Human Resources Committee on April 18th, 2016

[Dr. John Logan]

I'm happy to address those questions.

I think to your first question, if you have a system of mandatory elections, it certainly makes a difference to have time limits on the duration of the campaign. Shorter campaigns are clearly preferable. They offer much greater protection for employee choice. They offer much less opportunity for coercion.

As I said, there are larger comparison studies. We have a number of these. I mentioned Richard Freeman's work at Harvard. A number of other people have conducted these kinds of studies.

The U.S. is an outlier when it comes to having the biggest representation gap. It's also the country that's had mandatory elections for the longest period of time. In that respect, it's clear that mandatory elections in the United States have not done a good job of protecting employee free choice, based on all of the empirical evidence we have.

With regard—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you, Mr. Logan.

Sorry, we do have to move on to the next question. Thank you.

I believe next up is Mr. Long.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank for the great presentations this afternoon.

Professor Slinn, I just have a few questions. Earlier Mr. Zimmer stated that he was a member of a union. I guess it was a B.C. union. Are there not laws in Canada already in place that make it a requirement for unions to provide the information that Mr. Zimmer was talking about?

In fact, I think there are Canadian laws already about transparency. I'm just going to quote this. Federally and in eight of 10 provincial jurisdictions—B.C., Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland—unions are required to provide financial information to their members, either by request or automatically, each year. In B.C., Ontario, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland, financial statements must be audited and provided to members on an annual basis.

Can you comment on that, please, Professor Slinn?

[Dr. Sara Slinn]

I didn't hear the earlier comment, but I can comment on the legislation requiring disclosure.

Yes, that is correct. There is widespread mandatory disclosure legislation in Canada already.

Just to expand on what you were saying, it's not just to provide that information to members of the union; it's also to members of the bargaining unit. Whether or not the individual happens to be a member of the union, if they're in the unit represented by the union they're entitled to that information.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Okay.

There's another thing just for the record. I know that Mr. Barlow was talking about how every union member he talks to is pro Bills C-377 and C-525. You know, the Saint John firefighters, IBEW, the pipefitters, operating engineers across the country—I haven't found anybody who does support it.

I have another question for you, Professor Slinn. Many opponents of the mandatory vote argue that if a secret ballot is good enough to elect our provincial representatives, it should be good enough for workers in deciding whether to unionize or not. Can you comment on that?

[Dr. Sara Slinn]

It's not really a legitimate analogy to draw between a political election and a union certification election. The nature of the decision-making and the possible outcomes are different.

If we were going to say that a union election was analogous to a political election, then there would be no possible outcome where workers were not represented, and that's absolutely an outcome under certification votes.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Professor Slinn, you suggest that the weakness of the mandatory ballot system rests in the period between when the employer is made aware of unionizing efforts and the casting of ballots.

Can you elaborate to the committee why this is the case and the significance of this period?

[Dr. Sara Slinn]

Again, between the period when the employer has in all cases been notified by the labour board that an application has been made and the time that the vote is held, in virtually all jurisdictions in Canada there is a time limit for that of between five and 10 working days.

The procedure Bill C-525 brought in has no time limit at all, so potentially it is a very long time period.

We also found in some of our research that this time limit was often not very well enforced by labour boards. Even though the statutory requirement was for five or 10 days, for example, it could often be significantly longer. We found that in that time period unfair labour practices did occur and they had a very strong effect on discouraging certification.

How this happens, is again, the employer has been notified that there's a certification vote and has a substantial period of time, a number of days, where they can communicate with employees. Unions do not have a reciprocal ability to contact and communicate with workers. For example, workplace organizing is illegal for unions to engage in; that is an illegal unfair labour practice. It provides a substantial period of time when the employer has unparalleled access to employees to have their views communicated.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Just for the record, CLAC, an Alberta union by and large, I think, gave testimony in earlier hearings. They are very much opposed to Bill C-525 and said the card-check system was a system that worked.

Again, Professor Slinn, you did such a good job on your presentation I guess I'm focused on yours, but I'd like you to elaborate on why you believe the card-check system is an unreliable measure of employees' wishes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Respond very quickly. We have about 10 seconds.

[Dr. Sara Slinn]

The audio cut out and I couldn't hear the question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Sorry.

We're out of time for that question, so we're going to move on.

Ms. Benson, please.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

I'm going to go back to my colleague's question that was put to Professor Logan to give you a chance to expand on it. His question related to some evidence—I haven't heard any evidence; I've heard most of the evidence to the contrary—of intimidation by unions of union members, that somehow that happens as often or as much as employers...and somehow this mandatory vote system would be a way to get around that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Excuse me, we have a point of order.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

I wanted to offer my witness to that because I witnessed it first-hand as a union member. I wanted to know if you would like that testimony, I would be glad to offer it.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

I'm just asking the professor, he's giving evidence. I just want to know some of the research around.... I'm not saying it's—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

I don't think that's a point of order, Bob, but thanks. I appreciate it though.

We'll add a couple more seconds to your time. Go ahead.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Anyway, I hope that's clear, Professor Logan.

[Dr. John Logan]

I'll just speak to the U.S. experience. Sara is far better qualified than me to speak about the Canadian experience. We had this debate quite thoroughly during the time of the Employee Free Choice Act in the early years of the Obama administration. It was constantly raised by opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act that introducing card certification in the United States would expose employees to union intimidation. In response it was pointed out repeatedly by academics and researchers that there was no empirical evidence to demonstrate that this in fact was a widespread problem. Of course this doesn't mean that it's never, ever happened, and one case is arguably too many. However, compared with the number of cases of alleged employer intimidation of workers in their efforts to get workers to vote against unionization during certification elections, clearly that is a problem that's absolutely endemic in the U.S. system of union certification.

Employer intimidation happens on a very regular basis. I mean, we have very reliable data from the National Labor Relations Board about the number of charges filed each year. There's no question about it, this is not just what unions say. There are many academic studies documenting the level of employer unfair labour practices, which go up and down and were at very high levels in the 2000s and have declined slightly since then.

That is an enormous problem under the current system of mandatory elections in the United States. There are very few documented incidents of union intimidation of workers to sign certification cards. I think it's largely a red herring. However, there are laws against it. Under the laws as they exist, union intimidation is illegal, just as employer intimidation is illegal, so there is a process for dealing with this already. If there are, in fact, cases where the union has engaged in improper pressure and intimidation, there's a process for dealing with that under the law.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you very much.

I will ask Dr. Slinn whether you could just briefly give a succinct comment about the Canadian experience and if it's reflective of what we've heard from the American experience around intimidation.

[Dr. Sara Slinn]

Yes it is, and I can add some numbers to this. A study that I did of a Canadian jurisdiction that involved both, first the card system and then the vote system, found that the overwhelming majority of both complaints and unfair labour practice findings were made against employers. So 78% of unfair labour practice complaints during organizing were filed against employers, and 21% against unions. When it came to findings of violation, 88% were against employers, and 11% against unions. Again it's not something that never happens, but the weight of the problem is clearly with employer unfair labour practices.

On the second aspect of your question about the effects and reductions in certification under the vote system, regarding the U.S. studies that Professor Logan referenced, that context was where there was no time limit on votes. For the studies done in Canada, all of those involved vote systems that had very short time limits of about five or 10 days. These consistently find a significant reduction in certification applications and outcomes in the order of a 20-percentage-point reduction in certification outcomes. Time limits, these clearly suggest, don't solve the problem that seems to be inherent with the vote system. A quick vote is not a solution.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Mr. Ruimy for a very brief question.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Just one? Oh, man.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Just one, and that has to be quick, please.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

I have a little bit of preamble.