A note from Brother Tony Tracy on the efforts to unionize the Coburg Coffee café in Halifaxs south end near Dalhousie & Kings Universities, with links to two very recent news articles from Rabble and The Coast, Halifaxs Weekly on the efforts by the baristas at Coburg Coffee to form their own union as a chapter of Baristas Rise Up and as members of SEIU Local 2 Branch Nova Scotia: Since Monday afternoons vote (conducted by the Nova Scotia Labour Board) at Coburg Coffee in Halifax of baristas striving to unionize the café as members of the Baristas Rise Up movement and SEIU Local 2 Branch Nova Scotia, Ive been asked many times by folks from across the country about the results of the vote. While I am more than optimistic about the final outcome, the ballot boxes for this vote remained sealed at the Labour Board offices in Halifax, and will likely remain sealed for some weeks (and perhaps even months) to come due to Nova Scotias quirky regulatory difficulties in getting a union certification vote ballot box opened and counted in a timely fashion. Here in Nova Scotia, the Regulations associated with the Trade Union Act put obstacles in the way of a timely count of ballots following a certification vote. Rather than issues of inclusions and exclusions being dealt with at the front end prior to a union certification vote, as is common in some other provinces, an oftentimes lengthy process of Labour Board hearings is conducted in the weeks (and sometimes months) following such a vote to determine the scope of the proposed Bargaining Unit and the inclusion (or exclusion) of specific positions from the proposed unit, as well as several other issues. Certainly I would hope to see regulatory reform in the future to eradicate such red tape and delay — even after many years as a union organizer and several years since in other capacities within the labour movement, it seems inconceivable to me that we can conduct municipal, provincial & federal elections and be certain of the outcome (and the winners) within hours of any vote in any jurisdiction in the country, but a ballot box with the votes of a dozen workers indicating their desire to join a union remains sealed for months before being counted. In the case of this specific vote, there has been some speculation & discussion on various social media platforms about the number of people who actually voted in this recent union certification vote this week. Reports of the employer bringing in to vote various family members and casual employees who have not had shifts at the café in some months, and a valiant effort on the part of the employer to enfranchise one former worker by flying them back to Halifax from their home in British Columbia are quite widespread. Rest assured, the one advantage of the process in Nova Scotia is that these votes by former workers & family members or friends of the employer bear little chance of ever being opened. The Nova Scotian union certification process calls for each vote to be first put into a blank envelope, and then that envelope put into an outer envelope bearing the workers name (the double-envelope system). Only after the arduous & lengthy Labour Board process of determining who is actually a regular employee (as defined under the Trade Union Act) and therefore who is eligible to have their vote counted to be part of a proposed Bargaining Unit, will the votes be counted, and only the envelopes of actual employees entitled to vote will ever be opened (with the remainder simply thrown away). Theres a great article on this union drive by young baristas posted on the rabble.ca site at rabble.ca/news/2014/06/coburg-coffee-baristas-want-to-unionize-can-they-make-it-happen and another in The Coast, Halifaxs Weekly which can be found at thecoast.ca/halifax/coburg-coffees-move-to-unionize/Content?oid=4348633 — I encourage folks to read & share both articles, and to continue to drop by to Coburg Coffee, pick up a coffee & wish the workers well and let them know that they have ongoing support from progressives and trade unionists while they suffer the absurd and lengthy delays of having their ballots counted and their wishes recognized by the government and their employer.
Posted on: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 01:42:05 +0000
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