Employment and labour

The Progressive Labour Agenda is intended to provide Manitoba policy makers with a set of clear policy measures to improve the conditions of work for Manitobans while promoting overall well-being in our province. These policy measures respond directly to issues in labour and employment such as the proliferation of low-wage work, gaps in employment standards and health and safety enforcement, declining private sector union coverage, and inequities experienced by women and migrant workers, among other issues.

We generally take for granted that everyone has the right to a say—and certainly a vote—in what our governments do. But in the workplaces that rule many of our waking hours, these democratic rights are largely absent. In a time of extreme inequality, deteriorating social cohesion and reduced trust in our institutions, why shouldn’t workers have more control over the firms they work in? Enabling employees to take more ownership and control in their working lives is a promising antidote.

The 2024 review of the Labour Relations Code, only the second in more than two decades, comes at a critical juncture for labour relations in British Columbia. It is imperative that this review bring a comprehensive package of reforms to markedly improve workers’ abilities to meaningfully exercise their statutory rights to organize and engage in collective bargaining in the current context of fissured workplaces and increasingly insecure work arrangements in many sectors of the BC economy.   

Previously published in the Winnipeg Free Press, Tuesday March 19, 2024