Where's the pendulum ?

We recently had an election in Saskatchewan. The NDP incumbents fell and the Saskatchewan Party won a majority. The Sask Party is from the right side of the spectrum, pro-business and hopeful that everyone can find their bootstraps enough to use them.
Saskatchewan and Saskatchewan's natural governing party, the NDP, has been pretty labour friendly. Quebec is the only province that has been more labour friendly.

While campaigning the Sask. Party said labour legislation would be looked at in consultation with interested parties.

The Sask. Party's election platform didn't mention essential services legislation, but rather a pledge that a Sask. Party government would work with public-sector unions...

They must have talked fast because in less than 45 days in office they introduced two pieces of labour legislation.
There are those that say the new laws will just bring Saskatchewan more in line with the rest of the country.

In the case of essential services legislation, all nine provincial governments and the federal government have some type of legislation that can remove or restrict the right to strike in certain cases. Saskatchewan was the only jurisdiction not to have any essential services legislation in place.
-Similarly, Saskatchewan's Trade Union Act stuck out like a sore thumb in a couple of areas. Under the old act, Saskatchewan required only 25 per cent of employees to sign union cards to trigger a certification vote; most other jurisdictions call for 35 or 40 per cent.
-The new act calls for 45 per cent of written support for unionization to hold a certification vote, the same as in Liberal B.C.
The old act allowed for automatic certification with a simple majority of employees signing union cards, the same as in the Canada Labour Code, Manitoba, Quebec, New Brunswick and P.E.I. The new act requires a mandatory secret ballot for every union certification and decertification, like B.C., Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Another view of the playing field.

[Marilyn Braun-Pollon of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business] said small business also supports the Saskatchewan Party's plans to reform labour legislation, especially the requirement to hold a secret ballot vote for union certification.
"One of the commitments that the Sask. Party has made is that they will ensure democratic workplaces by requiring secret ballots on any vote. That's something we'll want them to live up to.''
Of course, organized labour takes a much different view of the need for labour legislation reform.
"People are calling for changes to something that they haven't got a clue what it is they're calling for changes to,'' said Larry Hubich, president of the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, referring to proposed changes to the Trade Union Act.

I have heard the opinion for years that Saskatchewan's mindset, which results in NDP majorities, is the reason that Saskatchewan is not more like booming Alberta. The mindset is seen as labour friendly and therefore, by definition, anti-business. More business friendly labour legislation is not going to make businesses think of Saskatchewan as the place to be overnight. With at least the second consecutive majority that the NDP win in Saskatchewan in the future, the legislation will be rescinded. Then we are back to where we were. And that was not a bad place, IMO. The Conservative government in Alberta has been in power for thirty plus years. It would take that long for the NDP to be out of power in Saskatchewan for outsiders to really think the province was more business friendly than labour friendly. What I am saying is that tweaking the labour laws isn't going to change the mindset inside, or outside, of the province.

The idea of a secret ballot, union certification vote seems like a fair and reasonable plan. Is that kind of thing going to make it more difficult to certify a union ? Yes, but perhaps only marginally so.

Do less restrictions on the employer communicating with the workers during a certification drive mean a tougher road to getting a union certified ? Undoubtedly.

I am all for a worker having the facts from both sides easily in front of him/her leading up to the opportunity to make a choice. However, the restrictions on the employer were put in place because some employers use intimidation instead of communication.

So are the unions pure as the driven snow ? Hardly. I am not trying to be harsh on them. It's not like they intimidate people for corporate gain.
I had two members of my family working at the local Wally-World when the certification drive was on there. Stories I heard from them involved the union folks not easily taking no for an answer. They would phone a few times and drop by a couple of times to get you to sign the union card. I sat across my kitchen table from a union organizer who was looking to get cards signed. He was a worker at a unionized food store in Saskatchewan and flat out said that the reason he was working to get Wally-World unionized was make it easier for his bargaining committee to ask for better wages. His management always responded to the request for more money by saying that they were competing in the marketplace with Wally-World and therefore couldn't raise prices to pay for better wages for him. So he was in my kitchen for his own self interest. Not that there's anything wrong with that. By serving his self interest he was going to improve the lot of another worker.

The thing that ticks me off is the Sask. Party campaigns saying they will move carefully on labour legislation and when they win, move quickly and decisively in the direction the NDP said they would move in.

It doesn't matter where the pendulum is - when your are asked if you will move it, just speak the truth. Is that too much to ask ?

In closing the question of the day is: Do you favour a secret ballot, simple
yes/no question put to all workers, with a simple majority deciding, on
whether to unionize a workplace ?