Thank you for the opportunity to present before the committee.
The CLC brings together national and international unions, provincial and territorial federations of labour, 137 labour councils in every community. Our members, of course, work in virtually all sectors of the Canadian economy, in all occupations, in all parts of Canada. So it's quite an extensive membership when you think of the broadness of the CLC.
Bill C-257 addresses a critical subject in federal labour law, one that has yet to be resolved despite years of discussion, research, and bitter experience. The issue concerns replacement workers and whether federal sector employers can use them during strikes or lockouts. In our view, the evidence shows replacement workers are bad for working families, bad for business, and bad for Canada. Replacement workers undermine core labour rights, encourage a few destructive employers—and I say few—and damage the productivity of Canada's economy.
The CLC holds strongly to the view that strikes and lockouts that are accompanied by the employer's use of replacement workers give rise to several negative and unnecessary strains on the labour-management relationship.