- The Liberal government under Premier Stephen McNeil and Health Minister Leo Glavine are planning to introduce legislation on Monday which would deny health care workers the right to choose which union will represent them in collective bargaining, as well as dictating some of the terms of their contracts. Solidarity Halifax opposes this union-busting legislation and the ongoing attacks on the labour movement by the Liberals.
. - This legislation is illegal. It violates freedom of association and the Trade Union Act by allowing employers to pick the union health care workers will belong to. Workers have fought for generations for the right to a union of their choice and to not have the employers interfere in the question of representation.
. - The Unions worked together over the summer and came up with a proposal for a bargaining association, which would allow workers to remain in the union of their choice, while simplifying the number of contracts in health care and streamlines the negotiation process. This process has been used in British Columbia for several years and works well. For Premier McNeil to suggest that this is the status quo in Nova Scotia is a deliberate lie. Bargaining associations remain the best way to protect public health care and workers’ freedom of association. This show of solidarity among different unions is to be celebrated and Solidarity Halifax supports the call for bargaining associations.
. - This legislation is an attack on the entire labour movement and will undermine free and fair collective bargaining. Combined with Bills 30 and 37, which basically took away the right to strike from 40,000 health care workers around the province, and Bill 19, which weakened first collective agreement negotiations, the Liberals are trying hard to undermine the labour movement. With a hobbled labour movement, income inequality and the gap between those of us who work for a living and the rich few on top will continue to grow.
. - While the legislation will impact tens of thousands of health care workers, and four unions (The Nova Scotia Nurses Union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union, and UNIFOR), it is important to understand the goal of the Liberals in putting this legislation forward. This bill is about breaking a single union, the NSGEU, which represents the majority of health care workers in the province and has regularly set the public sector bargaining pattern. The NSGEU has taken hundreds of strike votes over the past 5 years, and has been willing to take wildcat strike action to defend its members’ rights. The Liberals want to break one of the most activist unions in the province in order to cripple public sector workers bargaining power. A strong labour movement helps put upward pressure on all workers’ wages and working conditions, unionized or not. And in a province with the second lowest average worker incomes in the country, that is a good thing. A weaker labour movement means increased downward pressure on wages and working conditions for all.
. - This legislation also specifically impacts women disproportionately. About 80% of the health care workers that would be covered by this legislation are women. As women already make less money than men, this will significantly further increase the gender income gap.
. - As an anti-capitalist organization, Solidarity Halifax supports workers struggling collectively for their rights, jobs and livelihoods. We support an expansion of public services and support workers democratic control of the services. Instead of attacking front-line health care workers, the Liberals should be focused on cutting the number of over-paid managers in the health care system.
. - Under capitalism, public services like health care and education are constantly under attack by right-wing politicians and corporations keen to cash in on privatization. Only by working to understand how the economic system of capitalism oppresses us can we work together to begin to consider the ways to dismantle it.
. - With poor economic performance plaguing the province, the government needs a scapegoat and thus would have Nova Scotians believe that is the fault of the unions, and one union in particular. In fact, Nova Scotia has long been a low-wage and low-investment ghetto, where employer failure to invest in capital, worker training and research and development maintains the status quo. Crippling organized labour will do nothing to improve, and much to perpetuate, that scenario.