The second phase deals with policies needed over the short term as the province moves toward re-opening the economy. These proposals aim to ensure workers have adequate supports and protections as they return to work, as well as ensuring that health and safety remain the highest priority. In this stage, insufficient public and occupational health and safety precautions will endanger the health and well-being of the workers that we are asking to shepherd the provincial economy back to activity, spur a re-acceleration of new cases of COVID-19 in the province, and erode consumer confidence. Workers must be directly consulted and actively involved in planning how their sector will re-open. Any shortsighted cost-savings some employers might hope to gain by cutting corners here would be wiped out several times over — along with the confidence of their customers — if the result was the re-imposition of an economic lockdown.
Worker health and safety:
We recommend that the government:
- Provide presumptive coverage for mental health disorders for all workers.
- Release the Patterson Report and recommendations for improvements to the Workers' Compensation System.
- Work with the WCB and the PHO to monitor efficacy of health and safety programs and compliance with laws and regulations.
- Continue enforcement and provide support, training, and worker- and employer-education programs.
- Work with the WCB to ensure they have allocated the required resources to enforce, support and monitor health and safety programs.
Worker rights and protections
We recommend that the government:
- Lobby the federal government to maintain expansive income supports and guarantees for workers and small- and medium-sized business affected by the economic downturn.
- Make government measures to stabilize the long-term care sector as part of the move to single-site staffing permanent and return to a common provincial standard for all workers in this sector, including fair wages and benefits.
- Extend and/or supplement the wage subsidy for workers in sectors that will take the longest to recover, such as tourism and hospitality. Encourage employers in these sectors to participate in government wage subsidy programs, and return all workers laid off due to COVID-19 to their payroll, covering wages and benefits.
- Continue to work with entertainment industry unions and the WCB to develop a plan for the safe relaunch of the film and television industry, with a focus on getting BC projects and talent back to work.
- Ensure universal application of successorship laws to prohibit contract flipping.
- Liaise with federal government to provide support for BC-based airport authorities, with the condition that they retain their workers.
- Eliminate all exemptions to the minimum wage, including for hand harvesters and other excluded workers.
- Legislate pay equity to eliminate wage discrimination by gender.
- Increase funding to the Workers' Advisers Office.
Public services and supports
We recommend that the government:
- Expand general delivery of childcare services to achieve universal childcare through the public funding of publicly run childcare facilities and assess need to expand summer 2020 childcare and programs for school-aged students.
- Direct health authorities to bring healthcare support services including housekeeping, food services and laundry back into the public system, repealing their privatization under the previous government.
- Expand grants for local artists to research and develop projects, and to find ways to share their work following public health directives.
- Improve access to training programs and implement recruitment and retention strategies for health care workers.
- Increase investment in public education, including post-secondary, to rectify pre-existing staffing and resource deficits, and to account for reductions in international student tuition. Ensure the maintenance, if not increase of geographic accessibility and breadth of course offerings of post-secondary education in BC.
- Increase financial assistance for post-secondary education in BC and develop a plan for the reduction and eventual elimination of tuition costs and charges for educational resources such as textbooks.
- Prioritize funding for public and unionized post-secondary institutions. Support the establishing of sectoral standards ensuring fair wages and benefits to educators, administrators, and support workers.
- Develop and implement a program to forgive student loans for low- and middle-income British Columbians and for workers in sectors with recruitment and retention challenges such as health care, community and social services, and education.
- Develop a plan for decreasing the number of students in public K-12 classes, and increase funding as required, to allow schools to function with greater physical distancing.
- Review and consider expanding the newly instituted increase to the top income tax bracket.
- Provide adequate resources to implement the BC Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People Act.
- Continue to expand the provision of free menstrual products in all public buildings.
Supports for vulnerable populations
We recommend that the government:
- Provide permanent quality housing for the homeless population, with wrap-around services.
- Make the increase to income assistance and disability rates permanent.
- Expand and make-permanent access to a safe drug supply, including non-medical delivery.
- Support the right of everyone in BC to access basic and essential services, including healthcare, regardless of their migration status and without fear of being reported to immigration officials.
- Increase funding to libraries reflective of their offering access to supports and resources for vulnerable populations.
- Design and initiate comprehensive, gender-, race-, disability- and equity-based analyses of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, to properly inform support and recovery efforts.
Infrastructure projects
We recommend that the government:
- Develop and initiate a long-term road repair and upgrade program.
- Expedite and expand seismic upgrades of schools, hospitals and other government buildings.
- Move ahead with stage 1 investment in public transit expansions, including Skytrain extensions and the Massey Tunnel and Patullo Bridge replacement.
- Fully publicly fund and expedite initiation of shovel-ready projects in the health, K-12, post-secondary, and municipal sectors.
- Provide incentives for lumber producers/tenure holders to participate in value-added manufacturing.
- Develop Community Benefits Agreements for existing and future projects to ensure the benefits of public investment is captured by workers and community through employment and upskilling opportunities. Implement provisions to prioritize the hiring of women, Indigenous workers and members of other equity-seeking groups. Include local-hire provisions in CBAs.
- Develop and initiate a long-term hazardous material abatement program for empty public and commercial buildings and upgrade these buildings for future use.
- Increase financial resources available for trades training to permit adherence with new physical distancing requirements. Resource and implement major recruitment and re-training initiatives to bring displaced workers into the construction industry.
- Consult and work with Indigenous communities — at their request and direction — to design and implement on-reserve constructions projects. Partner with BC Building Trades to provide support and training where needed.
- Increase capacity of the province's energy systems, including hydro, solar and wind farms, and energy transmission lines.
- Ensure maximum value for BC's natural resources and good family- and community-supporting jobs when bringing the province's resources to market.
- Ensure the use of union-made, BC- and Canadian-produced steel products for infrastructure projects.
- Provide stable, long-term funding to BC Centre for Women in the Trades (BCCWITT).
Addressing climate emergency
We recommend that the government:
- Include climate mitigation conditions in any private-sector bailout package to ensure a green recovery and reduce carbon emissions.
- Create and expand energy retrofit programs to more public, private, commercial, and residential buildings throughout BC.
- Provide direct funding for public research and innovation related to climate change at universities and colleges, including work on mitigation technologies, environmental remediation, habitat restoration and preservation, and more.
- Invest in tree planting as a sector of stable employment.
- Ensure existing LNG projects in BC are used as a transition energy source away from higher-emission fossil fuels to a zero-emission economy and meet the climate targets of the province's Clean BC initiative.
Market solutions
We recommend that the government:
- Develop a 'Buy BC' strategy for public procurement and encourage local consumers to buy local.
- Expedite the recognition of international certifications, credentials, and qualifications.