Labour policies in the 2021 federal election
Today I will be taking a look at the main labour policies in the NDP platform and Liberal platform, which were both released in the last week or so. My piece on the Conservative labour platform will be released shortly.
The NDP platform this year is written in narrative form and is quite detailed, so I have summarized the major changes in each section below.
NDP Platform
Employment Insurance
Add a minimum benefit level of $2000 per month to eligible people who are “relying on EI regular or special benefits to stay afloat”.
Make EI available to people who quit their jobs (for one of a few broad reasons).
Extend EI sickness benefits from 15 to 50 weeks.
Extend EI benefit duration for seasonal workers.
These changes help to shore up some of the problems with EI and address longstanding EI issues, albeit in a way that isn’t terribly comprehensive given the issues the EI system faces at present.
The proposal for a minimum benefit is good, though it’s not clear how universal the payment would be. The language seems to imply that the benefit would be means tested or adjusted for the number of dependents. Still, a supplement for low earners on EI would be very helpful.
The language about quitting is welcome. The NDP lays out criteria for eligibility here that encompasses many of the reasons people quit their jobs. In practice, it may end up as a pathway to EI for most people who quit, as some of the criteria they list are very broad (like “protecting their health” and “providing childcare”) and potentially easily met. Ideally, EI should be available to all who quit, so this is a good change.
Some of the primary issues with EI haven’t been addressed, however.
The income replacement rate of EI should increase, and the maximum insurable earnings covered by EI should increase as well.
The regional adjustment of EI benefit duration should be eliminated, with the benefit lasting a fixed duration.
The eligibility criteria for regular EI should be relaxed and a minimum benefit should be introduced for workers without recent work history.
Gig workers and freelancers should be made eligible for EI, possibly through reclassifying them as traditional employees.
Finally, the conditions imposed on the unemployed while collecting EI should be reduced.
I explained some of these issues in a piece I published last year.
That said, there is some language at the start of the section on EI that suggests the NDP would like to address some of these concerns. The NDP platform complains that the EI system is “out-dated, under-funded and inflexible”, that “less than 40 percent qualify for benefits when they need them” and that there has been a rise in “precarious and part-time work” for which EI is inapplicable. These concerns are well founded of course, but the actual policy changes they suggest do not fully address these issues.
Unions
Introduce anti-scab legislation that would ban the use of replacement workers with no exceptions (though presumably only in federally regulated employment sectors).
Force the prioritization of pensioners when a company goes bankrupt with debts and create a “pension insurance” program to pay out unfunded pensions.
Both of these changes are welcome. Anti-scab legislation has been a long term policy proposal of the NDP and would greatly strengthen the bargaining position of workers during strikes. Private pensions in Canada are often underfunded and sometimes collapse entirely when a company goes out of business, so providing an insurance backstop is a good policy.
That said, I think that there should be more federal pressure to improve the conditions for labour in Canada. There are a number of important labour protections Canada currently lacks:
Most Canadian provinces lack private union elections by simple majority (known as card check), a measure designed to limit the power of employers to coerce their employees against forming a union.
Employers in all provinces except Quebec and BC are able to hire replacement non-union labour during union strike action, undermining labour power.
Employers are not required to neutrally engage with unions and can barrage employees with anti-union propaganda.
Canada does not have sectoral bargaining, a way for unions to negotiate pay for an entire economic sector at once, enhancing labour power.
Fixing these problems is mechanically complex because in Canada about 94% of employees are subject to provincial employment regulation, over which the federal government has little power. Still, I would like to see some language suggesting the NDP would fix these issues for federally regulated employees where applicable, and would at least pressure provincial governments to resolve some of these issues (or, ideally, make all employment sectors fall under federal regulation or otherwise overrule them).
Wages
Introduce a federal minimum wage of $15 an hour, increase it to $20 an hour over an unspecified period, and thereafter index it to the cost of living.
Require that part-time and contract workers are paid the same as comparable full-time positions.
Ban unpaid internships outside of education programs.
Replace the Phoenix pay system.
These are also good policies. An indexed minimum wage is a sensible and long overdue policy change, though as elsewhere this only applies to federally regulated employers. Unpaid internships should be banned as they allow employers to replace paid workers and suppress employee wage demands. Finally, the Phoenix pay system is a faulty payroll system that systematically underpays public sector employees and needs to be replaced.
My only real complaint here is similar to my complaint about changes to provincial employment regulation in the section above. The federal NDP should pressure provinces to implement an indexed minimum wage as well, or just try to overrule them.
I would like to close by saying the commitments of the NDP in other economic areas are generally good, in particular with respect to welfare policy. An analysis would be outside the scope of this piece, but there are useful policy changes there that would prove helpful to labour as well.
Liberal Platform
I did take a look at the Liberal document as well, which I don’t think is worth much analysis. Basically the Liberal labour platform consists of a lot of regulatory modifications for workers in specific industries and loans and grants to businesses that are intended to spur hiring, without much in the way of meaningful policy changes that apply generally to large groups of workers.
There’s the relatively minor expansion of a number of tax credits, including the Canada Workers Benefit and a bunch of smaller tax credit schemes, such as one that applies to workers who move for a new job. As usual, many of these credits are going to be claimed predominantly by upper income people with the means to hire tax assistance services and are a bit of a waste.
The Liberals promise to create an EI program opt-in for the self-employed, which is interesting and could be useful depending on implementation. There is language around developing an entirely new EI system as well, but there are no details and some of the wording is concerning (making EI “more responsive” for employers, for instance).
One unambiguously useful labour policy in the Liberal platform is a promise to prohibit the use of scabs (replacement workers) but only when an employer in a federally regulated sector has locked out employees. Employers would seemingly remain free to hire scabs under other circumstances, such as when workers are on strike but have not been explicitly prohibited by the employer from returning to work, so it doesn’t go nearly as far as the comparable NDP policy.
The Liberal labour platform is relatively weak. In common with the Conservative labour platform it basically reaffirms the labour policy status quo with some tweaks here and there. The NDP platform, in contrast, contains some very useful and long overdue improvements to labour policy (though it could go further). It is clearly the best platform for labour of the three major parties.