NDP leadership candidates on worker issues

As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Rachel Notley announced back in January that she plans to step down as leader of the Alberta New Democratic Party.

A couple of weeks later, the party announced the logistics for the leadership race that would find someone to replace her as the head of the party.

Notley has led the party for nearly a decade, having taken the reins in October 2014 after beating David Eggen and Rod Loyola on the first ballot with 70% of support in that year’s leadership race.

She transformed the party from fourth place in the legislature prior to the 2015 election to gaining 50 more seats and going on to winning that election. Notley served only one term before losing in 2019 to the upstart United Conservative Party, headed by the long-term federal politician Jason Kenney.

Even though the party managed to get 15,000 more votes in 2019 than they did in 2015, Kenney’s efforts to consolidate the centre-right and right voters amidst frustration with the economic downturn that began with the Progressive Conservatives but then extended through most of the NDP’s time in power, allowed him to garner a slim majority of barely under 55% of the vote but 72% of the seats.

Unlike other party leaders of the past, Notley dug in her heels, determined to lead the party into a third election. Last year, under her leadership, the Alberta NDP managed to get a massive increase in the popular vote, jumping by more than 150,000 votes. They also increased their vote share from 32.67% in 2019 to 44.05%.

Their opponents, the incumbent UCP, now led by failed Wildrose leader, Danielle Smith, lost over 100,000 votes compared to the 2019 election, and their voter share shrunk from 54.98% to 52.63%.

Even though the NDP performance was the strongest of any official opposition party in the province’s history—which they did by consolidating centrist and progressive votes, eroding UCP support, especially in Calgary—they ended up 6 seats shy of winning back the throne.

So here we are.

After losing two elections in what has now become a two-party province, Notley has decided that it’s someone else’s turn to do what she hasn’t been able to since she won an election while the conservative vote was fractured in 2015.

We originally has 6 candidates step forward: Jodi Calahoo Stonehouse, Kathleen Ganley, Sarah Hoffman, Gil McGowan, Naheed Nenshi, and Rakhi Pancholi. Pancholi has since stepped down from the race and thrown her support behind Nenshi, the former 3-term mayor of Calgary.

I thought readers of The Alberta Worker might be interested in knowing where each candidate stood on labour issues. So, I read through the platforms available on the candidates’ websites to see what I could find regarding labour issues.

Nenshi had no platform on his website, let alone anything regarding labour. Hoffman doesn’t have a platform per se, but she does have 3 priorities (health, climate, and housing), none of which are explicitly labour (granted, there is some overlap). Calahoo Stonehouse, as of this writing, had only one platform priority: water.

I had reached out to the campaigns of all 3 of these candidates to see if they had more comprehensive platforms I could review.

Hoffman’s campaign told me that she’s focused on the 3 pillars at the moment.

Nenshi’s campaign responded, telling me that “given that Naheed is running to be leader of the official opposition, he is wary of releasing “policy” that can appear as promises he can’t keep. Plus, he does not what to subvert the party membership by dictating policy without proper membership deliberation.”

They did send me a link to several podcast interviews he’s done since announcing his bid, but I’m not watching/listening to more than 5 hours of content to find out what labour policies, if any, he mentioned. But knock yourself out.

I heard nothing back from Calahoo Stonehouse’s campaign by press time.

The only two candidates with labour-specific policies and ideas were Ganley and McGowan, which I’m outlining below.

Kathleen Ganley

Prior to becoming an MLA, Ganley worked as an employment lawyer in Calgary. She was the first candidate to announce she was running and she has listed several labour-related policies on her website.

First, she wants to increase the minimum wage, starting with an initial increase to $16 an hour then increasing it to $17 an hour a year later, followed by an indexation to inflation every year after that. She also supports abolishing the two-tiered minimum wage for workers under 18.

Ganley also opposes Alberta forcing workers in the province to leave the Canada Pension Plan.

She also wants to prohibit double-breasting. This unionbusting technique is when employers operate two affiliated companies, one union and one non-union. This lets them bid on work that must be unionized (and at union rates) while preserving the option of bidding on non-union work free of the union collective agreement. Ganley claims that the practice drives down worker wages.

Another priority for Ganley would be to advocate to reverse Bill 32, which the UCP introduced to limit the activities of unions.

Finally, she has committed to restoring card-based union certification. Under card-based systems, if workers can demonstrate that a certain percentage of their coworkers support unionization (say, for example, by signing union cards), then the labour relations board could certify the union without holding a vote.

Gil McGowan

McGowan is president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, a position he has held for nearly 20 years. He was the second-to-last candidate to announce intent to become leader.

He has the most comprehensive labour platform, which shouldn’t be that surprising.

McGowan claims that Alberta’s market “has been flooded labour market by a large and increasing number of non-permanent residents”, which employers like because these workers are less likely to push back against exploitation and less likely to leave their job for a better job. He wants to refocus immigration growth in the labour force to what he called “real immigration”.

He wants to increase investigation and enforcement toward employers using undocumented workers. Employers who bring in large numbers of undocumented and temporary workers do so because it’s cheaper. Not only because they are less likely to ask for more money but because a larger labour force means there are more workers competing for jobs, so workers are more willing to accept lower pay. A tight labour market increases wages overall.

Like Ganley, McGowan would eliminate the lower youth minimum wage, increase the minimum wage (to an unspecified amount), and index it to inflation.

He also supports a card-based unionization system, but he indicated that he wants it set at a simple majority of 50% plus 1.

Also similar to Ganley, McGowan opposes Bill 32 and wants to see it repealed.

McGowan supports anti-scab legislation, which prevents employers from hiring non-unionized workers during a strike/lockout to undermine the bargaining leverage workers have when striking.

He wants to ban captive audience meetings, which is when employers force workers to attend meetings during an unionization drive to convince them unionization is bad.

If an employer conducts unfair labour practices during a unionization drive, McGowan would like to see workers automatically unionized in response, similar to practices established last year in the United States.

He also wants to restore the right to strike for construction workers.

If elected as party leader, McGowan would like to see annual cost-of-living increases for public sector workers.

He thinks that publicly-financed infrastructure projects should be built by unionized construction workers. Similarly, he wants the province to use government procurement spending to support local businesses—particulary those who pay workers well—and help create Alberta-based suppliers and supply chains.

McGowan wants to introduce sectoral bargaining in hard-to-organize sectors, such as retail, food service, and hospitality. These sectors are hard to organize because job precarity pressures workers to accept poor working conditions, and it’s tough to unionize on a store-by-store basis.

He wants to abolish the rules the UCP brought in that make it easier for employers to avoid paying overtime, that allow employers to “contract flip” to get rid of unions, and eliminate the practice of labelling workers as “independent contractors” when they are functionally employees.

Speaking of increasing inspection and enforcement, McGowan wants to also crack down on employers committing wage theft, including banning them from registry services if they have any outstanding judgements.

McGowan wants to change Alberta’s 44-hour work week to a 40-hour one.

Finally, he wants to see worker benefits prorated, which would mean that part-time workers would finally see benefits. Because they’d be prorated, however, they won’t be the same level as those seen by their full-time fellow workers, but it’d be more than they’re getting now, especially for workers who are purposefully kept part-time so the employer can avoid paying benefits.

Keep in mind that both Ganley and McGowan have more than just labour issues as part of their platforms, but this article is focusing on labour proposals.

UPDATE: Hoffman’s campaign team sent a follow-up email after this story was published. In it was a summary of policy positions on labour issues, including support for ending double breasting, using unionized workers on government-funded projects, repealing Bill 32, and card-check certification. The summary also included broad, unspecified support for making “it easier for Albertans who want to join a union to do so”. As well, the summary highlighted that she was deputy premier when the NDP were in power and implemented pro-labour initiatives, such as increased minimum wage, protection for unspecified worker rights, and proper overtime compensation; although, she didn’t indicate what role she had in drafting them. None of these position statements from the summary have been published on Hoffman’s website.