British Columbia’s NDP Should Act Now To Support Union Rights
Card check helps workers claim their rights by making union certification straightforward. British Columbia’s newly elected NDP majority government must bring card-check certification back to the province and help rebuild the power of workers.
Premier John Horgan addresses British Columbians on election night. (Flickr)
The reelection of the social-democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) in British Columbia, this time as a majority government, has opened the door to substantial labor law reform in Canada’s third-most populous province.
In 2017, during the NDP’s previous three-year stint in power as a minority government, Green Party leader Andrew Weaver vowed not to allow card-check certification, even though it was an NDP campaign promise. The NDP depended on the votes of Green members of the BC legislature to pass any legislation and could not overcome Green Party intransigence.
This situation mirrored the complicated relationship between Green Parties and the Left around the world. Canadian Greens are no exception: despite the presence of eco-socialists in the party, the moniker of “neoliberals with wind farms” applied to some European Green Parties could fairly be slapped onto the BC Greens as well.
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