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This article was published 10/5/2016 (1593 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

While many Manitobans will be following closely the opening session of the new Progressive Conservative government — scheduled for Monday — there is one constituency in the province that will be watching more closely than any other.

The labour community is coming off 16 years of favourable treatment by an NDP government. Unions didn’t get everything they wanted over those years, but there were enough legislative concessions and program enhancements to make it a constructive era for the labour cause.

All of that came to a crashing halt in the April general election with a victory by the Progressive Conservative party.

Take all of the commentary, pledges and policies Premier Brian Pallister introduced during that campaign and you have the makings for a much different relationship between labour and government.

It didn’t take long to see this new philosophy manifest in change. Unions looked on with concern as a new, reconfigured cabinet was unveiled without a stand-alone labour department. That is just the tip of a growing iceberg of concerns labour has with the new government.

At the top of the list would be expected changes to the Labour Relations Act to introduce provisions to make a secret ballot the standard for union certification. The NDP had introduced a card-check system that required unions only to obtain enough signed membership cards from prospective members in order to trigger certification. Going back to a secret-ballot vote would be seen as a major setback for unions.

Labour will also be watching closely to see if the Pallister government changes the process for reviewing and recommending changes in the minimum wage. Relying mostly on recommendations from the Labour-Management Review committee, which includes a representative from both the Manitoba Federation of Labour and the Manitoba Employers Council, the NDP raised the minimum wage slightly in every year it was in government.

And then there is the issue of the elimination of the Premier’s Economic Advisory Council — a body that was composed of representatives from the business, labour, academic and cultural communities. Pallister has promised a new business enterprise council to advise him on economic matters that will not include a labour representation.

"There have been signs from this government that are of concern for us," said Kevin Rebeck, president of the Manitoba Federation of Labour. "But that having been said, we’re interested in working with this government. I think we have a lot to offer the new government, and I’m not giving up hope that we can find common ground."

Michelle Gawronsky, president of the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union, said she will be watching closely to see if Pallister maintains his pledge to protect front-line services. Gawronsky said Pallister has also promised to reduce the rate of spending increases by eliminating waste and increasing efficiency, and has suggested middle and senior managers could be vulnerable to layoffs.

The complication, Gawronsky said, is the provincial civil service has been significantly reduced in some areas over the past five years, mostly through attrition, in a bid to hold down expenditures.

"It’s the biggest concern for our members, that workloads have increased dramatically... because of all the open positions that remain unfilled. We can’t keep things moving if we don’t have the people to do the work."

When you add up all the files that could potentially impact organized labour, you can easily see ample opportunities for conflict between unions and the new government. There are, however, some advantages left over from the last few years of NDP government.

Over the past five years, the previous NDP government dished out healthy doses of tough love to its union brothers and sisters, exacting wage freezes from most bargaining units in exchange for a promise of no layoffs. The benefit for Pallister is that those contracts will be in place for at least the next three years, a grace period he can use to get other ducks in a row. And the no-layoff provisions will not prevent Pallister from eliminating jobs that are out-of-scope of those contracts, or simply shrinking the civil service through increased attrition.

It is possible Pallister simply wants a fight with labour. Although he has tried to maintain a conciliatory tone, his policies are decidedly hostile toward labour.

For example, excluding labour from the new enterprise council is a needlessly provocative move. It is hard to see how an economic advisory body could be better off by excluding the input of union representatives.

The same holds true for the issue of certification. Pallister has tried to market his interest in secret ballots as a matter of democracy. Those who have studied the issue understand unions are far less successful in certifying when a secret-ballot vote is required.

Now, depending on which side of the labour debate you are on, measures that make it more difficult to certify a union could be a good thing. However, Pallister cannot escape the fact this is, in almost every way, an attack on the viability of labour. That will play well with a segment of the core of his support. For other corners of Manitoba society, however, it could ultimately be a call to arms.

It is possible to win an election in Manitoba without courting labour. Pallister just demonstrated it’s possible to win a big mandate with some policies that are, in essence, anti-labour.

However, it is nearly impossible to govern this province for any extended period of time with policies that marginalize and undermine labour at every turn. In fact, without some sort of balance in his labour policies, Pallister will achieve that which he most wants to avoid: breathing life into a withered and ravaged NDP.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca