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

[The Chair, NDP, Denise Savoie]

(Clause 15)

I shall therefore read the amendment to Clause 15:

That Bill C-6, in Clause 15, be amended

(a) by replacing line 6 on page 6 with the following:

“1.9%;”

(b) by replacing line 9 on page 6 with the following:

“1.9%;”

(c) by replacing line 12 on page 6 with the following:

“1.9%; and”

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Madam Speaker, I rise today in this House to speak in favour of the proposed amendment. This amendment aims to correct one of the worst elements of this defective bill. If this bill is not corrected, it will impose an employment contract that includes a salary lower than the employer’s final offer. This section of the bill is an attack on the principles of collective bargaining, one of the most fundamental aspects of our rights as entrenched in the Charter. This is a clear signal to all employers in the country that they are no longer obliged to bargain in good faith. Thus, if it is not possible to arrive at a negotiated agreement, do not worry, because this government is going to use a bill to negotiate even lower salaries on behalf of the employer. What the employer is unable to negotiate, Ottawa will impose on you.

This is a dangerous precedent. At this moment, all over Canada, nurses, firefighters and police officers are asking themselves whether they will be next on the list. If they do this to the postal workers, after Canada Post has made millions of dollars in profits, and the managers accept those offers, who is going to be their next target?

Targeting workers is nothing short of contempt on the part of this government. It is not the proper thing to do, and we will oppose every such attempt by the Conservatives. This amendment would restore the salary increases that were proposed in the employer's last offer. It does not reflect what workers want, but what management proposed, nothing more and nothing less. This amendment would eliminate the most unfair and unacceptable provision in this bill, and I urge all hon. members to support it.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Minister of Labour]

Madam Chair, as I indicated, these wages are fair. They have been negotiated already between the federal government and its largest public sector union and, quite frankly, with respect to the constitutionality or fairness of the matter, it has already been well decided that the bill meets the requirements of the charter, as set out by the Supreme Court of Canada.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Madam Chair, there is an awful lot wrong with the bill. In fact, everything from the title, which is An Act to provide for the resumption and continuation of postal services, to the coming into force, the last clause, is wrong.

The title is wrong because this is not an act to provide for the resumption and continuation of postal services. That could be done with a phone call.

The worst clause in the bill, however, is clause 15, which imposes on the postal workers a wage rate less than the employer had put on the table in the course of collective bargaining.

I have not heard members opposite join the chorus for the remarks of my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst, and nobody cares. Nobody cares about workers. Nobody cares about workers' rights.

Let me say who does care. The principle of free collective bargaining is something that divides societies that are free from those societies that are authoritarian and controlled. If we consider authoritarian societies, dictators, societies that do not have free elections, they do not have free trade unions either. Workers do not have the right to bargain collectively.

In Canada the right to bargain collectively is a constitutionally protected right. It is contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is part of the International Labour Organization, the treaty into which this country has entered. It is something that we take very seriously.

There is no greater principle within the right to bargain collectively than the duty to bargain in good faith. In good faith the employer of the postal workers, Canada Post Corporation, put on the table a wage offer that it was prepared to pay to workers from the $281 million worth of profit that Canada Post made last year. To bargain with its employees, it put forth what it thought was a reasonable proposal to increase the wages of the workers, but what have we here? We have a clause in which the government imposes itself inside this good faith bargaining, this foundation of a free society, and says, “No, the government is going to force the workers to take less. We are going to decide what we think you should be paid. Never mind what was put on the table by a process of free collective bargaining”.

The minister just repeated what the Prime Minister said, so I will not blame her as she is just doing what her boss has said. She said this is a wage that was bargained freely by the largest public sector unions. Let us go back to that discussion in 2008 when this wage we are talking about was on the table, as it was called. It was not on the table. What was on the table was legislation proposed by the government to take away the right to strike for all public sector workers. Remember that? It was in the fall of 2008.

Those wage rates were offered for one day and if workers did not accept the wages within one day they would be reduced. Yes, they were accepted. There were not bargained freely and fairly over the course of negotiations. They were accepted with a gun to the head of the public sector workers in this country.

The Minister of Finance knows that members of one group said no. What did they get? That group received less. That is the kind of bargaining that the government entered into with the public sector workers in 2008 that produced the rates that are in this particular clause.

I am not surprised that the previous speaker talked about who is next because that is what everyone is asking. If this is what is going to happen to free collective bargaining in Canada under this regime, who is next? The government has contempt for the process of collective bargaining. It has contempt for the process of this constitutionally protected right that the Canadians are supposed to enjoy.

If members opposite think that nobody cares, they are wrong, and the people of Canada will be telling them that they are wrong.

I ask all hon. members, even those over there who think no one cares, to recognize that people do care and they do want to have these rights and do believe in free collective bargaining. I see the doubtful faces over there and I hear a few remarks that something is wrong with the idea that one can sit down and negotiate a wage, that an employer and employees can actually sit down at the bargaining table and negotiate wages and put an offer on the table and have it respected. That is something Canadians have come to enjoy and expect.

The government has no respect for that and it wants to insert its own version of a wage rate into a collective agreement regardless of what the employer in this particular case offered through free and fair collective bargaining.

This is a fundamental right that is being taken away, a fundamental change in the relationship between employers and employees. The question remains of who is next if the government is not prepared to accept the notion of free collective bargaining and takes away from employees what the employer has in fact offered. It demonstrates how much contempt it has for the collective bargaining process and for the rights of workers.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Madam Chair, the minister will have several opportunities to respond to this question. I will ask the question, though I know she will not answer me right away because it is not in the definition of the debate, but we will move our own amendment and she will have another opportunity to respond.

This debate has been very long and difficult, but I still do not think she gave a clear answer why she does not want the salaries freely negotiated. It is the main reason that some in this House, but certainly not me, question her good faith and commitment to workers. I will never go there because I do not like to impugn the motives of other colleagues, but if she were able to give a clear and convincing answer, it would help everyone to know where we are.

I heard the arguments that she put forward and I want to review each and every one of them.

First, she told us that we had to give postal employees the same treatment as other federal public servants. However, there is no reason to do this, since Canada Post has the right to negotiate. Therefore, if Canada Post has the right to negotiate, there is no guarantee that its employees will end up getting the same kind of salaries as other federal public servants. And no one said anything about depriving Canada Post of its right to negotiate. That is why it is a Crown corporation. So, this argument is a very weak one.

I do not know if the minister is still interested in listening to me, but I hope so. This debate has been a long one, but we still have not received any answer.

The second problem is what happened in 1997. The minister referred to the 1997 precedent but, at the same time, she was very critical of the government of the day. She has to make up her mind. She cannot have her cake and eat it too. She must choose. If she does not like what happened in 1997, she should not invoke that precedent. In any case, an argument based on a precedent is always a very weak argument.

She is saying that she wants to avoid uncertainty about wages, but such uncertainty is part of life when one negotiates wages. I do not think the Canadian society denies this kind of uncertainty. We have much worse uncertainties in life than the results of wage bargaining, where the gap between an employer and the employee may become narrower through negotiation.

Up to now, her reasoning is very weak, but before the end of this debate and the final vote, she has an opportunity to come forward with something that I hope will be much more convincing, because Canadians deserve an answer and workers deserve an answer and this House deserves an answer.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Madam Chair, I will just reiterate what I have been indicating with respect to the purpose of having the wages embedded in this act. Quite frankly, it is because it is a fair wage that has been negotiated. If members had been at the table and had understood the differences between these two parties in the past eight months, and had even understood the wide gap in differences in the number of disputes, and the quantum within the disputes, they would have understood why the government felt that it was very necessary to give certainty and include wage increases in the act.

The choice of those wage increases was based on what had been negotiated freely and fairly at the table with PSAC, the largest union we negotiate with. The increases are more than appropriate.

Finally, as well as being the caretakers of the Canadian interest with respect to crown corporations, the government has to make sure that the crown corporation itself, Canada Post, is held whole and has the ability to be economically viable in the future, in both the short and the long term. These are things that matter to Canadians, and that is why the government has acted in the best interests of all Canadians and the economy in general.

[The Chair, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Shall the amendment on clause 15 carry?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Chair, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Can we apply the results of the previous vote to this one?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, NDP, Denise Savoie]

(Amendment negatived)

Shall clause 15 carry?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Chair, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Can we apply the result of the previous vote to clause 15?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I declare clause 15 carried.

(Clause 15 agreed to)

[See list under Division No. 27 ]

(Yeas, 158; Nays, 112)