Effective June 16, 2015, card check certification will be eliminated in the federal labour sector, which will feature mandatory representation votes in all valid certification applications as well as in revocation applications.
The Employees’ Voting Rights Act, which received royal assent on December 16, 2014, amends the Canada Labour Code, the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act and the Public Service Labour Relations Act. The law comes into effect June 16, 2015, six months after the date of royal assent.
Currently, unions in the federal sector are automatically certified if they enjoy majority support in the proposed bargaining unit as evidenced through membership cards; no representation vote is required. Under the Canada Labour Code, for example, a representation vote is mandatory only if 35% to 50% of employees in the proposed unit have signed membership cards and paid a nominal fee at the time of application.
The Employees’ Voting Rights Act, however, introduces two new constraints to certification in the affected regimes. First, at least 40% of employees in the proposed unit must be members of the applicant union at the date of its application. Secondly, a majority of voters in a mandatory secret ballot vote must support the application.
The amendments similarly affect revocation of certification applications. First, they reduce the level of bargaining unit support necessary for an applicant to bring a valid application, that is, there must be written evidence of support for decertification from 40% of members, rather than the majority. Secondly, a majority of voters in a mandatory secret ballot vote must support decertification. Currently, representation votes in decertification applications are at the discretion of the relevant federal tribunal.
The Employees’ Voting Rights Act leaves intact the power of the Canada Industrial Relations Board to certify a union despite a lack of evidence of majority support where the Board is of the opinion that the union could reasonably have been expected to have had majority support but for an unfair labour practice on the part of the employer.
The new law may be viewed in the Statutes of Canada 2014 on the Parliament of Canada website.