NDP unlikely to hand Tory-traumatized public-sector unions a blank cheque

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/10/2023 (741 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Now entering its eighth week, you can certainly forgive 1,700 striking MPI employees for thinking their salvation will be found in the arrival of a new NDP government.

Some of Manitoba’s biggest unions have an official role in running the NDP and choosing its leaders. And since winning the Oct. 3 general election, premier-designate Wab Kinew has certainly made it clear that a new sheriff in town will mean a whole new approach to bargaining.

Immediately following his election win, Kinew told striking MPI employees, “I’ve got your back.”

What that means in terms of a settlement is hard to gauge.

Once Kinew is officially installed as the leader of the governing party in the legislature, he will be entitled to give MPI a new bargaining mandate. This is how governments ensure that settlements at crown entities fit within a broader fiscal framework.

The new mandate gives Kinew the opportunity to extinguish the MPI strike and avoid a looming conflict with 11,000 civil servants, who voted to strike two days after the NDP won the general election.

Will Kinew simply give in to union demands or will he try to find room between the last two positions outlined at the bargaining table and bring the disputes to an end? All that Kinew will say right now is that after drafting a new mandate, he will try to avoid becoming directly involved in contract talks.

So, where does that leave public-sector workers, including those currently on strike? Can they expect more generous settlements without fear of strike action? Can unions look forward to new laws and regulations that make certification easier and limit the use of things such as replacement workers?

Kinew has made some lofty promises, including a pledge last fall to “consider” a ban on replacement workers. That kind of language provokes some concerns in the business community.

To calm any frayed nerves, Kinew could point back to 1999, when then-premier Gary Doer had to balance high expectations from labour and high anxiety from the business community.

In 2009, after 10 years at the helm, Doer had made several small but significant concessions to labour.

They included restoring the ability of unions to gain certification in a workplace by having workers sign membership cards, rather than having a full certification vote. However, the threshold for certification, which had been 55 per cent in the 1980s, was bumped up to 65 per cent, a move that did not please labour leaders.

Doer passed a 60-day dispute-resolution law that requires the two sides in a strike to undertake arbitration to find a settlement. There were also workplace health and safety improvements and meaningful increases to the minimum wage.

However, Doer never lived up to the worst expectations of his political critics.

When it was all said and done, the civil service remained largely the same size as when he formed government. As for wages, no single contract stood out as overly generous, and in 2010 the NDP actually negotiated a two-year wage freeze for all bargaining groups.

Although Doer’s NDP did not scratch all of the itches that labour leaders had, he gave them enough to maintain their support without drawing the ire of the business community or Manitobans at large.

Can Kinew accomplish the same trick? All the new premier has to do is avoid turning labour relations into an all-out war and he’s likely to earn kudos from both sides of the labour-relations debate.

In many ways, it would be hard for Kinew to do worse than the former Tory government.

From the threat of a legislated wage freeze, to a general refusal to negotiate new contracts, the Tories under former premier Brian Pallister were, at best, combative when it came to engaging public-sector unions.

Pallister relished his role as the tormentor-in-chief when it came to unions, largely because it helped build support within his own party. However, his disdain for unions and collective bargaining did not, in the final analysis, accomplish much in the way of fiscal benefits.

Pallister’s botched wage-freeze threat unravelled when his government stopped trying to negotiate new contracts. The strategy did, in fact, hold the line on wage increases, but as the expired contracts began to pile up, so too did the government’s liabilities.

When settlements were eventually reached, unions won years of back pay that were well above the limitations Pallister tried to place on public-sector wages.

And let’s not forget that in 2022, the province was found guilty in a civil lawsuit of interfering in 2016 contract talks between the University of Manitoba and its faculty association that triggered a strike. After finding “a serious and substantial undermining and interference” of collective bargaining, the court ordered the PC government to pay more than $19 million in lost wages and costs associated with the strike.

From this point on, Kinew would be best advised to take a Rolling Stones approach to labour relations.

Let the unions know they can’t always get what they want, but with a less combative tone and a little luck, they’ll get what they need.

dan.lett@winnipegfreepress.com