Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
First, I want to apologize for only having our presentation in English. Our translator couldn't get it done last night. I apologize to the members. We can get it translated quickly and will send it to the clerk.
I've also left for you a copy of a DVD that is 90 seconds long. It will show that, on June 24, 2002, one of our members was run down by a driver of a vehicle employed by London Protection International security services and Navistar, a truck plant in Chatham, Ontario. You will see something that's very violent and very painful. You will see a truck slam into a group of workers who were doing nothing but assembling peacefully.
When we talk about violence, this is not something that is fear mongering. This is reality. Our member has had twenty operations. He's been off work ever since. He's a young man with several children, and he's lucky to be alive. These are the kinds of tensions that mount when replacement workers are brought in, and also when firms are hired to bring in replacement workers.
I'd ask you to go on the website of the London Protection International security services. To all of you, as members of Parliament, as responsible legislators, not one of you would dare hire one of the people they depict on their website. They are large. They are designed to intimidate. They are military types. It's the kind of service that can only debase good labour relations in Ontario.
We thank the committee for taking this bill to this level after second reading, and we are appreciative of the Bloc's private member's bill, the total support of the NDP, the large support from the Liberals, and support from 21 Conservative MPs. This is very important to move to another stage of development in orderly labour relations in Canada. If we can eliminate impediments to free collective bargaining, then we will have done a good job and you will have done a good job. And if we can spare one injury such as the one you will see on this DVD—and I hope all of the members will take 90 seconds to view it—then you will have done a very good job, for that reason, in and of itself.
We represent 265,000 workers across Canada in the Canadian Auto Workers. Our president, Buzz Hargrove, would have been here, but he just returned from China yesterday and quite frankly couldn't make it to this important event. We have 30,000 members whom we represent in the federal sector, specifically in the interprovincial transportation sector. We represent 11,000 workers in the rail industry; 13,000 in the airline sector; 4,000 in the in-road transportation industries; and approximately 2,000 in marine transportation industries. All of those sectors, you can imagine, couldn't be run by replacement workers. Anybody who thinks they could be is just deceiving themselves.
The CAW applauds the introduction of this legislation and hopes all the parties will continue to support it and see it through to its conclusion, to final reading and royal assent.
Our view is that the evidence is clear. When replacement workers and strike breakers are used during strikes and lockouts, labour disputes last longer. I'm not going to get into an argument about the numbers, because numbers can be used to make any point you want. But they don't take into account the number of contracts that come due in any particular year and the fact that the large employers and large numbers can often skew numbers for people who are trying to ascertain whether a particular piece of legislation is having the desired impact.
We know there are real injuries when there are conflicts and when people are viewed as having their job taken away from them because they exercise their legal right to strike. I've asked the legislators I've met if they support, in a democratic society, free collective bargaining and the right to strike. Everyone says yes. So I then say they have to logically follow that to a conclusion and not support a law that denies a person justice because they opted to partake of the right to strike in a democratic society. So you opt to strike, but because of that, you now have another law that comes in and removes possibly your right to be re-employed in that workplace. That is absolutely nonsensical, and it doesn't flow in the generous and caring society that we in Canada have.
Contrary to the rhetoric used by opponents of the proposed legislation, the ban on replacement workers will not inflate labour costs or drive away investment. In fact, labour disputes are not shortened but prolonged by the practice of using replacement workers, which often generates a lingering animosity and can infect a workplace for years afterward with a poisoned environment. It wouldn't be very pleasant for you to work in Parliament in a poisoned atmosphere--well, sometimes there is a poisoned atmosphere. It would be better if there weren't such a poisoned atmosphere, as we try to focus on what's critically important to Canadians. You would have a better work environment as well. Maybe that's not a good example.
The examples we have in Canada--13 years in B.C., 29-plus years in Quebec, with all different parties in power--say a lot about that legislation remaining intact and doing what it was designed to do.
Finally, a ban on the use of replacement workers is necessary to redress the imbalance that we now see in the bargaining power between labour and management. It is essential to have fair and effective collective bargaining by having an equal table. Allowing employers to resort to the use of replacement workers or even the threat of it during a labour dispute gives the employer an unfair advantage at the bargaining table and renders meaningless the workers' right to strike. The right to strike is fundamental to the freedom of association, as is the right to organize and bargain collectively, and both are enshrined in the Canada Labour Code. It ensures balance and fairness in collective bargaining. A ban on the use of replacement workers during the course of a labour dispute will further the objectives of the code and remove obstacles to meaningful bargaining to permit the parties to reach a prompt and fair negotiated settlement.
The preamble of the code refers specifically to Canada's international obligations pursuant to convention number 87 of the International Labour Organization concerning the freedom of association and protection of the right to organize. Pursuant to this convention, workers have the right to organize, the right to bargain collectively, and the right to withhold their services in the event that collective bargaining negotiations fail. The use of replacement workers during labour disputes undermines those fundamental labour rights. Workers who do not strike or who are locked out are discouraged from exercising their rights and participating in the strike when they are faced with the risk of losing their jobs. To workers, to break a strike is contrary to the spirit of the code and Canada's international obligations.
The argument that the use of replacement workers can be justified on the basis of democratic principles in the context of collective bargaining was rejected by one famous Canadian as disingenuous:
Justifying scabs in the name of the freedom of individual workers is the act of ignorance, and for the most part of hypocrisy...just as it is impossible for a group of stockholders to set themselves up as “lockout breakers” by the partial restoration of operations in the factory where the company is having a lockout, so it should be impossible for a group of workers to assure the operation of a factory as long as a strike is in progress there.
Pierre Elliot Trudeau, The Asbestos Strike,1956.
In the interests of time, Mr. Chair, I'm going to skip to a conclusion.
I suggest that if we can remove elements of confrontation between management and labour, we'll all be happier for it. Keep in mind, we settle 97% of all agreements without strikes or lockouts. In some jurisdictions it's 98%. We are dealing with a very minute number of disputes, not that they are not important, not that they don't get the publicity in the paper. It is really important to the fundamental democratic principles of workers in a democratic society that we shouldn't be alarmed by Chicken Littles, such as what the Minister of Labour did on the last vote when this private member's bill came. All of a sudden, to hear what he said today is quite unbelievable, I must admit, and I think it's quite alarming to suggest that somehow there is economic chaos in our midst. That is a little bit of a Chicken Little, and it should be put in the proper context.
In conclusion, we thank the committee. We believe strongly that this will provide the kind of orderly, balanced labour relations that are required to make more amicable settlements within the federal jurisdiction, and we salute you for taking this challenge forward. Passing this bill is the right thing to do, and we are pleased the proposed legislation has won the support of all parties in the House today.
Thank you.