Good afternoon. Thank you for having us. I will get straight to the point. I have seven minutes to present and seven points to make.
Collective labour relations are based on three pillars that must constantly be kept in mind. First, freedom of association and union recognition; second, the duty to bargain in good faith; and third, the option of resorting to job action in order to increase the chances of reaching a collective agreement.
It is precisely in order to guarantee the third pillar that the bill we are discussing today has to be passed. The right to strike is a fundamental democratic right; you have to be able to exercise it under circumstances that do not minimize its impact.
Second, I will talk about the supposed balance. The balance to be sought in legislation is a balance between the parties, in order to increase the chances of reaching an agreement. However, the current legislation, which claims to balance the economic rights of both parties, actually only throws the power dynamics off balance. The right to continue operating during a labour dispute makes striking ineffective. Introducing a third party into this type of two party system does not work; it upsets the balance. In short, it leads to drawn out disputes, violence and the loss of workers' rights.
There is a third thing to consider: the current provisions are meaningless. The CSN does not agree with the minister that the enforcement provisions of the current code adequately protect workers and their unions. For one thing, that legitimizes a practice that we consider illegitimate from the start. It also puts an unfair burden on the union, which has to establish that the employer intended to undermine the union's representational capacity, as if the consequences alone of that practice were not enough. So there are two conditions to be met, the pursuit of legitimate bargaining objectives, gibberish, a huge empty shell, a gratuitous pretext for legalizing scabs.
So it is hardly surprising, against that backdrop, that out of a few hundred disputes since 1999, only 19 complaints were lodged and 14 of them were withdrawn before they got to a hearing. That says a lot about the supposed enforcement mechanism.
The fourth point has to do with the fact that eight provinces do not want replacement workers legislation. That is a great excuse for embracing the status quo. The federal code applies to around 10% of the Canadian labour force. Those workers are governed by provisions that apply only to them and that are at times better, at times equivalent and at times worse than the various provincial laws. When the federal government uses the fact that eight provinces do not have replacement worker legislation to justify its own inaction, is not that tantamount to refusing to exercise its own jurisdiction over workers covered by the Labour Code? That reasoning is poor, irresponsible and inappropriate.
The fifth point has to do with the impact of replacement worker provisions on the lengths of disputes. The minister clearly tabled an incomplete and partial selection of statistics on strike days,in an attempt to show that these provisions have little impact. We have a radically different interpretation of that data. Federally, the number of strike days is generally higher than in Quebec, per 1,000 workers, and has been for the past 40 years, with an upward trend since the year 2000. In Quebec and Ontario, there has been a noticeable decrease in the number of days lost over the years. However, the trend is far more striking in Quebec than in Ontario; Quebec had 10 times fewer days lost in 2000 than in 1976-1977, and over the same period, Ontario, which does not have replacement worker provisions, has reduced its own results by five times, or two times less than Quebec. Between 1996 and 2005, the average length of disputes for workers under federal jurisdiction in Quebec was 19.7 days, versus 15.5 for those under provincial jurisdiction. That is not insignificant, when you find that gap over such a long time.
So, in our opinion, in Quebec as in British Columbia, the statistics overwhelmingly show that replacement worker legislation makes labour relations more civilized and reduces the number and length of disputes. I would add that in Quebec, a number of management representatives have frequently spoken publicly about the appropriateness of this type of legislation.
This brings me to my sixth point. When it comes to economic growth, I think this has to be given a bit more serious consideration. The level of investment depends on a number of factors; labour relations, workforce skill level, infrastructure, taxation, etc. Isolating these factors requires a lot of work, which neither the Montreal Economic Institute nor the Fraser Institute has done.
Union density in the private sector in Quebec is at 28%, and even less in SMEs. Given that, how do you explain the loss of 30,000 jobs in SMEs and the overall lack of investment in the private sector? It's total exaggeration, economic nonsense.
On a more serious note, I would refer you to the study done by UQAM professor Nicolas Marceau, who takes quite a different view of the situation.
And by way of conclusion, I would point out that the Parliament of Canada has an incredible opportunity here to pass a bill containing the exact same provisions that have been successfully tried and tested for 30 years in Quebec.
I would encourage members to consider this: a company is a legal entity; it doesn't suffer. Workers suffer, on a daily basis, from the effects of a labour dispute or a collective agreement signed in desperation. They have needs and dependents with needs of their own. It would be improper to put these two realities on an equal footing for the purposes of debating this bill. So, if social justice is of concern to you, here's what I think: this is an excellent opportunity to promote it.