An employer who violates these basic elements in the employment relationship can cause the
employees to band together, through the help of a union, to force the employer to do what is,
quite often, simply right.
Unions may have agendas that seem rather divorced from the success of the employer’s
business. They invariably have difficulty recognizing, or allowing the recognition of, merit,
individuality, innovation, and productivity - all elements of business that help distinguish winners.
Nevertheless, they are businesses with distinct mandates, visions and missions. They have
organizations to sustain, and overheads to pay, and they compete with one another for
customers, i.e. dues paying employees. Moreover, they have the challenge of sustaining the
competitiveness of the employer while ensuring the maximum return for their members. If they
are too successful in obtaining returns for their members, the company may be forced to make
decisions that result in the loss of the union members’ jobs, such as closing the business, moving
to another location, or selling to a larger company.
There will be some logistical challenges in organizing agricultural workers into employee
associations. There are relatively few individual agricultural enterprises with sufficient potential
dues paying members to be financially attractive to unions. Accordingly, they may need to find
ways to organize and represent workers across businesses, such as currently exist in the
construction trades industry. Is this an opportunity for business, or for unions?
There has been much ink spilled examining the increasing size, and the declining numbers, of
farm businesses, and the shortages of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labour for agricultural
work. Farms are getting bigger, and farm owners / manager need to hire more people, often with
increasing general and specific skill levels, to get the job done. As employers, running small and
medium sized businesses, is there some “special” condition that legitimately sustains an
exemption from the LRA? Other sectors, such as nursing, policing or prison guards, seem to be
able to operate with unions and maintain essential services in times of dispute.
There is an interesting contradiction apparent in the farm employer community. There are many
who support mandatory participation, regulated marketing schemes, such as the Canadian Wheat
Board, but oppose similar rights for their suppliers, farm workers. History shows us time and
again that most any compulsory, total participation system eventually breaks down as the free will
of spirited individuals rises up against the tyranny of the monopoly, or the dinosaur collapses
under the weight of its own success. While farm organizations fight to retain “special”
exemptions, they may be illuminating a contradiction of principles.
From an agricultural employer perspective, Bill 187 will change the way they do business,
although not so much as if agricultural workers were provided the same rights as most other
workers under the LRA. The Bill will ensure that those farm workers who are not treated in a fair
and prudent manner have ways to remedy this unacceptable treatment. There are few, if any,
legitimate justifications for unfair treatment of employees (I can’t think of any, but maybe
someone can.).
Bill 187 will also increase the costs of doing business. For instance, when a third party is retained
to represent a group of employees, additional costs will be incurred. When this party exercises its
right to seek a Tribunal decision on complaints and contraventions, further costs will be incurred.
Employers should expect that they will have additional time, management and legal expenses in
dealing with associations.
As important as what is in the Bill, is what the Bill does not address.
1. What are the rules governing formation of an association? Will recruiting, card signing,
voting and certification procedures currently established in the LRA for unions be
replicated in some form for agricultural employee associations?