Thank you very much.
I thought I got all their time to respond to them, since I'm the only one.
It probably comes as no surprise to anybody here that the view of a picket line from the lunchroom is a little different from the view from the boardroom. People have different interests on this question at times, and you're balancing out those interests, no question about that.
As a 17-year-old I attended my first picket line. A group of immigrant women were on strike. They were using what we traditionally call “replacement workers” to try to keep the factory running. That day I witnessed two people get run over by a bus. For a kid who didn't have much experience with violence, it was quite an eye-opener as to how labour relations take place--in Ontario in that case--and the kind of violence that takes place on those lines. That had a lasting impression on me in terms of what makes good labour relations. Violence, and the violence that often occurs around replacement workers, and the battle that goes on in communities where we don't have that protection, is a step backwards for labour relations, not a step forward.
This federation represents half a million workers in British Columbia. It comes as no surprise to you that we support this legislation. We believe it brings balance to the Canada Labour Code. We believe it makes collective bargaining and gives it the rights it should have. It doesn't allow a party to go find another party to introduce into the dispute to try to take it in a different direction.
The presenters have pointed out that in 1993 we introduced anti-replacement-worker legislation in British Columbia. At the time it was introduced, John Bagent, who was a member of the panel representing labour and a well-known arbitrator for the rest of his life in the labour movement, said this, and I think it's important to put it in context:
In our visit to Quebec both management and union officials advised us that their worker replacement legislation has worked well and reduced the incidences of picket line violence. In fact, the prohibition was strengthened in 1987 after initial “fears that (the law) would hamstring employers and scare away investment proved unfounded” (Globe and Mail, September 7, 1992). The underlying assumption in the Quebec experience is worth emphasizing at the outset. In a mature collective bargaining relationship the parties recognize that the use of replacement workers does not solve collective bargaining issues; it simply exacerbates them.
In British Columbia, after that was introduced the use of replacement workers dropped to just about zero. The sky did not fall, the economy did not plummet, and employers did not flee, packing their bags for a brighter site somewhere else because of that legislation. In fact, our economy has gone forward and has grown fairly dramatically in the last five years. The existing government would claim that it's the best economy in Canada.
The existing government is worth commenting on. The NDP did bring in this legislation, and it was reviewed by the Liberal government--a pro-business government, at least judging from their donations. So a very strong anti-labour government to our side.... We've had some very big things, including almost general strikes in British Columbia with this government. But they did make a decision in 2001. They announced that they were not going to repeal this legislation, despite an appeal from many of the colleagues at the table today. They said it was about balance at the time, and that balance was not going to be upset by the new government. In fact, it was not a detriment to the economy of British Columbia. In their first term of office they broke a number of promises, but they didn't break that one.
Then we got to 2005 and there was another election--yet another opportunity for the government to change their mind. Of course, the business community argued to change their mind, and at that time they rejected that.
I think it's important for me to read into the record what the labour minister said at that time, because it speaks to many of the arguments being made here today. This labour minister, by the way, was the owner of a small, non-unionized business in British Columbia. It was a well-established grocery business on Vancouver Island--and he was the labour minister.
In responding to a question about the business council's demand to repeal replacement workers, this is what Minister Bruce said:
Why upset what is historically the quietest labour relations in 50 years? Replacement workers won’t attract investors to this area. Investors want to know that there’s labour peace, not war.
I think that captures a lot the same view of the world. It's labour peace we're looking at. Our government would argue that investment has flown to British Columbia dramatically, that we haven't had a downturn. They'd argue that many other factors are much more relevant than this particular one.
I would argue that labour relations have done very well in British Columbia under this. But that is not a government of the left or the centre-left; that's a government of the right, composed mostly of small-business people saying that replacement workers actually don't scare away investment, and that at the same time labour peace is what brings investment. That's what this bill is about--labour peace.
There are a couple of questions about philosophy and arguments on the points of what it means for essential services, and for the ports. In my recollection of British Columbia of about 30 years, I do not remember a time when replacement workers were used in port disputes. I've never seen them being brought into those disputes.
There are provisions. We have a code so that essential services aren't left undone. There are lots of ways to deal with this issue. Actually, I think that if you're relying on strikebreakers to provide essential services, that's actually a backwards step. In fact, it's much better to sit down with the parties and figure out what essential services are required for the parties and to make a decision to do it that way, because I think it's a false and foolish argument that we should have the right to use strikebreakers to provide essential services. I don't think it works.
I would point out, in my last minute, that the Telus dispute was the most recent dispute in which replacement workers were used massively in our province. It dragged on and on, and certainly the balance of power was far in favour of a multinational company that could bring in strikebreakers and export work. The end result was that we lost jobs, and labour relations were set back miles at that company. I have no doubt it would have been a shorter strike--lockout in this particular case--if the company could not have brought in replacement workers and could have, as they always did in the past, operated the company, at least on a minimal level, using their management.
I urge you to have the courage to pass this bill and to go forward with labour relations, not step backwards.