Bill C-6 (Historical)

Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act

An Act to provide for the resumption and continuation of postal services

This enactment provides for the resumption and continuation of postal services and imposes a final offer selection process to resolve matters remaining in dispute between the parties.

Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order. There is so much noise across the way I cannot hear my colleague who is immediately adjacent to me speak.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I have just come to the chair. This is a very intense debate and I would ask hon. members to moderate their comments and listen to each other.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would point out that I have been listening quietly to all of my colleagues who are talking and would ask that they extend the same courtesy to me when I am speaking and have decorum in the House of Commons.

I want to quote from something which I think would be instructive for all of us here. There is a saying that those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it. The title of this document is, “Postal Workers Organizing: A Look Across A Century”, 1900 to 2000. It says:

The first postal clerks' association was formed locally in Vancouver in 1911.

I am very proud to represent Vancouver Kingsway, the birthplace of the first postal clerks association. It goes on:

It soon added branches in the Atlantic, and by 1917, the Dominion Postal Clerks Association (DPCA) had branches across the country.

It describes the post office working conditions at the time:

When one looks at the working conditions prevailing during this period, it's no wonder the postal associations soon tired of begging and petitioning for improvements. Post office workers often work 60 to 70 hour work weeks with no overtime provisions.

If a train was late, postal clerks might have to come to work in the middle of the night. Letter carriers were forced to wait around until the mail was ready for delivery. At Christmas, the work day had no limit. And for this, they received very poor wages.

These circumstances came to a head in 1918, when FALC, after failing to convince the government to appoint a conciliation board to establish regulated collective agreement conditions, called a strike. It was strongest in the West, Toronto and Hamilton.

By the way we have fine representatives in those areas who continue to this day to fight for working people in this country.

The document goes on to say:

By the end of the 10-day strike, letter carriers, clerks, railway mail clerks and porters...were all on strike west of the Great Lakes.

The first national civil service strike ended with a huge victory. Postal workers won a 44-hour week, overtime pay, salary increases, no discrimination against strikers and a Civil Service Commission of Inquiry into working conditions at the Post Office.

Who today would quarrel with any of those victories?

That came from brave and courageous women and men who stood up to governments like this one, to people who would take away their right to strike, and look at what they were striking for: a 44-hour work week, overtime pay, rest between shifts.

Moving forward to 1965, the document says:

The year 1965 was a turning point, a defining moment in the history of post office workers. In July, the government--

--I think it was a Liberal government at that time--

--announced in proposed legislation a rejection of the right to strike for government workers and a wage increase of less than half of the union's bottom line.

A strike ensued which lasted for two weeks in Montreal and a shorter period in other locations.They were rotating strikes.

The immediate results of the strike included:

- wage increases

- no reprisals against strikers

- a Royal Commission into working conditions, headed by Judge Montpetit

- the inclusion of the right to strike in the new federal public sector labour legislation.

I would also point out that the leaders of all three postal workers brotherhood unions failing to back the strike lost their positions.

There has been some talk here about whether or not there is a right to strike. It is true there is no right to strike that is implicit in the freedom of association provision of the charter. However, it is true that under the Canada Labour Code trade unions that are certified or voluntarily recognized under that agreement who go through the legal provisions can put themselves into a legal strike position and when they do so, they are validly on strike. That is the case with CUPW today.

We are not arguing whether or not there is a theoretical juridical right to strike.

[An hon. member]

Come on, Don.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

We are talking about a union that is legally on strike. If the government thinks the union ought not to be on strike, then it should have the guts to go to court and challenge that.

[An hon. member]

They're locked out.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order, please.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, I sit quietly while they speak and I would ask them to do the same.

The right to bargain collectively has been talked about in this House as well. That right is guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is also guaranteed in international conventions to which this country is a signatory. Therefore, those international conventions are binding upon this country.

The concept of bargaining collectively is about free collective bargaining. This is where it gets interesting and challenging for the government. Free collective bargaining involves negotiations between two private parties. It recognizes each party's right to sit down and negotiate a private collective agreement. A collective agreement is a contract. Collective bargaining is governed by Canadian contract law. The right of two parties to sit down in this country face to face and freely bargain a contract is something I would think the Conservatives would support.

The Conservatives claim to support private enterprise and the right of people to freely contract in this country. If the Conservatives believe that, then they have no choice but to allow a private enterprise which is a crown corporation, an arm's-length entity from the government, to sit down with another private entity, a trade union, and respect their right to bargain the terms and conditions of their relationship unmolested by government, without having the heavy hand of government imposing a settlement on them. I do not think the Conservatives would tolerate for one moment government intervening in two businesses that were bargaining a sales contract. If they truly believe in the freedom to contract, then what is good for the goose is good for the gander. They must be consistent, but the Conservatives are not and this legislation shows that very clearly.

The law clearly recognizes that government has no right to intervene in free collective bargaining except in two circumstances. One is essential services. One of the members over there, who I understand used to work for the police force, would understand that. I think it is why he erroneously thought there was no right to strike, because that is true for essential services. Legislatively, very often the right to strike is legally prohibited for a reason. We cannot have our police on strike. We cannot have our medical staff in emergency rooms, sometimes firefighters, paramedics on strike. Those sorts of groups often cannot strike.

The second exception to the right to strike is when a strike reaches a point that the health and safety of the public is threatened. That situation usually demands that a party wait until it has evidence. It can go before a labour relations board to establish that fact.

I would respectfully submit that neither of those situations is the case here.

I want to talk about the strike. From what I have heard from the members opposite, I think they fundamentally misconstrue and misunderstand the purpose and the nature of a strike or a lockout. Once again, not to belabour the point, we are not talking about a strike situation but about a lockout. However, what I am about to say would apply equally to both situations.

Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation. It involves a gradual increase of pressure. There are graduated measured processes taken that are calculated toward urging the parties toward agreement. These can involve things like taking a strike vote. The union will leave the bargaining table, canvass its members and come back to the table with a strike mandate and that will indicate to the employer how much support it has. It usually indicates to the employer that perhaps it has to change its position.

The employer can invoke a final offer process where it can present a final offer to the union and force a vote on that final offer. That also can force pressure on the union to change its position at the bargaining table. There can be work to rule where a union will not declare a strike but will work exactly according to the terms of the collective agreement as a precursor to taking strike action. There can be rotating strikes which are short of a full strike. Each one of these graduated steps is part of the acknowledged process of collective bargaining. Ultimately there is a strike or lockout.

The very purpose of a strike or lockout is to cause hardship. It is the ultimate weapon to exert maximum economic, political and social pressure on the other party. The government seems to think that only strikes that have no consequences for anybody ought to be allowed, that only strikes that do not cause hardship ought to be permitted.

The government would tolerate strikes only if they were ineffective. That misconstrues the very purpose of a strike. It denies workers whose labour actually has an impact on the community around them the right to strike. It leaves the right to strike to groups that have little economic power. There are a couple of examples that illustrate that very starkly in this country.

One example I do not think anybody would remember, except for my hon. colleagues from Alberta, is the strike in Edmonton during the 1980s. Workers at the woodworking plant, Zeidler, went on strike. That strike went on for eight years. Why? No government ordered them back to work. No government ordered the employer to get back to the table. No government sent it to binding arbitration or final offer selection to result in a collective agreement. Why? The Zeidler workers were a small marginalized group and did not have an impact on anybody else. In that case, the government let the workers suffer. Of course, many members on the opposite side would have been totally in favour of that.

Just last year at Vale Inco, workers in Canada were subjected to the actions of a billion dollar multinational corporation and they went on strike for a year. Did the government send them back to work? No. Why? Because the employer had billions of dollars and could easily go through that strike. A small community with hundreds families suffered intensely from that strike but that was okay.

In the present case, the withdrawal of services, I would argue, was being done in a tempered and managed manner by the union, but when it started to exert some pressure, the government panicked. It said that the workers had to go back to work right away as they were causing pressure. Talk about a one-sided application of the strike and lockout weapon.

When unions have gone on strike, or when they have pressured the employers, what have they done it for? I could do much more research, but I have a short list of some things unions have fought for over the last century and obtained for Canadian people: minimum wages; paid vacations; minimum periods of time off between shifts, including the weekend; paid statutory holidays; parental leave; occupational health and safety committees and safety standards; pensions; health and welfare plans, including dental, eye care and prescription plans.

These are the things unions go on strike for. Very often it is small groups of people who sacrifice their own financial interests for the betterment of groups as a whole. All Canadian families have benefited from these brave men and women, and they are going to benefit from the brave actions of the CUPW workers today as well.

When we talk about interference in the collective bargaining process, the government would be aghast at anybody interfering with the contractual relations between two private actors, but it is quick to jump in and do it when a union is involved. Let us look at the government's interference.

Not only did the government jump in and interfere, it started contracting for one of the parties. The government has put in this legislation lower wages than management was prepared to pay. How can that be justified? A private contract is being written by the state. Holy mackerel, they are a bunch of socialists over on that side. I have not heard one single justification for that from the members opposite.

I also want to talk about our colleagues in the Liberal Party because, of course, their position changes depending on the week, month, year or decade. I will be careful. I will just tell the truth.

In 1997 the Liberal Party brought in the same kind of legislation that is currently before the House. It ordered CUPW workers back to work and imposed wages on them. It is quite interesting to hear Liberals talk about this legislation.

And that is not the only time. It is a shameful history, because in 1965 the Liberal government proposed legislation that would strip all government workers of the right to strike, period. I hesitate to bring that up, because given that this Conservative government has copied what the Liberals did in 1997, I certainly do not want it to copy what the Liberals did in 1965. I want to be careful there.

In 1993 the Liberals fired 10,000 part-time advertising mail workers, the largest single layoff in Canadian history, and they handed over unaddressed advertising mail to the private sector. I think Canadians should know that when they see the Liberals stand up and try to pretend that they are actually on the side of workers in this dispute.

I also want to talk a little bit about what is on the table and what is at risk by this legislation. We have a proposal by Canada Post to treat new hires completely differently. They want to have two tiers of workers, where new workers who are hired receive 18% less wages than the current employees, where they have to work five years longer before they are eligible for retirement, where they join a defined contribution plan instead of a defined benefit plan. Do honourable members know what a defined contribution plan is? It is not a pension, it is an RSP; that is what it is. There is no guarantee of any kind of pension amount when an individual retires, and the entire risk of the pension plan is on the workers, none on the employer. And there are reduced benefits on retirement as well.

I also want to talk about what is at stake in terms of pensions, which are of interest to all Canadians, because retirement security is very important. There is a two-tier plan here once again, and this is something workers are fighting for. They are fighting for their retirement security.

This government has bragged about its creation of jobs. It brags about the number of jobs it has created, about its fiscal performance. I note that it always compares it to July 2009, which is the trough of the recession, and then it compares how many jobs have been created from then. But it is the lack of quality jobs that is important, because what has been created in that time are part-time, temporary, and usually service sector jobs. We should ask Canadians, are there more, better, family-sustaining career jobs today than there were in 2006, when the government was elected? I would argue that is absolutely not the case.

The kinds of jobs that Canada Post is proposing here--lower wages, reduced pensions, longer working till retirement--are these the kinds of jobs the government is bragging about creating? What a legacy to offer the young generation, to offer poorer jobs on which they cannot raise their families.

I come from Vancouver, where the average price of a house in east Vancouver is $850,000, where a two-bedroom apartment rents for $1,200 a month, and where the median income in my riding is $43,000, total household income. And this government wants to create more jobs to have reduced standards? That is not the way to create a healthy economy.

The way to build a healthy economy in this country is to have strong, family-sustaining, middle-class jobs with dental plans, pensions, medical plans, and job protection, jobs on which an individual can raise a family and maybe take a vacation once a year and actually be able to buy some goods and services in the community and support the business sector that this government claims to support.

If we do not have a strong working and middle class in this country, we do not have a strong economy. I wish this government would start to understand that.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Minister of State (Transport)]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the member's comments, and I have to say that the government is trying to bring together two parties that have been unable to reach an agreement. That has been demonstrated over the last eight months. The union went on strike, which caused huge problems for Canada Post. Canada Post then had a lockout. The labour minister has gone to extraordinary lengths to try to bring the two parties together. She has not been able to do so.

The same economy that the member espouses is experiencing great harm. Small businesses are experiencing great harm, particularly in rural and remote communities in the north. Individuals are not able to get their mail. Things that keep our country together are not being delivered.

Will the member stand up and support the government and its legislation to bring all the parties together and get our economy going again? Will the member support the government's initiative in a timely manner?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, what my honourable colleague left out is the fact that Canada Post locked out the workers. He fails to mention that the union offered to go back to work and back to the bargaining table if the corporation agreed to operate under the expired collective agreement, and the corporation refused. That would have allowed the mail to be delivered.

I cannot think of a more reasonable position for the union to have taken than that, but it was rejected by the employer. Of course it is no surprise it would be rejected by the employer, because there is no incentive for the employer to bargain in good faith with the union, since it knows the government has already said it will order workers back to work and give them lower wages than management has already put on the table. Where is the incentive for the employer to get back to the table?

I want to conclude by saying that a disturbing pattern is emerging in my time in Parliament. When I was elected in 2008, the first thing this government did was attack the public sector by attacking pay equity and rolling back negotiated wage settlements with the public sector. It also, by the way, reneged on its promise to pay RCMP officers the promised wage increases it claimed it would during the campaign.

When the Conservatives were re-elected in 2011, what was the first thing they did? They brought in draconian back-to-work legislation and attacked CUPW.

It is very important that we stand up against this attack on workers' rights in Canada.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Madam Speaker, even though I am two hours late, I want to wish everyone a happy Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day.

We are faced with a bizarre situation. Under the current government, Canada is the only country in the world where the money saved to stave off poverty in retirement is considered a nuisance.

That impression is so deeply ingrained among government MPs that the following question seems relevant: once the most powerful, the oldest, the most active, the most modern and the most democratic of Canadian unions has lost its right to a defined benefit pension plan, what will happen to the rest of the Canadian population?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question. That is one of the reasons the NDP official opposition is taking this issue so seriously. There is a principle that what happens to one can happen to all. New Democrats believe it is very important on the official opposition side of the House that protecting the rights of workers in every situation is important.

Rights cannot be carved up. Rights either apply to all Canadians or they apply to nobody. It is very important that we recognize that and stand up for these rights, because if this government can unfairly attack the collective bargaining rights of CUPW workers, as has been pointed out by many of my colleagues, they can do it to anybody.

I want to conclude by providing a couple of facts, lest anybody thinks that Canada Post cannot afford this agreement. The Canada Post group recorded its 15th consecutive year of profitability, and its income before taxes in the last year we have figures for, 2009, was $319 million, an increase of $253 million from the previous year. At the bargaining table, of course unions have to be sensitive to the economic situation of the employer, but in this case the employer is on a sound financial footing.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Madam Speaker, the debate has been going on for a while and many points have been made and made again. We have talked a great deal in broad generalities, and in order to move this debate ahead we should try to at least throw out some specifics, whether it is suggestions, ideas, or amendments. I know New Democrats have not wanted to go where amendments have gone before, but we should at least be talking about some generalities.

At the outset of the minister's presentation she gave a bit of a chronology, saying the contract lapsed January 31 and she appointed a mediator and she went through the sequence of events through to the tabling of the legislation.

That being said, when does one bring in the arbitrator, and when does one not bring in the arbitrator? We know the NDP has unionized staff, and we know they are currently without a contract. We also know that their last contract was served by arbitration. When is the perfect time to bring in an arbitrator?

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order, please.

I ask for a little bit of order, please, in the House. This is a difficult issue, but I hope the debate can continue respectfully.

The hon. member for Vancouver—Kingsway.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, the real question is when are the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party going to actually respect their workers that they employ on the Hill here and voluntarily recognize the union to bargain for them to improve their conditions?