Ramey Talks First Contract Legislation and Michelin Bill

The NDP MLA for Lunenburg West is setting the record straight on his decision to support first contract legislation in Nova Scotia. Both the Tories and Grits opposed the labour bill and hyped up the legislation as a bad move that would hurt future investment in the province. However, Gary Ramey says he believes it's a case where Nova Scotians were mainly misinformed or didn't even read the legislation. "First of all, I got very few calls, four or five emails and two or three letters on the issue. On a daily basis I probably get fifteen to twenty calls about roads, ditches, bushes - that sort of thing and I got a number of calls from people who supported it," Ramey says another reason behind his government's decision to bring forward the bill is to ensure Nova Scotia's $25 billion dollar Shipbuilding Contract goes smoothly. "What we didn't want to happen is if there ever were a glitch along the way we didn't want to be in the position where we were introducing this legislation when there was already a problem. It's still not any easier to get a union started, you still have to have a union vote and go through the entire process," Ramey says first contract legislation won't impact the status of non-unionized companies such as Michelin because of Nova Scotia's long standing law referred to as the "Michelin Bill".