Thank you.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I'm Patty Ducharme. I'm the national executive vice-president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, a union representing 163,000 workers from coast to coast to coast here in Canada. I, like the two previous speakers, was also elected to represent the members I work with.
The PSAC fully supports a comprehensive brief presented by the CLC, of which we are an affiliated union.
Let me say at the outset that no union wants a strike, and no union member wants a strike. That's the reality, a reality steeped in an understanding that a strike—any strike—affects personal health and relationships, reduces family income, and in Canada all too often results in picket-line incidents that leave working people injured and worse. It is a reality steeped in an understanding that strikes cost the Canadian economy, inconvenience the consuming public, and undermine our competitive position.
That's the reality, a reality that cries out for action from parliamentarians and legislatures at the federal, provincial, and territorial levels. You as parliamentarians can't stop the frustration, lack of respect, and economic injustice that give rise to strike action, but you can level the playing field and take away the incentive for employers to prolong strike action and the violence it sometimes engenders.
Of the 160,000 workers the PSAC represents, fewer than 10,000 are certified under the Canada Labour Code. These PSAC members work in a host of locations, from airports to Canada Post to NavCanada and others, including the Vieux-Port de Montréal and the Ekati Diamond Mine owned by BHP Billiton, to name a few. We have endured a number of strikes at many of these work locations; that's just a reality for a union, but it's also true that some of these strikes were far more bitter than they really needed to be.
I am going to skip up to Ekati.
I want to talk about the strike earlier this year that our members who work at the Ekati Diamond Mine lived through. This is a recent example of how the lack of anti-scab legislation resulted in a long and bitter strike that deeply divided workers, communities, and families, and that continues to do so today. It is also an example of how the lack of anti-scab legislation allows multinational corporations to do business in Canada without respect for Canadian workers and their families.
On April 7, 2006, 400 PSAC members at the Ekati Diamond Mine went on strike against their employer, BHP, in order to secure a first collective agreement. PSAC members work as truck drivers, welders, process plant workers, crane operators, electricians, and other occupations in the mine, which is located close to the Arctic Circle. Working in the mine can be dangerous, and its northern location subjects workers to extreme winter working conditions. It is accessible only by plane; workers are flown in to the mine site for two-week shifts.
Negotiations for the first collective agreement dragged on for 24 months, with BHP dragging its heels throughout the negotiations before the union finally, as a last resort, took strike action. BHP had an advantage should a contract not be negotiated, and they knew it. The main issues were wages, job security, and vacation leave.
The strike lasted almost 12 weeks. It resulted in picket-line injuries and deeply bitter divisions among the workers, their families, and the community. While the strike did not result in a great tragedy such as the Giant Mine disaster earlier referred to, to this day it continues to divide families and the community. The lack of anti-scab legislation prolonged the Ekati strike and entrenched in the workplace and in the community a deep sense of betrayal and animosity that will no doubt take years to heal.
Given the high levels of unemployment across the north, the opening of Ekati was a welcome opportunity. It attracted a workforce primarily from Edmonton, from Yellowknife, and from three smaller communities in the Northwest Territories: Fort Simpson, Hay River, and Rae-Edzo.
Aboriginal leaders and elders also welcomed the opening of Ekati, which was on land covered under Treaties 8 and 11. Impact benefit agreements, or IBAs, were signed with BHP; although confidential, IBAs essentially secure support for the mine operations by committing to employ aboriginal workers and by providing monetary benefits to the aboriginal communities.
BHP was recognized this year as a top 100 company in Canada. This Australian-based conglomerate is the largest mining company in the world. It saw profits of $7.5 billion last year. It's well known that BHP was instrumental in a successful effort to change Australian labour legislation, weakening collective labour rights.
Their approach to staffing when the mine first opened was to negotiate individual and arbitrary agreements with each worker without a standard classification or approach ensuring equitable compensation. We knew that negotiating a first collective agreement with a notoriously anti-union multinational corporation would prove challenging, but anti-scab legislation would have brought some balance to that situation.
As part of its public relations strategy, BHP publicly maintained that it would not use replacement workers. We know that not to be the case. During the strike BHP management phoned striking workers at home, asking them to cross the picket line and return to work. They also offered to pay any fines the union might impose on those union members who agreed to cross the picket line and work. Unfortunately, some of them did.
Contractors at the mine site also performed work of the bargaining unit during the strike. Clearly, BHP could easily afford to reach a fair first collective agreement with its workers, yet it was determined not to do so from the onset.
While Bill C-257 does not address all of our issues, all members of Parliament should understand that this strike could definitely have been shorter had there been proactive anti-scab legislation, legislation that would have helped this community see this situation resolved sooner and more quickly so that the divide that currently exists in that northern community would not be so deep.
Thank you again for allowing me to make this presentation.