Finance Committee on Nov. 18th, 2013

[Dennis Duggan]

Certainly.

Currently the notice to bargain period is four months. Right now the average period it takes to negotiate a collective agreement is anywhere from 18 months to two years, and sometimes longer. As a consequence, you have in many instances in negotiations, huge periods of retroactivity involved.

The idea in having a longer notice period is so that the parties have sufficient time to negotiate a settlement and reduce the significant numbers of months between the expiration date of the collective agreement and the signing of the new one. That would give currency, which is a benefit for the individual employees as well as the employer and the bargaining agent.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

I also want you to address the issue of written decisions, that to enhance the collective bargaining process in the future, these amendments will require that written reasons be provided for these decisions.

Can you speak to why that's important?

[Dennis Duggan]

Currently there is no requirement that reasons be provided for the decisions of arbitration boards or conciliation...public interest commission reports, rather. As a consequence, what was really meant by the decision is sometimes an issue between the parties.

The real intent here is to have transparency about the rationale. In that sense, hopefully, there would be more clarity and better acceptance of the decisions.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

The parties understand why the decisions are made. The rationale is thereby provided.

[Dennis Duggan]

That's correct.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. I appreciate that.

Thank you very much.

You have the floor.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being here with us today.

I'd like to go back to the definition of “essential services“. I have to admit that this is beyond me. Essentially, the basic definition does provide a certain guideline. However, the public service affects an enormous number of people.

Could you give me some examples of sectors or categories of employees who would be completely excluded from the definition of “essential services“?

[Dennis Duggan]

Excluded, off the top of my head, no. I can tell you that there is one example of a service that is considered essential, and that would be, for example, our correctional service officers.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

We agree on that, but if the government declares that a service is essential, we will have to deal with that. If the government decrees that one of its services is essential, even though it is not covered by the definition, what recourse would those employees, their bargaining unit, their union, have left? Would they have to go before the courts?

[Dennis Duggan]

As I mentioned earlier, the initial process would involve a consultation period with the bargaining agent in question, but beyond that it would be judicial review.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Fine.

I'm going to give the rest of my time to Ms. Nash.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

I don't have any questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I want to thank all of our colleagues.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here, and especially for staying late tonight so that we could finish the first part of the study of this bill. We do appreciate that very much.

I'd also like to thank all the officials of the committee, les interprètes, and all of the logistics officers for staying late. We do sincerely appreciate that as a committee.

Thank you, all.

The meeting is adjourned.