The other issue that we must deal with, of course, is the question of decertification or the revocation of bargaining rights. Under Bill C-525, in the event that the Industrial Relations Board receives a decertification application with 45% support, then the onus would shift to the union to prove, in a secret ballot representation vote, that it retains the support of a majority of the employees in the bargaining unit as opposed to the majority of employees casting a secret ballot vote in favour of decertification. The standard for decertification proposed in Bill C-525 goes beyond an acceptable norm. FETCO believes that the decertification process should require a vote of 50% plus one of the employees in the bargaining unit who cast their secret ballot votes.
For both certification and decertification, FETCO believes that the threshold in order to call a vote should be somewhere between 40% and 45%.
In sum, obviously, Bill C-525 poses a genuine dilemma for FETCO.
It pits the long-held and consistent view that employers in the federal jurisdiction prefer a secret ballot vote for certification over a card check system against our strongly held view that the legislative process of using private members' bills to change labour legislation without the opportunity for genuine pre-legislative consultation is the wrong approach.