CIU Local 16 - PSAC seeks right to represent student workers

PSAC seeks right to represent student workers
By Kathryn May, Ottawa Citizen, February 4, 2009 11:02 AM

The Public Service Alliance of Canada is going to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to challenge the constitutionality of a federal law that forbids student, short-term and casual workers from joining unions.

Photograph by: Pat McGrath, Ottawa Citizen

OTTAWA — Canada's largest federal union is taking the federal government to court to change its definition of "employee" so unions can organize thousands of summer students and other part-timers working in the public service.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada is going to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to challenge the constitutionality of a federal law that forbids student, short-term and casual workers from joining unions.

The union argues this provision of the Public Service Labour Relations Act defies workers' rights to "freedom of association" and collective bargaining, which the Supreme Court decided is a constitutional right of all Canadians protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"It is time for the federal government to accept that the charter is for all members of Canadian society, including federal public service workers," said PSAC president John Gordon.
"We intend to fight for the right of these workers to become union members and to bargain collectively with their co-workers."

The hiring of students has long been a nagging issue for PSAC, especially in departments such as Parks Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency, which rely heavily on the students in the summer.

At its last convention, PSAC members voted to come up with a plan to organize the thousands of students it claims the government hires every year as "cheap labour."
The delegates also approved a $350,000 budget to get the plan rolling. The first obstacle is changing the definition of employee.

The stage was set for the court challenge with a 2007 Supreme Court decision that many predict will change the face of labour relations in the public sector. The court threw out sections of a B.C. labour law that allowed the government to override union contracts and lay off thousands of health workers. The court ruled the law as a "significant interference with the right to bargain collectively."

With the recession, summer jobs in the federal government will be in big demand. The government has various student programs, but the most popular and biggest is the Federal Student Work Experience Program, which typically attracts 90,000 applications for some 7,000 jobs in 55 departments and agencies.

For PSAC, organizing students and other part-timers means more union dues and better job security for existing workers. For students, PSAC would negotiate their wages and working conditions, which would bring higher pay, benefits and better job opportunities, said Patty Ducharme, a PSAC vice-president.

A key issue is that students are paid at different scales depending on whether they are high school, college, university or graduate students and what region they work in.

"The job has a value and people should be paid the working rate of that job whether they are students or not," said Ducharme. "If you have been trained, you have the right to join a union and get that pay scale."

It's unclear how the union will negotiate contracts for these workers. Ducharme said students would probably be signed up as union members every year when they started their summer jobs.