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Canadian Law of Work Forum (CLWF)
Law of Work Archive

New York Times Supports Move to Card-Check Certification!

by David Doorey January 7, 2009
written by David Doorey January 7, 2009

I have mentioned before here that a key election issue in the U.S. was President Obama’s support for a bill that would introduce a form of card-check based union certification (the Employee Free Choice Act).  This would mean that a vote would not need to be held as a condition of a union obtaining the right to represent workers.  We have that model still in some jurisdictions here (Federal, Manitoba, Quebec, for example), but Canadian politicians have in recent years moved in the other direction — replacing card-check models with mandatory vote models.  Unions have more difficulty obtaining the right to represent workers when employers “campaign” against collective bargaining, and mandatory ballots ensure that campaign happens in virtually every case.
Perhaps surprisingly, given the employer backlash to the idea, the New York Times has come out in favour of the Employee Free Choice Act in this editorial.   Here’s a key excerpt:

The argument against unions — that they unduly burden employers with unreasonable demands — is one that corporate America makes in good times and bad, so the recession by itself is not an excuse to avoid pushing the bill next year. The real issue is whether enhanced unionizing would worsen the recession, and there is no evidence that it would.
There is a strong argument that the slack labor market of a recession actually makes unions all the more important. Without a united front, workers will have even less bargaining power in the recession than they had during the growth years of this decade, when they largely failed to get raises even as productivity and profits soared. If pay continues to lag, it will only prolong the downturn by inhibiting spending.

In other words, it’s actually a good thing for workers, through collective bargaining, to be able to maintain or even improve wages during hard times, because the workers then spend that money, which in turn fuels economic growth.   If tax cuts supposedly boost the economy by putting more money in the hands of consumers, then so too do wage increases.  Does that make sense to you?
A key policy initiative of the Obama Administration appears to be finding ways to rebuild the American middle class, which is quickly disappearing, as evidenced by the growing gap between rich and poor in that country.   This study by the OECD shows that the U.S. has the worst income inequality of all countries in the OECD.  The middle class was strongest in the U.S. when unions were strongest.  In fact, the OECD study shows that pattern of growth in income inequality dates from the late 1970s in the U.S., a time period that parallels the decline in U.S. union density.  This is a point I have made before.
It would seem to make some sense, then, don’t you think, that if you want to improve income inequality, one way to do it is to empower workers to bargain better wages for themselves through collective bargaining.  That is what the New Deal people thought when they introduced the Wagner Act in 1935, which later served as the model for Canadian labour law.  Could Obama be crafting a new, New Deal?  Should he?

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David Doorey

Professor Doorey is an Associate Professor of Work Law and Industrial Relations at York University. He is the Director of the School of HRM at York and Director of Osgoode Hall Law School’s executive LLM Program in Labour and Employment Law and on the Advisory Board of the Osgoode Certificate program in Labour Law. He is a Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program and a member of the International Advisory Committee on Harvard University’s Clean Slate Project, which is re-imaging labor law for the 21st century

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RSandillRicha Sandill@RSandill·
24 Feb

@SCLSclinic and I were so fortunate to represent this client last year. I am thrilled that this decision brings more clarity for family status accommodations rights amidst a pandemic that has tested parents, caregivers, and families like never before. https://twitter.com/CanLawWorkForum/status/1364605259071561730

CLWF@CanLawWorkForum

New from @RSandill (counsel for applicant), discussing important new "family status" discrimination decision from OHRT:

"Kovintharajah v. Paragon Linen & Laundry: When Failure to Accommodate Child Care Needs is “Family Status” Discrimination"

https://lawofwork.ca/13360-2/

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TheLawofWorkDavid J. Doorey@TheLawofWork·
24 Feb

Here's my latest in @jacobinmag.

If Ontario's labor laws applied in Alabama, the Amazon vote would have been held months ago so workers could get back to their jobs. Instead, the NLRA permits Amazon to conduct a months' long onslaught of anti-union propaganda. https://twitter.com/jacobinmag/status/1364613560425275392

Jacobin@jacobinmag

Amazon workers in Alabama are voting on whether to unionize, but the company is bombarding them with anti-union propaganda. In Canada, by contrast, votes are held quickly, making it harder for companies to stack the deck — a model that can work in the US. http://jacobinmag.com/2021/02/amazon-alabama-canada-labor-law-union-vote

Reply on Twitter 1364623976174092316Retweet on Twitter 13646239761740923168Like on Twitter 136462397617409231613Twitter 1364623976174092316
CanLawWorkForumCLWF@CanLawWorkForum·
24 Feb

New from @RSandill (counsel for applicant), discussing important new "family status" discrimination decision from OHRT:

"Kovintharajah v. Paragon Linen & Laundry: When Failure to Accommodate Child Care Needs is “Family Status” Discrimination"

https://lawofwork.ca/13360-2/

Reply on Twitter 1364605259071561730Retweet on Twitter 13646052590715617304Like on Twitter 13646052590715617304Twitter 1364605259071561730
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