Qui paie le prix du capitalisme triomphant? Texte d’une lettre à la rédaction, tirée du Waterloo Chronicle, le 26 décembre 2000, p. 9
Tories turn back the clock on workers’ rights
On a street corner green-space, just steps from Queen’s Park, sits an historical plaque that puts much of the struggles of working people in our province in perspective. Dated 1872, the plaque is a reminder of how far workers have come from that time nearly 130 years ago when 24 typographers were imprisoned for leading an legal strike to secure a nine-hour workday.
The workers won their strike and a shorter work week. And Prime Minister John A. MacDonald’s Tory government passed the Trade Union Act, which legally allowed labour unions to exist. The historic dispute marked the beginning of a more balanced relationship between workers, employers and government.
Today in Ontario, just over a century later, that precarious balance is in jeopardy. The delicate relationship is being thrown askew by a Tory government determined to turn back the clock and spiral workers’ rights to a time when there was no weekend, the health of workers was put at risk and employers had the upper hand.
The Tories have levelled at workers, particularly those not protected by a union, a hurtful, double-whammy punch. Early in November, they introduced amendments to the Ontario Labour Relations Act that would, among other regressive stuff, make it harder for vulnerable workers to join a union. Then, at the end of November, they repealed five acts, including the Employment Standards Act, the legislation that provides the base floor protections for millions of non-union workers in the province.
Now that the Tories have rammed the legislation into law, all workers in Ontario stand to lose hard-won rights. The Act reads like a turn-of-the-century robber baron wish list. It allows for an increase in the work week to 60 — up from 48 hours — without the government permit now required. But perhaps the most odious anti-worker provision covers overtime. While overtime pay after 44 hours will still click in, overtime will be averaged over a four-week period. Only after toiling for 176 hours will a worker be entitled to overtime pay.
Let’s do the math. If a factory worker puts in 56 hours the first week and 40 hours for three successive weeks, he or she will receive not a penny in overtime pay. Under the existing standards they would be paid 12 hours of overtime. Those unpaid overtime hours are a free gift, straight into the employer’s pocket.
The new law will also allow for workers’ unpaid half-hour lunch break to be split into two separate fifteen minute blocks. There go our coffee breaks. Week-long vacations will be a memory, because the new legislation permits employers to schedule vacations one day at a time. And remember the weekend. It too is threatened. The Tories repealed the One Day’s Rest in Seven Act, the legislation that guarantees workers at least one day off a week.
According to the labour minister, all this “flexibility” will require employee consent; that employers cannot just simply force employees to work extra hours, or take one-day vacations.
That’s all well and good in an ideal world, where employees and employers have equal power. But in the real world, employers hold the power in the workplace and employees who may say no once to this new “flexibility” will be shown the door when they say no twice.
The reality is that workers in non-union workplaces will be pressured by bad employers to work up to 60 hours a week, and work increasingly irregular schedules. They are vulnerable and will sign the required consent because their jobs will be on the line if they don’t cooperate. Those who will be hurt the most are the working poor, women and visible minority workers, employed in small businesses and earning low wages.
It’s hard to believe that in Ontario, workers are now in need of protection, not just from bad employers but from their government. Limiting democratic debate and ramming legislation through at breakneck speed are trademarks of this government.
Now that the Tories have their way, Ontario will have more in common with low-wage, right-to-work southern U.S. states than progressive European countries and other Canadian provinces. So, at a time when many industrialized countries and five Canadian provinces are introducing a shorter 40-hour work week, this government’s plan for Ontario workers is less quality family time and unsafe levels of working hours, all in the name of increasing “flexibility” in the workplace.
It seems odd that the Tories, who tweak the family values chord as often as they can, would promote a work week that forces workers into a system of irregular and contingent schedules.
The labour minister argues that the government can protect workers. But over the last five years, the Tories have cut $8.2 million from the Ministry of Labour’s health and safety budget and eliminated 25 per cent of the staff. The labour minister says 20 new workplace inspectors will be hired. But that doesn’t even bring staffing levels to where they were in 1996.
So how serious can this government be about enforcement of standards when the labour ministry has no teeth?
Higher fines for first offenders and jail time for repeat offenders sound good, but unless there are vigilant inspections and the staff to do them there will be no enforcement.
Working people 60 hours doesn’t create more new jobs. It doesn’t get people legitimately off the welfare rolls and into real productive jobs. So why are the Tories bent on doing this? It’s simple. The Tories reward those who reward them. And low-wage workers aren’t big contributors to the Tory war chest.
Text by Sid Ryan, Ontario Past President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees