I would like to thank you for giving us an opportunity to speak to you about the anti-strikebreaker legislation.
I would like to introduce my colleague, Jacques Dénommé, the Vice-President of the Communications Division at CUPE in Quebec. Since 1974, Mr. Dénommé has been working at Vidéotron, which bought out Cablevision in the 1980s. He is the union representative and the Vice-President of the Communications Division since the end of the 1980s. So he has been involved in the lives of Vidéotron workers and people employed in the communications division as a member and as a shop steward.
My name is Mario Gervais and I am the General Vice-President of the Canadian Union of Public Employers in Quebec. CUPE has 500,000 members, 100,000 of whom are in Quebec. CUPE represents municipal workers and employee in the health, energy, communications, education and ground transportation sectors. Approximately 10,000 members in Quebec work under the federal code in the areas of communications, value shipment service, marine transportation, and so on.
Our objective is to make Members of Parliament aware about the importance of anti-strikebreaker legislation for workers, and for the company, for workers in all sectors. It is also important to emphasize how such a piece of legislation improves labour relations for all concerned.
I have lived with anti-strikebreaker legislation as an employee and as union representative at Hydro-Québec. For his part, Jacques experienced the situation as an employee and as the union representative at Vidéotron. I will turn the floor over to him. He will be able to speak about this in much greater detail.