Madam Speaker, this group includes three important motions by the Bloc Quebecois. Even if the government is not in agreement with the wording as given, it should at least try to plug some rather sizable holes in the Canada Labour Code.
The first is the absence of provisions regarding the opportunity and the right to negotiate technological change. My colleague, the member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, has given us a striking example of what happened in a company whose workers possessed a highly sought after skill, but a skill that became almost worthless following a technological change. This has happened extremely often and will happen increasingly in the future, given the pace of technological change.
Except that, in a business, there is nothing to prevent workers from being consulted about the introduction of new technologies, from being involved, and those who would otherwise be affected, possibly even laid off, from being protected.
Companies that have decided to involve workers in the introduction of technological change have always come out ahead. How many times has extremely costly equipment been bought without consulting workers, only to turn out to be ill adapted, to lead to serious health and safety problems in the workplace, with the result that it was necessary to make adjustments and repairs that were never satisfactory in the end? This has happened time and time again.
So responsible companies, those with experience, know that this is in their interest. I could name several in Montreal's east end who involved the union when introducing technological change, using a bargaining approach, without its being formal bargaining as provided under the code.
What we would expect of the government, which claims to want to modernize the Canada Labour Code, is for it to focus attention on this extremely important matter, for it to help businesses to be proactive, for it to use its judgment and experience, in order to indicate to them that they ought to negotiate the introduction of technological change with the union, when there is one, and when such change could result in a strike. The least that ought to be done is to ensure that there is negotiation. This is not only in the workers' best interests, but in the employer's as well.
We find the bill highly unsatisfactory in this area, as well as many others. In fact, I really wonder if this is a matter of modernizing the Canada Labour Code; to my mind, it is more of a process to make labour relations more rigid, at a time when they need to be made more flexible.
The second motion by the Bloc Quebecois is to ensure that there is not what is called in the jargon "a legal vacuum". A legal vacuum is a situation that is quite alarming for unionized workers who have the right to strike or who go out on strike and no longer have any protection whatsoever under their former collective agreement. In a legal vacuum of this type, a company could, for instance, lay people off, and they would have no defence against it. There will, of course, be an attempt to negotiate their rehiring in the back to work protocol, but this simply further complicates negotiations, as well as the settlement and the end of the strike. Thus, there are more opportunities for the law of the jungle to
govern the parties' actions. The purpose of the Canada Labour Code is to ensure that relations are clearly set out. A legal vacuum means reversion to the law of the jungle.
Naturally, each party tries to make use of this law of the jungle, according to its strength. But how much better would it be if the code itself were to provide, in some way, for the old collective agreement to be carried over until a new one replaced it so as to avoid a legal vacuum. In Quebec, the option exists, and, in the public sector, there is no legislative gap whatsoever.
Finally, the third motion of the Bloc is aimed at describing the new freedom. Some will say that the new code gives employers an opportunity to talk to their employees, as defined in the jurisprudence of the Canada board. We, however, are very concerned that this provision does not exclude the period in which an application is made for certification.
This definition or attempt to determine the relationship between employer and employee in terms of information, must exclude the period of the application for certification. I hope the secretary of state will heed my arguments. It is essential that the application period be excluded. In this period, as we know, words do not have the same weight, and an employer's silences and gestures can be pregnant with meaning. Intimidation can take many forms.
We really hope the parliamentary secretary will listen to our arguments and not introduce more problems in labour relations, where there are already enough problems.