

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"(ey might think) 'Wait a sec- ond, I might be carrying on a simi- lar business to my colleague down the street, around the block, and I might have a very small workforce as does he or she, but they are my competition,'" she said. "'I don't want to sit at the same bargaining table with them nego- tiating terms and conditions of employment which that propri- etor might be able to absorb for various reasons, and be in a po- sition where I am forced to agree with terms and conditions that could potentially put me out of business." On the whole, the government has "tinkered around the edges," said evaratnam, because the provincial workforce has changed drastically in recent years. "at's no longer the case in most areas because there's not al- ways a clear employer, or there's not really a real decision-maker, or there's no single workplace or non-standard work is prevalent," she said. Off-site voting e act also allows for off-site or electronic voting, which is a win for workers, said evaratnam. "Employees can actually vote their true wishes and maximize participation," she said, instead of holding a certification vote out- side the manager's office "where the employer is potentially scru- tinizing you." Card-based voting has also been extended to more sectors: the temporary help industry, the building services sector and for home health-care and community services workers. "Employees do not work in a single workplace anymore, so they are difficult to organize and so it's impractical also for the OLRB to conduct a vote in those workplac- es," said evaratnam. "These three sectors are not the only sectors in Ontario to face these challenges and so, well, it's a positive step for workers in these sectors, because the current two-step mandatory vote system actually unfairly disadvantages workers." But the government went too far in extending card-based certi- fication, according to Keenan. "ere are sufficient changes in the legislation that have come along with this new bill that this kind of card-based certification may be unnecessary." For example, she said, by com- pelling employers to provide list and contact information, "that's certainly a way to which a union can access the employee, so why is it necessary to give card-based certification?" "ere are a great number of employers that feel that this is an imbalance," said Keenan. Changes to Ontario's labour relations board Under the new law, the OLRB was also given an enhanced mandate to intervene in organizing drives, force certifications and appoint mediation for first contracts, said the panel. is is a process that will pro- vide greater access to collective bargaining, said Keenan. "It will result in perhaps fewer delays in terms of reaching a re- solve, but the concern I have — because I go to the bargaining ta- ble quite a bit — is that, generally speaking, first-contract arbitra- tion is sometimes a process used to avoid bargaining," she said. "Often enough, I find the par- ties could be doing a better job of coming to a resolution on their own, but when a union knows that the first contract could be achieved through arbitration, it may not have the same impetus to come to a resolution with the employer at the table using their own means." Employers feel mediation is of- ten not reflective of the view of the negotiating process and it chang- es the way a first contract can be achieved, said Keenan. But if an employer commits an unfair labour practice during or- ganizing, the new laws may rem- edy that for employers. "When an employer does some- thing illegal, that vote becomes meaningless, and you won't be able to ascertain that membership sup- port," said evaratnam. "For workers that are choos- ing to join a union, it can be very difficult to see the first tangible outcome, the first collective agree- ment be delayed, and it can weaken their resolve." "e OLRB is more empow- ered and is therefore able to take steps to create stable collective bargaining relationships and conditions for effective organiz- ing," she said. e labour relations board has been given more teeth, said the experts. "It's kind of widely accepted on both sides, management and labour, that the board, on bal- ance, makes decisions that are thoughtful, reasoned and free, for the most part, of political inter- ference. Why not give them more power?" said Rafael Gomez, di- rector at the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources at the University of Toronto. e OLRB has become a "huge machine that's grown over the years" but its work is valuable, said Keenan. "I see much of these changes to be unnecessary in terms of dealing with those things that the labour relations board is charged to deal with: interim relief in an organiz- ing campaign situation, and repri- sals that flow from the organizing, the desire to have a union, and un- fair labour practice complaints, both leading up to unionization and thereafter," she said. "As far as the labour board's powers to address the imbal- ance in the collective bargaining relationship or the imbalance in terms of the organizing and what flows from organizing, the labour relations board has done a pretty good job at that historically; indi- viduals who have issues can have them addressed so far as they constitute fair labour practices and the board is inundated with those applications and handles them on a daily basis." By forcing employers and em- ployees to enter into the media- tion process, which can be highly adversarial, this creates issues in terms of the two parties' relation- ships, said Keenan. "When you don't get along dur- ing the currency of your collective agreement, there is access to a grievance procedure and the par- ties should work through their pro- cess to come to a resolution them- selves, as opposed to attending at a panel-based situation over an issue that can be properly dealt within a grievance situation," she said. "Often matters settle through the grievance process." Rule changes in Ontario allow for off-site voting UNIONS < pg. 1

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