Stronger Workers' Voice Will Help Canadian Workplaces Adapt to Coming Changes: New Report

VANCOUVER, BC, March 16, 2021 /CNW/ - Canadian workplaces would respond better to coming challenges – including automation, digital business models, climate change, and pandemics – with stronger mechanisms to facilitate input and dialogue with employees. That is the finding of new research published today by the Centre for Future Work in Vancouver.

The report, Speaking Up, Being Heard, Making Change, identifies several reasons Canada's work culture needs a stronger commitment to facilitating and hearing workers' voice. But voice mechanisms have eroded in recent years, especially in the private sector, weakening the capacity of workplaces to adapt to change sustainably and fairly.

The report lists eight concrete strategies for strengthening workers' voice into the future. These include: stabilizing and strengthening union representation; extending voice mechanisms across entire sectors or occupations; broadening statutory requirements for workers' voice (building on the precedent of current health and safety laws); using procurement contracts to leverage stronger voice mechanisms in businesses that sell to government; and better protections against sanction or discharge for workers who speak out about their jobs (including on social media).

According to lead author Dr. Jim Stanford, Director of the Centre for Future Work, "Building a work culture that better respects and protects the voices, preferences, and priorities of workers is a precondition for effective, inclusive, and safe workplaces."

"But if anything, Canada's economy has gone backwards on this score. We've seen an intensification of unilateral management control in workplaces, and an erosion of union representation in the private sector."

"Employers need to be prodded to take the needs and wants of their workers into account as workplaces grapple with a rapidly-changing and uncertain future."

Stanford cited the success of mandated mechanisms of workers' voice already built into Canada's health and safety laws, as an example of how compulsory channels of workplace input can lead to safer, better jobs. He argues for extending those mechanisms (through things like worker-management joint committees) to cover other workplace challenges, such as technology, skills, and workplace equity.

The full report, Speaking Up, Being Heard, Making Change: The Theory and Practice of Worker Voice in Canada Today, by Jim Stanford and Daniel Poon, can be accessed at https://centreforfuturework.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Speaking-Up-Being-Heard-Making-Change.pdf. The report is published through the PowerShare project, led by the Centre for Future Work with support from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Atkinson Foundation.

Centre for Future Work
520 – 700 West Pender Street, Vancouver, BC,  V6C 1G8, Canada
https://centreforfuturework.ca/
[email protected]
tel: [phone] ext. 271

SOURCE Centre for Future Work

Jim Stanford at 604-801-5121 ext 271 (w) or 647-544-2150 (cell)