Political action
2024 BC Provincial Election
Election Pledge
The BC NDP is the only political party to have meaningfully supported everyday workers in the province. Our membership survey results are clear: we overwhelmingly support NDP policies.
The BC NDP has passed laws (like Card Check & Successorship Rights) and are committed to additional changes (like Sectoral Bargaining) that will continue to help thousands of workers join unions and help unionized workers win stronger contracts.
SEIU Local 2 is preparing for the 2024 BC provincial election!
YES! I pledge to be active in the provincial election!
Priorities
We know there’s a lot at stake for SEIU members and our families in the upcoming October provincial election. In April we conducted a member survey because we wanted to know what issues you care about and how we should be pushing elected leaders to improve the lives of all working people.
When we asked you which political issues you are most concerned about for this upcoming election, the top two were responses:
- Workers’ Rights and Protections
Fair Wages
Although there are many issues we need to work on, focusing on workers’ rights and protections is a top priority. There are three pieces of legislation that can help protect workers’ rights and increase our power in the fight for fair wages at the bargaining table: successorship rights, card check, and sectoral bargaining.
Here’s what you had to say about those issues:
Would a party's position on successorship rights (contract flipping) affect your vote?
Under the NDP government, we were able to secure “successorship rights” to protect workers when it comes to contract flipping. This provides job security and ensures workers retain their union membership, wages and benefits under their Collective Agreement if a contract flips from one company to another.
Prior to successorship rights, workers in the building sector could lose their jobs if a different company takes over a contract.
How important is Card Check legislation?
Under the NDP government, we were able to secure a return to “single step certification”, also called “card check”. In this system, signing your Union card is your vote.
This eliminates the need for a second vote in most cases. Previously, the time between votes was often used by Employers to carry out intimidation campaigns discouraging workers from unionizing.
This let 50% more (over 1400) people join unions in 2022.
Do you support a policy that allows for workers to bargain together as a sector?
Private sector workers who work for big private companies like McDonalds, Sobeys, or Bee-Clean often struggle to unionize and negotiate a fair contract. Our current system leaves workers vulnerable to powerful Employers who can intimidate them and shut down individual locations.
We are fighting for a change to BC’s labour laws that would allow workers from an entire sector to pool their bargaining power and group their contracts together. This could mean hundreds of private liquor store workers could bargaining together as a single group.
The NDP is committed to introducing sectoral bargaining rights.
How does the upcoming BC election affect workers?
Recent election polling shows that an anti- labour/anti-worker political party is gaining more popularity. If this party wins this election, they will likely remove successorship legislation and card check to weaken workers’ bargaining power. An NDP government helps us protect the gains we’ve made and win more improvements in the future.
What is at stake for SEIU members in this upcoming election?
Successorship Legislation
Protects workers during a contract change. This is key in providing job protection and security to workers, and the ability to continue making improvements at the bargaining table.
If the next government decides to remove successorship legislation, real estate owners and property managers will not be legally obligated to respect workers’ collective agreements and can decide unilaterally to remove workers when there’s a contract flip.
Card Check Legislation
In June 2022, the NDP government in BC passed Bill 10, reinstating card check union certification. Under BC’s card check model, unions can certify bargaining units after 55 % of workers have signed membership cards.
Single-step certification is the fairest process for workers to win their unions. It has empowered thousands of workers to join us and make us all stronger at the bargaining table.
Sectoral Bargaining Legislation
We are fighting for a change to the BC’s labour laws that would allow workers from an entire sector to pool our bargaining power and group our contracts together.
This could empower thousands of workers to bargain together as a single group making us stronger and winning even bigger improvements.
What can workers do to protect the priorities mentioned above?
The first step is to stay informed. Workers who are Canadian citizens can and should exercise their right to vote. However, regardless of your immigration status, you can contribute to electing a pro-worker government by educating your co-workers, families and friends, volunteering to help phone-bank, and more!
Stay informed!
Sign a pledge card and get involved!
Exercise your right to vote on October 19th!
Lobby Days
Twenty three member activists spent May Day travelling from Vancouver to Victoria to meet with over twenty nine MLAs at the BC Legislature. Over two days, members spoke with bravery and candor to NDP MLAs, including numerous ministers, about how the introductions of Card Check (a.k.a. Single-Step Verification) and Successorship Rights have helped stabilize and strengthen working conditions for unionized workers across the province. Many brought forth their own personal stories and experiences working without these laws and how these laws need to be protected and expanded. Members also advocated for the introduction of Sectoral Bargaining into the Labour Code to help more private sector workers unionize.
FAQ
SEIU Local 2 is politically engaged because laws and politics have a big impact on our workplaces, everyday life, and as well as the communities we live in. We need to go beyond the bargaining table to change things for the better, in matters like public healthcare, affordable housing, cost-of-living affordability, corporate responsibility, climate change and more.
Our most recent BC election issues survey shows SEIU Local 2 members overwhelmingly support BC NDP policies.
We are currently inviting members in BC to pledge to take action in the BC campaign.
