(Ottawa) The Trudeau government is on the wrong track with its anti-scab bill, according to the Quebec Employers Council (CPQ). The group, which represents the interests of 70,000 employers, is strongly opposed. In a brief recently submitted to a parliamentary committee, he urges elected officials to broaden the notion of essential services in the Canada Labor Code to provide a counterbalance.
“The law that the minister wants to put in place will weaken the supply chains of all sectors which risk being affected by this legislative modification and that is why we are denouncing it”, bluntly asserts the president of the CPQ, Karl Blackburn, in interview. It specifies that it relies, among other things, on consultations carried out with its members.
Bill C-58 is currently being studied by the Standing Committee on Human Resources. It essentially aims to prohibit the use of replacement workers in federally regulated sectors such as air, rail and maritime transport, the banking sector and telecommunications.
The tabling of this bill was welcomed by all the major unions in the country, including the Confederation of National Unions (CSN) and the Federation of Quebec Workers (FTQ). This was one of the points dearest to the New Democrats in the “support and confidence” agreement which allows the minority Liberal government to govern as if it were the majority. It was also a Liberal election promise.
“It is obviously the fragile situation in which the federal government finds itself which means that it is obliged to move forward with a modification of this nature,” observes Karl Blackburn. Had it not been for this, politics would not have needed to get involved in this issue because the environment of the federal labor market does not require such a modification which will simply weaken, burden and break the supply chains of of any nature whatsoever with the consequences that these will have on the application of this law. »
For the CPQ, the ban on using replacement workers will destabilize the “balance of forces” by increasing the number of strikes and unnecessarily extending their duration.
The unions believe instead that it is the lockouts that persist, given the absence of federal anti-scab legislation. The Canadian Union of Public Employees recalled Monday that workers at the port of Quebec are in their 19e month of lockout and denounced the employer’s refusal to negotiate.
Ensuring essential services
He believes that Ottawa must learn lessons from the experience of Quebec where it has been prohibited since 1977 to use strikebreakers during labor disputes. It was the time of major clashes between unions and employers where strikes dragged on and turned violent. Five years later, the Quebec state created the Essential Services Council which aims to ensure the continuity of these services in the event of a strike.
“If the (federal) government decides to move forward with its bill and completely ban replacement workers, it must at least ensure that there is an exception provided for. and which takes into account the health and public safety and economic security of Canada,” explains the senior director of the CPQ’s work team, health, safety and legal affairs, Sandra De Cicco.
Under the Canada Labor Code, a company’s activities can be maintained during a strike or lockout only “to prevent imminent and serious risks to the safety or health of the public.”
“That’s too restrictive. We need to take into consideration the whole aspect of the vitality and importance of supply chains,” she continues.
The CPQ cites as an example the strike which paralyzed the ports of British Columbia last summer and the unpredictability caused by the uncertainty of negotiations for longshoremen at the Port of Montreal. He points out that in addition to interrupting the country’s supply chain, a labor dispute in federally regulated industries would have a domino effect on “thousands of small and medium-sized businesses.”
It also asks that it be the Federal Court that decides in the event of a labor dispute, and not the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) as provided for in the bill. The Court is better able to judge the notion of public interest than the CCRI which is made up of members representing the employer and union parties, he believes.
reference: www.lapresse.ca