B.C. previously experimented with card checks and research showed that between 1978 and 1998 unionization rates were 19 percentage points lower under the current system.Reuters
Alex Whalen is a policy analyst at the Fraser Institute.
The British Columbia government has introduced labour legislation to resurrect a process known as “card check,” which would change the rules about how unions can be formed.
With card check, if 55 per cent or more of workers sign union cards, a union can be automatically certified without the need for a secret-ballot vote. (Previously, once the union could show that 45 per cent of members had signed cards, a secret-ballot vote was subsequently required.)
This move is unfair and anti-democratic for workers, and it will hurt the province’s already struggling record of attracting investment.
In many provinces and throughout the United States, unions form through a secret-ballot process where workers cast a private vote for or against joining a union. The private nature of the vote is intended to protect against intimidation and undue influence from either side.
Card check clearly violates basic democratic norms. Workers who do not support unionization can be subject to intimidation and harassment because their preference is publicly known. This is why virtually all elections in modern democracies are held by secret ballot, protecting individual privacy.
In fact, an expert panel convened by the John Horgan government to advise on labour-law reforms explicitly rejected card check. The majority of the panel supported retaining the secret-ballot system, explaining that it’s “the most consistent with democratic norms.”
Other commentators have recently described the card-check system as “notoriously open to manipulation and abuse” and “stacking the deck in favour of unions.”
Indeed, most unions favour card check, which is not surprising. B.C. previously experimented with the practice and research showed that between 1978 and 1998 unionization rates were 19 percentage points lower under the current system, which uses secret ballots, compared to when card check was used. In other words, when employees had the choice of a private anonymous vote, their support for unionization was markedly lower than under card check.
B.C. is already an outlier on labour legislation. A comprehensive analysis in 2014 by the Fraser Institute of labour laws covering the Canadian provinces, federal government and U.S. states ranked B.C. fourth worst for labour laws. It is also one of only two jurisdictions in North America to prohibit temporary workers during strikes. Clearly, the province’s laws already tilt the balance in favour of unions at the expense of individual workers and employers.
Such slanted labour laws also put the province at a competitive disadvantage when trying to attract much-needed investment. A 2020 analysis by the Fraser Institute found that B.C. underperformed compared to other provinces in attracting business investment outside of the residential housing sector. Indeed, according to the most recent available data from Statistics Canada, B.C. ranked fifth among provinces in average non-housing business investment – between 2015 and 2019 on a per-worker basis, after adjusting for inflation. Simply put, inhospitable labour laws are a part of the problem.
At a time when attracting investment is crucial, and in a province already suffering from uncompetitive labour laws, the card-check move amounts to a step backward for British Columbians. The Horgan government should reconsider this unfair and unbalanced legislation.
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