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. First up: contract flipping.

VANCOUVER—Denise Yuile has been a server at Vancouver’s YVR airport for 18 years, where she calls some of her co-workers “family” and earns wages and benefits to support herself and her kids.

She’s one of about 90 workers at risk of losing their job in September — not because she did anything wrong, but because the airport authority has decided not to renew one of its food-service contracts, and will be awarding the contract to another, as-yet undetermined provider.

No matter how long the workers have been around, they’ll have to reapply and interview with the unknown new boss. If they’re hired, they may lose their seniority and benefits.

“I’m at an age where I really don’t want to start all over again,” the 51-year-old said. “I’m worried. ... I take expensive medication and my daughter does, too.”

What’s happening at YVR is called contract flipping, which is when contracted employees unionize, only to have their contract ended and be replaced by another, non-unionized company. Sometimes the other company hires back the same employees, who then no longer have union representation.

In a statement, Michele Mawhinney, Vancouver Airport Authority’s vice-president, people and sustainability, said the contract change is part of the airport’s effort to introduce new food and beverage options. The existing employees, she said, will be guaranteed job interviews.

The practice is common in certain sectors, including care homes, food service and building cleaning. Cleaners working at BC Hydro buildings in the Lower Mainland successfully fought off a contract flip in February, protecting their jobs and union contract.

Protecting jobs and union contracts through successorship rules is a highly anticipated change for B.C.’s Labour Code.

A 2018 Labour Code review panel recommended that successorship rules, which allow unions to continue to represent workers in the event the company employing them comes under new ownership, also apply to changes of contract in “building cleaning, security, bus transportation and the health sector: including food, housekeeping, security, care aides, long-term or seniors care.”

Janitors, food-service workers and care workers who face frequent contract flips are among the most precarious workers in Canada. Often newcomers with limited English, they work for low pay and are always at risk of losing their jobs if the contracting company that hired them loses its bid to continue providing a service.

Those bids are often a race to the bottom, as service providers drive down wages and other costs.

Christine Bro, an organizer with the Service Employees International Union, representing cleaners, said contract flipping has the effect of driving down standards for cleaners all across a region — since building owners always have the option of changing contracts to a non-unionized service provider.

The union is trying to unionize janitors across regions so that can’t happen anymore. But right now they spend most of their time on contract flips, “just to protect what workers already have” in their collective agreements, Bro said.

Some unions representing workers in these sectors say the Labour Code should go even further than the panel recommended to protect against contract flips. The panel didn’t recommend successorship for private-sector food-service workers, such as Yuile and her colleagues at YVR.

The union representing the YVR workers, Unite Here Local 40, represents about 800 contracted food-service workers in the province, all of whom could be at risk of “disruption” through a flip at some point, said Michelle Travis, spokesperson for the union.

Successorship rules under the Labour Code would be a “sea change” for them, Travis said.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“It means that workers who’ve worked there for years can continue to work there,” Travis said. “These are not great paying jobs to begin with — but after years of accumulating some wage increases, to be told you’re going to be replaced, I think it would be a dramatic change.”

Depending on if the government’s updated Labour Code legislation addresses contract flipping, the YVR service workers jobs could be secured. But it would have to be retroactive to cover them.

The Labour Code review panel recommended the successorship rules be applied retroactively to August 2018.

Read more about: