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Federal NDP Unions are happy Liberals will also include strikes in anti-scab legislation.
OTTAWA — including striking workers in the proposed anti-scab law was a “major component” of negotiations when negotiating an agreement on confidence and supply to the Liberal government as per the NDP.
The agreement promises to pass an amendment to the law at the end of the year, which will ban substitute workers, also referred to in the United States as “scabs,” — if unionized employees in federally-regulated sectors are shut out or on strike.
“It’s a huge win,” said Matthew Green, the NDP’s deputy labor critic.
“The use of importing replacement workers … completely undermines the democratic principles of having unions and collective bargaining.”
The Liberals have pledged to restrict the number of replacement workers on their platform for the 2021 election, which is reiterated in the mandate letters for Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan.
However, there’s one significant difference that the mandate letter states that the rules will apply when employees are evicted by their employer. The agreement in the agreement with NDP also applies to workers striking.
A spokesperson for O’Regan’s Office stated that the decision has been “reflective of ongoing conversations and feedback from stakeholders,” however, Green claimed that the NDP had taken the credit for “using our power” to bring it to the table.
A report by the Canadian Labour Congress said that distinction is crucial because nearly 85 percent of national work stoppages are struck, not lockouts.
Unions have been pushing for change for a long time, and both Bloc Quebecois and the NDP have introduced anti-scab laws before. They’ve been all rejected through Liberal or Conservative votes.
In 2007, then-Bloc M.P. Richard Nadeau told the House of Commons that he was seeking to modify the Canada Labour Code “to prohibit strikebreakers” and “end the disparity between the labor codes of Canada and Quebec.”
The law in Quebec was passed through its Rene Levesque government in 1977 after a string of violent conflicting labor laws. British Columbia is the only other Canadian jurisdiction with similar rules and has been in effect since 1993.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada, with 240,000 members, including the federal public service, acknowledged that it is pleased with the commitment. But the president of the national association, Chris Aylward, said the government “must move quickly to enact it.”
This cautious optimism was shared by Mark Hancock, the national president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
“I’ll really believe it when I see it, but we’re really happy about it,” the man said.
Hancock stated that the introduction of replacement workers changes the power balance during a dispute over wages.
“It’s like dropping a grand piano on a scale,” he added.
“When we strike and have to give the paycheque this is a powerful incentive to us to remain at the bargaining table to come up with a solution. Employers that can make use of the scab labor system don’t have that same motivation to bargain with honesty and fairness.”
In contrast, Toronto Labour lawyer Chantel Goldsmith said that anti-replacement laws provide unions with “a ton of leverage” in collective bargaining and can turn out to be “hugely detrimental” to employers.
“If the employer knows that they can’t have a replacement worker, then their hands are almost tied in that they have to kind of agree with the union’s demands,” she explained.
A study from 2009 published that was published by the journal Canadian Public Policy found that anti-scab laws result in more strikes. However, they’re shorter.
Apart from the services, new rules will also apply to a variety of federal Crown corporations, as also companies in the field of broadcasting and telecommunications as well as grain elevators as well as food and grain mills, and transportation infrastructure such as ports, airports, airlines, railroads, marine shipping as well as road transport services.
With these essential transport connections essential to the transportation system, there could be more significant consequences for supply chains, and other businesses should strike an increase in frequency.
“After two years of a pandemic where small businesses have been hurt by the pandemic, many of them had to contract a huge level of debt,” said Jasmin Guenette, the vice president of national affairs at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
“The impact of work stoppage for those large companies has a direct impact on many small businesses … because they rely on (that) infrastructure to get access to the products that they need, or products they need to ship.”
The expectation for this NDP is that the provincial governments will follow the federal government’s example after the changes are implemented. Law.
“We have to hold them accountable to the commitments they’ve made in the agreement,” Green stated.
The minister of labor in the federal government stated that the Liberals would make the bill with care.
“It is important that we get this right and we’ll be consulting with stakeholders and conducting policy research and analysis before legislation is brought forward,” O’Regan declared in an email.
The report from The Canadian Press was first published on March 29, 2022.
Sarah Ritchie, The Canadian Press
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