VANCOUVER, British Columbia—The British Columbia Labour Relations Board declared June 18 that the SEIU Janitors
Christian Labour Association of Canada’s contract with cleaning contractor Best Service Pros is invalid. The board held that the process by which CLAC came to have a 10-year contract representing Best Service workers at four B.C. public colleges “cannot be relied upon to reflect the true wishes of the employees.” SEIU Local 2, which has been trying to organize janitors at those colleges, called that contract a “10-year sweetheart deal” with “an employer-friendly ‘union.’” According to the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, CLAC often makes deals with employers before workers have been hired, doesn’t require contracts to be approved by members, and has signed agreements that allow an open shop and give workers lower pay for overtime. “This is a good day for justice,” Roshawn Nicholson, a Best Service worker from the University of British Columbia-Okanagan, said in a statement released by Local 2. “We need a union that is for the workers, and we simply were not getting that with CLAC.” Read more
