What Is All the Fuss About Bill 44?

On July 6, Manitoba Labour Minister Becky Barrett introduced several proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act. The proposed amendments will allow for automatic union certification if 65 percent or more of the employees of a firm have signed membership cards. It also establishes a process to send a collective bargaining dispute to a binding settlement process after a strike or lockout has been in effect for more than 60 days.

The Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business have been quick to condemn the proposed amendments. They have placed advertisements in all the media warning that the legislation will tip the labour relations balance in favour of unions, violate the democratic rights of workers and lead to more frequent and more violent strikes. They also claim that these amendments will drive investment capital out of Manitoba. At the same time, spokespersons for several larger corporations have indicated that they expect the amendments to have little practical effect.

Realistically speaking, Bill 44 will have little impact on labour relations in Manitoba and certainly doesn't "tip the balance in favour of workers". The government itself has portrayed these amendments as merely "house-keeping" and the restoration of some of the provisions eliminated by the previous Conservative government in 1996. Half of the provinces in Canada already have automatic certification with lower thresholds than 65 percent. The federal Labour Relations Act allows for automatic certification at 50 percent. No certification vote in Manitoba has ever been lost where 65 percent of the workers had signed cards. The provision to allow the union or employer to apply for a vote on binding arbitration after a strike has lasted more than 60 days is merely a minor extension of other existing provisions for mediation and arbitration. It may provide some union leaders with a way to end a strike and blame an arbitrator for a bad collective agreement. It may also be used by some employers to bypass the union and break a strike in cases where they think support for the strike is fading. However, it will have little overall effect.

Why, then, has a portion of the business community reacted so hysterically? Why are they suggesting that the sky is falling? The only logical explanation is that they are waging an ideological struggle against the working class. They are trying to send a clear message that, regardless of which government may be in power, it is business which will set the agenda, and that workers should reconcile themselves to the reality that the NDP has no alternative but to implement the Conservative anti-social policies. The NDP government is already sending signals that it may capitulate and remove some of the more "offensive" amendments.

What stand should the working class take on this issue? Should it line up in defence of the government, despite the fact that these amendments are essentially irrelevant? Should it get sucked in by the media hysteria and pretend that the legislation represents a big gain for workers simply to counteract the propaganda of the "right"? Bill 44 was not the legislation demanded by the working class. It was a piece of legislation crafted by the NDP so that it could say it did something for the workers in its first term. No matter what the outcome to the current debate or the public hearings into the merits of the bill, the working must present its own agenda on the front of labour relations and demand that it be implemented, regardless of which party happens to be in power.