The last time significant amendments were made to B.C.’s employment laws, “gig economy” wasn’t part of our lexicon. Outsourcing, job insecurity, low wages and unpredictable scheduling have become the norm for many.

The NDP is set to update two core pieces of legislation for the first time since 2002, fulfilling a key promise for the party’s most important supporters. The changes could drastically shift the power balance between employers and employees. In this series, StarMetro Vancouver will break down the issues most likely to be addressed. Find previous instalments here.

VANCOUVER—Labour Minister Harry Bains is expected to soon close a loophole that allows employers to get around following parts of the Employment Standards Act — the law governing the relationship between employers and non-unionized employees in the province.

In 2002, the BC Liberal government amended the act so that employers and unions could negotiate lower standards on some aspects of the Employment Standards Act. It means collective agreements are allowed to have provisions for lower overtime and holiday pay. The rationale for the change was to provide more flexibility for employers and workers.

Bains doesn’t see the 2002 rules as flexibility.

“How do we fix that area and make sure it is a fair system and that there is no abuse of assigning inferior contracts just to get around the employment standards?” he asked in an interview this week. “We need to protect the minimum employment standards in a unionized workplace.”

The Christian Labour Association of Canada, a non-traditional union that organizes primarily in the construction sector, argues undercutting the Employment Standards Act may not be a bad thing in all cases.

In limited cases, Ryan Bruce, government relations manager from CLAC BC said, getting the best deal for workers could involve undercutting the standards act in a collective agreement.

“I don’t have a long list of examples, but it allows workers flexibility in certain sectors,” he said.

Certain care home providers represented by CLAC, he said, requested the ability to work 12 hours straight without overtime pay, so they could work a 40-hour week in fewer days. A 2009 Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives analysis of 32 CLAC contracts negotiated after the new rules were enacted in 2002 found 28 of them had at least one provision that undercut the Employment Standards Act.

Not all of CLAC’s contracts have gone over well. A Labour Relations Board panel quashed an agreement between CLAC and a cleaning service provider in June 2018, saying the workers weren’t fully informed about what they were voting on before they ratified it. The service provider employing the workers had sought CLAC out to negotiate the agreement.

The janitors’ short-lived collective agreement with CLAC upheld the vast majority of the act’s protections, including overtime and holiday pay. But it also made it possible for employees to have to work longer before they’re entitled to a notice of termination, and halved the hours they’re entitled to be paid for if they show up for an eight-hour shift and aren’t required to work.

Bruce called janitorial work “one of those sectors where we’d all like to see everyone earning more,” and said CLAC did everything it could to get all the workers a wage increase and better protections.

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Laird Cronk, president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, said taking away the ability to undercut the standards act in a collective agreement is just one change that needs to happen to make sure employment standards apply to every worker in the province.

“The (Employment Standards Act) should be the floor for all workers. The floor is the floor is the floor,” he said. The federation argues no workers should be exempted from the standards act. Currently, notable exemptions are in place for farm worker, and people working in the high-tech field.

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