Best of 2017 – 12 wins for workers in the Labour Relations Act

Through 2017, the tireless work of labour and community activists across Ontario made changes to Bill 148. That work means that the Labour Relations Act now:

1. Allows workplaces with the same employer and same union at one or more locations to bargain together in cases where the employer and union agree;
2. Allows newly certified workplaces to combine with other existing unionized workplaces with the same employer and same union;
3. Removes language that denied workers continued representation by their own union and undermined their right to choose their own bargaining agent;
4. Provides early access to workplace information (i.e., employee names, phone numbers, and personal email addresses and in some cases, job title and business address) — provided the union has 20 per cent membership support;
5. Extends card-based certification to three additional sectors (i.e., temporary help agency industry, building services sector, and home care and community services industry);
6. Allows workers to vote to join a union outside the workplace, including electronically and by telephone;
7. Provides automatic access to first collective agreements in cases where employers contravene the Labour Relations Act;
8. Removes rigorous requirements to consider whether a second vote is likely to reflect workers’ true wishes and whether a union has adequate membership support in cases where employers contravene the Labour Relations Act;
9. Provides unionized workers with greater just cause protection from employers who seek to “clean house” following a union organizing campaign and a strike/lockout;
10. Protects the right of employees to return to work, following a lawful strike or lockout;
11. Extends protections against contract flipping to workers in the building services industry (e.g., security, food services, and cleaning) with the possibility of extending such protections to publicly-funded services; and,
12. Ensures that all new protections under the Labour Relations Act come into effect as of January 1, 2018.

Read more best of 2017:

Best of 2017 – 12 ways we organized to win
Best of 2017 – 12 wins for workers in the Labour Relations Act
Best of 2017 – 14 ways we worked together for equity in 2017