Ontario members of the Labourers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) are threatening a Charter challenge and promise other tactics to fight proposed changes to their collective bargaining rights contained in Bill 31, the governing Liberals’ budget implementation bill.
LIUNA is pitted not only against the Kathleen Wynne government but also the Carpenters’ Union in a dispute that is more than 40 years in the making, going back to 1978. That’s when the provincial government of the day established the formwork exemption that recognized existing LIUNA bargaining agreements while creating the Provincial ICI Bargaining system for unions in the province.
“It’s an aggressive and Draconian bill that takes the jurisdiction of one union and hands it to another trade union,” said LIUNA vice-president Joseph Mancinelli as he addressed a media conference at LIUNA’s Oakville, Ont. headquarters on April 13. He said thousands of LIUNA members would be forced to leave the union and lose vested pensions if the bill went ahead.
“This is one of the most regressive bills we have seen in 40 years of labour legislation. Not only in the way it’s been rammed through but also in the level of favouritism.”
Responding on April 23, as LIUNA organized a protest at Queen’s Park, Carpenters’ Local 27 president Mike Yorke explained why the Carpenters had written to the government in 2016 asking for a review of LIUNA’s ICI formwork exemption, at a time when LIUNA and its affiliated contractors in the southwest were looking for more work in the Toronto area. The subsequent Burkett report recommended LIUNA be stripped of some bargaining rights for a region covering Kitchener-Waterloo, to Toronto, to Kingston and north to Barrie, among other measures, and the Mitchell report that followed went even further, said LIUNA.
“We feel that the status quo in terms of the formwork exemption works to the detriment of the unionized carpenters and unionized general contractors,” said Yorke.
“The Carpenters are being handed absolutely nothing. This just levels the playing field, and makes the formwork sector fairer for both parties.”
At the press conference, Mancinelli threatened to unleash the strength of LIUNA during the upcoming election campaign.
“If Schedule 14 stays in the budget bill, LIUNA will have no choice but to work vigorously against this government to ensure we elect a government that truly does care about the interests of workers instead of playing favourites,” he said.
Asked for comment, a Ministry of Labour spokesperson called reviewer Kevin Burkett “the foremost neutral expert on formwork,” and said the legislation levels the playing field between the Carpenters and Labourers.
LIUNA general counsel Sean McFarling revealed LIUNA sent a delegation to the premier’s office on April 19 that proposed the Carpenters be given an exemption similar to LIUNA’s.
“Leave ours alone, and we’ll compete,” McFarling said the Mancinelli-led team proposed to Wynne.
But Wynne turned down the offer, said McFarling, leaving Bill 31 intact with second reading committee delegations scheduled for April 26.
The points of contention have been many over the long history of competition for work, including a short-lived “Peace Treaty” between the two trades in the 1990s, alliances with other trades and employers, and regional rivalries. LIUNA and Carpenters’ executives offered the following analysis of issues in submissions prepared for the Daily Commercial News by their lawyers and through interviews and other documents.
On Organizing, Burkett
LIUNA: LIUNA is part of a council with the International Union of Operating Engineers. The Carpenters will not be required to belong to a council and will be allowed to represent Operating Engineers. LIUNA cannot do this. LIUNA is required to bargain a single collective agreement with an accredited employer association. The Carpenters can enter into different agreements with different employers…The Burkett process was flawed, with no representations or explanations permitted beyond one written submission, and that’s one reason LIUNA did not participate in the Mitchell process that led to the measures in Bill 31.
Carpenters: Bill 31 implements the recommendations of two neutrally appointed experts, agreed upon by all sides, to provide the minister of labour with a discretion to give the Carpenters an equal opportunity to organize all employee formwork bargaining units, only in southwestern Ontario, for the first time. The intention is to put the Carpenters and the Labourers in southwestern Ontario on the “same legal footing,” as a matter of fairness, where both can organize all-employee concrete forming units in the ICI sector in that area of the province only.
Bill 31 grants the minister the right to appoint an employer’s organization to bargain on behalf of all employers who may enter into bargaining relationships which the Carpenters will now be permitted to pursue in southwestern Ontario.
On Impacts
LIUNA: The minister’s discretion is going to be used to strip any LIUNA member performing carpentry of their collective agreement protection in a broad region across the province. This will be very disruptive of the status quo as members living in southwestern Ontario or coming to the region from other parts of the province lose their collective agreement. Instead of preserving the provincial ICI system it is destabilized by creating regional exemptions that have never existed before and have no basis in historical practice.
Carpenters: Burkett found LIUNA was misusing the formwork exemption and causing disruption and unfairness in the construction industry. Burkett’s report addressed the growing issue of London- and Windsor-based contractors bound to LIUNA all-employee formwork collective agreements attempting to compete in the GTA and other areas of the province on the basis of their lower wages and general inferior terms and conditions by comparison to the mandated provincial ICI agreements.
On Favouritism
LIUNA: The bill creates special rules to allow the Carpenters to acquire bargaining rights. While it does not require any worker to join the Carpenters’ Union — though it does require LIUNA members to choose between being non-union or joining another union — the expectation of the government and the Carpenters is that the “other union” will be the Carpenters.
Carpenters: The bill creates an identical exemption for the Carpenters to the one that’s been enjoyed by LIUNA for 40 years but limits it for the Carpenters in southwestern Ontario only.
Final Thoughts
LIUNA: “It’s hard to understand why we ended up being pushed down this track,” said McFarling. “We could have said, here’s why various ideas are problematic. We suggested we do a more thorough review, and do an economic analysis, and said, ‘Is there really a problem, more than two trade unions expressing sentiments of jealousy?’ That is not the role of government, to mediate disputes.”
Carpenters: “We feel it was a process of accommodation and compromise where both parties put forward their best position so at the end of the day we feel there is an outcome of compromise that exists in the legislation proposed,” said Yorke.
Recent Comments
comments for this post are closed