Transport Committee on May 7th, 2013

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Coming back to some of your comments here, then, you indicated I think in your earlier testimony that you felt that unions, employers, and labour boards were ganging up on employees.

What would the interest of employers be? One might imagine, Mr. Mortimer, that there would be some bias with some groups. I'm not sure how the labour boards tie into that, necessarily, and you might enlighten us, but what would be the interest of an employer to try to gang up against the employee? That confused me, I must admit.

[John Mortimer]

The way “duty of fair representation” complaints work is that an employer makes a decision in the workplace. The employee wishes to grieve the employer's decision. The union might not pursue the grievance, or it might drop the grievance, or it might negotiate a solution to the grievance.

What sometimes goes on at these meetings is that the employer and the union sit down and deal with, for example, 10 grievances, and they make a deal. On some grievances, the union and the employer agree that these won't be pursued, but that the ones will. It's probably like some of the deals that are made to move legislation through the House in terms of how things are going to happen, let's say, in a minority Parliament, in particular.

When the employee is turned down at any stage, they may decide to complain that their union has not fairly represented them, so they file a complaint with the labour board, called a “duty of fair representation” complaint.

The employer doesn't want the employee to succeed at the labour board because they want the decision to be found to be correct. They're glad that the union didn't take them on and pursue it all the way through to arbitration and to getting a decision.

Because there are so many of these now—they are the number one complaint the labour boards are dealing with—they're clogging their system. In fact, labour board chairs have approached LabourWatch and have asked us if there is anything we could do, as an organization, to put content on our website to try to influence unionized Canadians to file fewer such complaints.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you.

We heard recent testimony from Merit Canada, Power-Tek Electrical Services, and Coffrage de béton Linden.

In that testimony, the representative from Merit Canada made the following comment—and here I'm just going from the blues, which is our recorded testimony—“In the city of Hamilton alone, their staff report has suggested that their closed tendering rules over the next 10 years would cost the city an additional $1.1 billion.”

Assuming that is an accurate statement—and frankly, I have not had that verified beyond the comments of our witness at the time—do you have any sense as to why that might be? This may not be fair to you—it would be hearsay—but have you heard testimony like that in the past where a closed shop would necessarily cost more? And if so, why might you imagine that to be the case?

[John Mortimer]

Well, I have followed this City of Hamilton situation, which goes back to 2007. I've read about it, I've talked to people about it, and I once met with a vice-chair of the Ontario Labour Board about how this terrible thing could have happened to the City of Hamilton and its good citizens, and contractors and taxpayers. But this is what the building trades unions have secured over the years in Ontario.

I'll give you a little bit of detail here. It's called low number certification. Let's say, you have a hundred people who work for an organization, but only two of them are working on Saturday, and two of them sign union cards, and the union applies on Saturday with two union cards. Well, in the democracy known as Ontario's union construction, there is no secret ballot vote when you have 55% of the cards. So the City of Hamilton was unionized because two guys working on a job signed union cards. There was no vote. It was over with and done.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

For the record, Mr. Mortimer, we heard that it was four, and not two.

But regardless, I have a question for you. Monsieur Dumais, who was the third witness we heard at our past meeting, talked about what he called the Advance Coring ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada in 2001, which recognized a worker's right to belong to a union. It also included the worker's right not to belong to a union.

I wonder if you have any comments on that in terms of Canadian law and how it has adapted to that ruling.

[John Mortimer]

The Advance Cutting and Coring Ltd. case in 2001 took a look at Quebec's forced-unionization scheme, where every construction worker ultimately must join one of five unions or you don't pound nails or do construction work. The Supreme Court then took at look at the specific Quebec scheme to see if it violated the charter. They said it violated the charter, five to four, because they said, eight to one, there is a freedom under Canada's Charter of Rights to not be forced into membership. In the end, one judge switched sides and they decided under section 1 of the charter to justify the charter violation of forcing people into the unions “given the history of union violence in Quebec”.

So it began at Expo '67, and it continued at James Bay in the 1970s. A former prime minister, then a labour lawyer, Mr. Mulroney, was part of the Cliche commission, which ultimately upheld and cemented this scheme that is intended to try to stop violence in Quebec. Now, in the news recently in Quebec is a union guy named Rambo from the FTQ who has been threatening people and is going through labour board proceedings, criminal proceedings. Frankly, it's not funny at all, because people were beat up at Expo '67 and James Bay. I talked to Quebec union people who work in this sector who still say if you work in the wrong part of the province, even from the wrong part of one of the unions where you sign cards, your tires are slashed, or some guy jumps into your truck at the job site and rides back with you to the hotel to make sure you know they're there.

Do you know what our Supreme Court said? It said that violence works. They abrogated our charter rights with a decision written by Mr. LeBel from Quebec, reviewing the history of union violence in Quebec. Violence on construction sites associated with building-trade unions, whether it's what goes on with the labourers in Toronto and Hamilton or what goes on in Quebec, is a problem. I think it's also one of the reasons we don't have the productivity and the excellence....

It is all a part of this forced-membership, closed-tendering club. It needs to end.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Aubin, five minutes.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Mortimer, thank you for joining us.

I would like to fully understand the relevance of your testimony to our study. So I have a few quick questions about your organization. The first time I heard about it was just a few days ago.

The official site says that all employees in Canada should be able to easily access information about their rights. A little earlier, I thought you even talked about unbiased information. Your site also mentions something about the rights and responsibilities of employees when they want a union in their workplace as well as when they want to be union-free.

Do you get information requests from unions?

[John Mortimer]

Unions have very comprehensive websites that explain to people how you get a union, organize a union, and keep a union. They have so much money to support that process. There's no need for us to duplicate their excellent services.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

I was right to think that unions were able to do that.

You have the support of national and provincial associations as well as major law firms. So you are on the other side of the coin, correct? You are not providing unbiased information either. Instead, I would say that you are bringing additional information to our committee so that we make the best decisions possible.

Is that how I should interpret your contribution to the committee?

[John Mortimer]

The comments that we've had back from working Canadians who have used our website are that in comparison to any union website with its anti-management, anti-capitalist rhetoric, they would call our website “neutral” or “balanced”. I will not call our website “neutral” or “balanced”. We are trying to make information available that is not readily available to working Canadians.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

You are a labour organization for union-free workers, so to speak.

One thing in your opening remarks really struck me. You said that taxpayers are not getting the best value for their money, and, at the same time, you drew a comparison with the cost increases we are seeing in Quebec. I guess that is where you have your information from, including from the Charbonneau Commission. I think the link between the real increase in costs from closed tendering contracts, and the increase in costs from fraud, is perhaps not quite accurate. Those are two completely separate areas.

Do you have a study that would show the difference between the increased costs in closed tendering compared to open tendering?

[John Mortimer]

LabourWatch itself does not have any specific study of its own that would provide the information that I think you're asking me for. In my opening remarks, I endeavoured to refer to the studies of Gallup and studies of Hewitt looking at hundreds of thousands of employees over the years to ask the question why it is that the cost structure is higher. It's not just because of wages; it's because people are less committed and less engaged.

What a unionized worker is typically hearing from their union is that the management is bad: love us, don't love them; slow down; get away with things; don't do this, don't do that. This is why, across hundreds of thousands of survey responses, unionized Canadians are not as committed, not as prepared to work as hard, and not as engaged. If we have a legal system that forces taxpayers to have those people working for them, that's wrong.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

I am not sure if you can answer my next question, but I will ask it anyway.

I think all public administrators, regardless of the level they are at—municipal, provincial or federal—are concerned about getting the most out of every taxpayer dollar. At the end of the day, the money always comes from the same pocket.

In this case, how do you explain the fact that many provinces and municipalities would rather have stricter rules for their tendering projects and ultimately prefer businesses with a unionized workforce?

[John Mortimer]

I would say it's largely because of the influence of what I call union-backed politicians, particularly at the city level. Unions like CUPE and others end up unduly influencing people's perspective on what to do, whether it's through money or through people who should be doing their job at the union office and are instead working on an election campaign, identifying voters, getting people out, doing the necessary work—and all of the think tanks funded with union dues and who don't comply with the Income Tax Act under the dues-not-deductible provision.

So that is one of the problems at the city level. I'm hoping that at the federal and provincial levels, where less of that is taking place, we can end this type of discrimination and these kinds of union leader biased policies that are no good for taxpayers and, frankly, not good for workers, unionized or union-free.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay, thank you very much.

I'll move to Mr. Toet, for five minutes.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to our guest here today.

Mr. Mortimer, there are those who would say that a wide open tendering process would essentially end up creating a race to the bottom. They're referring to the quality of the workmanship and wages and benefits. Do you believe that union-free companies would end up cutting wages and benefits if there were a wide open tendering process? If so, or if not, why would you believe that?

[John Mortimer]

I recently did a CBC town hall debate in Hamilton with union leaders. Similar types of questions came up. I'm going to answer the question this way. We once had records and we don't any more. Now we have iPods, and goodness knows what we're going to have 20 years from now. Should the government be protecting the workers at the record player plant? Should they be protecting the people who made horseshoes for horses when the car came along? There is always going to be a human aspiration for a better product at a lower price. I haven't met many people who run around looking for the most expensive vacation, the most expensive car rental, the most expensive tires, or the most expensive everything. Competition is always going to drive—

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

You don't have to—

[John Mortimer]

—change in the economic environment. As to this idea of what President Obama calls the right to work for less, I don't know a person who isn't figuring out how to make a dollar go further in life. But when I was the head of human resources for national employers like Future Shop and Wendy's, the province with the lowest minimum wage had the highest wage policy of our company, and that was Alberta. We had a company policy of paying wages above the Alberta minimum wage in order to staff our business, and that was true of anywhere else we were.

The best thing is a strong, vibrant, free, competitive economy that is the envy of the world. We need to end some of the things that are getting in the way of that in this country, because the rest of the world is changing these things. When will we?

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Do you believe the lowest price should be the only consideration going through these tendering processes? Should we be looking at lowest price only, or be looking at the capability of performing the work required? Should that be a large part of it? Should we be looking at historical analysis also? Is there a historical relationship with that particular type of project that one of the people tendering may have? This would give them some knowledge advantage over anybody else.There's also the advantage of being able to continue with the required system, and build or expand on a system that's there, and have that continuity within the system. Do you believe that the lowest price is the only factor, or should these things also be part of the process going forward, if you did open up the tendering to whatever companies?

[John Mortimer]

The decision-making should be multi-faceted in terms of looking at the talent level of the contractor, the track record, and reference checks. Get in your car, drive to their other job sites. Did that job end on time? Was it over time? Was it under budget, on budget, over budget? Talk to other people who have used that contractor and make that a factor in awarding their work. So it's not just about the lowest price. No, that should not be the only criterion. It's not the criterion that I use in my personal life for assessing a tradesperson to work for me. It's not what I used in my company days.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

You would be very open to—

[John Mortimer]

Multi-faceted criteria.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

—multi-faceted criteria. So we're not going to open it up to the lowest bidder. Going back to our study here, the competitive aspect of this in making infrastructure dollars go further, we have to look at the other aspects of it. How do you tie those two pieces together when you have to look at the multi-faceted aspect of it, not just the lowest price? How do you see that still helping us to drive the cost of particular infrastructure buildup?