Last week, OCUFA made a submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, which is currently considering Bill C-525. Our submission argues that this private members bill has the potential to harm employee secrecy, encourage employer interference, disregards employee choice, and damage the existing decertification process.
The brief concludes as follows:
The amendments proposed by Bill C-525 are not designed to achieve the asserted purpose of ensuring free employee choice about union representation. In contrast, the evidence clearly demonstrates that Bill C-525 is designed to disregard employee free choice, to construct representation procedures which invite interference in employees’ representation decisions, and to promote decertification in the absence of clear evidence of employee desire for revocation of bargaining rights.
Bill C-525 was introduced by a Conservative MP in June. It has become common practice for the Harper Government to introduce anti-labour legislation as private member bills, in order to provide a smokescreen for their attempts to undermine unions through legislation. Bill C-525 would have a highly destructive effect on Canadian workers, and OCUFA is asking the Senate Committee to reject or substantially amend the proposed legislation. The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has also been active on this issue, and OCUFA affirms their position on C-525.
OCUFA is grateful to Sarah Slinn, of Osgoode Hall Law School at York University, for her outstanding work on the submission.
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