Manitoba bill would make it easier to fire striking workers, decertify a union

The Manitoba government wants to change the province's labour laws.

A bill before the legislature would make it easier for employers to fire striking workers for misbehaviour by removing a requirement for a criminal conviction.

It also proposes a lower threshold to trigger a union decertification vote in a workplace.

“I think we’re tilting the table back to balance,” Premier Brian Pallister said Thursday.

“I think the system we inherited (from the former NDP government) was biased one direction, so we’re looking to make it equitable and fair.”

The government also wants to do away with binding arbitration for contract disputes other than for an initial collective agreement. 

Opposition NDP labour critic Tom Lindsey said that change would allow talks on subsequent collective agreements to go on for a long time.

“It means that bad employers can just drag it out forever and starve the union workers either back into a bad collective agreement, or starve them into breaking the union,” Lindsey said.