Mr. Speaker, I reluctantly rise today, not because I do not want to represent the workers, but because I believe this repressive bill should never have been tabled. As I said earlier in the debate, with this move the government has shifted the race to the bottom into high gear.
I want to take a moment to thank my wife, and I will try not to be emotional. Yesterday was our 11th wedding anniversary and I was unable to be with her, but she understands the importance of my taking part in this debate and said, “Dear, I will see you in a week or so”.
I am so proud of our Quebec caucus for making the significant sacrifice of giving up their important holiday and their chance to meet and enjoy Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day with their constituents. I am sure that Quebeckers who chose the NDP in the election are also proud of their choice. They see each member from that caucus in action in the House defending workers in the province of Quebec and in Canada. I want to thank them.
I spent 28 years in the labour movement and this is very emotional for me. In 1988, I spent over 17 weeks on strike. I decided to script myself, because if I do not, who knows what I might say?
With Bill C-6 the government has broken a tradition in this place, a tradition of balance. With this bill the government has chosen to thumb its nose at the rights of the workers of Canada Post. These are workers who simply want to achieve a fair and balanced collective agreement.
I suggest that the remainder of Canada's workforce serving Canadians under the jurisdiction of the federal government should be very concerned. Those same workers who ensure that Canadians receive the services they need and deserve are now facing the most ideologically-driven government in the country's history.
There is a labour relations chill emanating from the government as result of Bill C-6 that will be felt across this great country. It will be felt most in the homes and lives of good hard-working Canadians. These Canadians thought they could count on their federal government, a Conservative government, for a fair and even-handed approach in the times of significant labour disputes. Sadly, things have changed with Bill C-6 and today Canadian workers will begin to realize how wrong they have been about the Conservative government.
Throughout this debate I found out just how terribly uninformed the Conservative members of Parliament are in regarding the union's role, its legal role, in collective bargaining. I want to take a few moments to offer a Coles Notes version. Since workers as well as employers are represented, it might be worth the Conservatives' while to understand this.
Prior to setting a national strategy for negotiations, all locals post bargaining proposal sheets on their union bulletin boards. These forms are used to seek union membership proposals for changes to the collective agreement. Members will note that I said “proposals”, not “demands”.
The employees work under and within the terms of their collective agreement and where they find shortcomings they make proposals to their local union officers. An elected bargaining rep from the rank and file of the union compiles these proposals, as do all other locals across the bargaining unit. The union then holds a local meeting where all members can support or reject their co-workers' proposals.
The proposals that are passed at these meetings are forwarded to the central bargaining caucus. The local union bargaining representatives, who are elected by their local, attend this caucus where all the proposals from the local meetings are presented, prioritized, and voted on by the full caucus.
After the bargaining caucus has sent their packaged proposals to be presented to the employer, they elect a bargaining team in whom they place their trust. The bargaining team then meets with the company and they exchange proposals.
Again, it is “proposals” and not “demands” or “offers”. Of course, the media, the spin doctors, call these proposals “workers demands”, while what the other side brings to the table is described as a “company offer”. Do members see the difference?
Now that I have set out the process for union member participation in the bargaining process, I would like to remind members that one thing that comes up repeatedly is the question of how the union gets a strike mandate.
Unions hold secret ballot votes for their members, most in advance of presenting proposals to the company. Some do so after a final offer. Either way, it is a secret ballot vote.
The wording on the ballot usually says that a member who votes “yes” authorizes the bargaining committee to meet with the company and to take action up to and including a strike if they fail to reach an agreement. The point is that this process is open and democratic from beginning to end. More important, it clearly indicates the trust that the workers put in their bargaining committee. For workers, the strike is the last vote, the last tool in the box.
I would suggest in this debate that the uninformed government members have shown more of what they do not know about collective bargaining than what they do know. This stands out when we hear the old clichés about old union bosses. Well, I guess I am an old union boss.
I proudly served my membership in Local 42 of the communication workers, and later CEP, for 28 years. I am also proud to say I was the longest-serving president of the Hamilton and District Labour Council, where we had 105 different local unions. In all of that time, the workers trusted me and I never lost a single motion, because we were always honest with one another. They never called me “boss”; they called me “brother”. I trusted my members' judgment when they took positions at our meetings, and they trusted me. As they said, they were the only boss in the room.
This has been a lengthy way to begin my intervention on Bill C-6 and on the damage it does to all labour relations with this government. This bill is first and foremost about the future of the workers at Canada Post, the posties, the good, hard-working people that Canadians have for generations entrusted to ensure the delivery of our letters, cards, and packages.
As will often be heard from the NDP in this place, these good, loyal workers have followed the rules. In good faith, they have proposed changes to their collective agreement and submitted them to their employer. Throughout the bargaining process their representatives have worked hard to resolve these matters.
In the bargaining process, there are few options for employees to ensure that their proposals are given proper consideration by the employer. If workers decide that the company is not taking their bargaining committee seriously, they can choose to work to rule, for instance.
In this case, in a most responsible manner, instead of an all-out strike, CUPW decided to use rotating strikes to draw the attention of the public and the government to their situation. They were trying not to overly inconvenience the public. Since they were not shutting down the whole system, they proved that point. During the impasse, the union agreed to deliver essential mail such as pension cheques so as not to inconvenience Canadians.
Let us be clear: it was Canada Post, the employer, who locked out the posties. Even when the posties had agreed to stop the rotating strikes and work under the old contract, Canada Post and this government said no.
To be clear, one has to ask what is happening. Why is the Conservative government so quick to trample on the rights of Canadian workers? At least in my opinion, the ideology of the government has overtaken them. Why else would they turn upside down the historical practices of this House?
