"Most Available Hours" legislation - Saskatchewan

I was wondering if any of ya'll have heard about this, and what your opinions might be?

It's legislation that was passed but never put into effect, never went through that last step that made it into real law. Now Calvert (NDP, whom I normally love) is thinking about making it into real law.

Essentially, the concept is that if more hours pop up, they must be offered to the part time person who has been working there the longest. Regardless of qualifications or work ethic. It applies to businesses that have 50 or more part-time employees (ie Co-op groceries, Saskatoon's public workers, etc)

It originally was part of a union agreement about 10 years ago, which was then suggested to the government that they implement it. They started to make it real law, then stopped halfway in the process. I don't know a lot of the details, alas, but...



it scares the shit out of me. I mean, I bust my ass when I'm working. I work harder than most other people, but especially some of those who have been there for years and years. How are managers supposed to reward hard workers? It's not like they're willing to give a raise often, or a bonus. They can't give pay cuts to bad workers without just cause. It just seems ridiculous to me. It's completely interfering with a manager's decision as to who is best suited for a particular shift.

http://www.cfib.ca/legis/sask/labour.asp seems to have some more info on the ongoing process of it, and http://sask.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=labour-law041216 has an article on why it's supposed to be beneficial (though the lady uses Safeway as an example of her hours being stolen... erroneous example, since Safeway has a union and she could grieve about her hours being given to the manager's son. silly girl)

 

i think it's a good idea. places like superstore work hard to make sure that their parttime employees cant get in enough hours to qualify for benefits. this would make sure that the single mom who's been busting her butt at superstore for the last 8 years could actually be given enough hours to get decent dental and prescription coverage for her and her kids.

*if* managers actually gave extra work to people who were harder workers, then i'd say it's a dumb law, but the reality is that the crap that superstore pulls on their pt employees happens in a LOT of places.

this seems like it's going to be pretty controversial, and the corporate biggies will undoubtedly oppose the law because it will end up costing them a lot of money, so it may never pass.