I'm just trying to figure out where I was here.
For years, governments favoured employers and passed legislation restricting unions. The trade union movement now reasoned that friendly governments should come to the aid of unions and restrict management. In other words, it was pay-back time.
The labour movement abandoned free collective bargaining and actively sought government intervention. They were confident that such intervention would remove some of the risks inherent in the free collective bargaining process. When free collective bargaining is the rule, employees have the right to withdraw their services. But when they do so, they run the risk of being unsuccessful. The ultimate risk is the risk of losing one's job. The employers had the right to resist union demands and to carry on their business. But in doing so, they ran the risk of losing. The ultimate risk was being put out of business.
This balance of ultimate risks was a most important feature. It demanded responsibility on both sides. It was the cornerstone and safety valve of the free collective bargaining process.
One of the first accomplishments of the labour movement's drive toward government-regulated bargaining was the so-called First Agreement legislation, passed in Manitoba about 20 years ago under the NDP.
The law stated that after a union was certified and bargaining with the employer was unsuccessful, an agreement could be imposed by the Labour Board. It does violence to the English language to characterize a Labour Board-imposed schedule of terms and conditions of employment as an agreement. But such niceties do not stand in the way of this headlong retreat from free collective bargaining.
Other legislation followed, each aspect of which drove additional nails into the now-sealed coffin of free collective bargaining.
Each new legislative stricture involves the participation of lawyers, bureaucrats, labour boards and ultimately courts. The so-called anti-scab legislation is the most outrageous demand yet, and lowers the coffin into the grave.
Now remember, a former NDP cabinet minister wrote this.
Under the legislation, an employer is prohibited from hiring an employee to take the place of a union member who is on strike. The employer cannot even hire a union member who refuses to join the strike and opts to work instead. When the strike is over, the employer must reinstate every employee who chose to go on strike. Aside from the fact that such legislation completely undermines the free collective bargaining process, it will, in the end, lead to results never contemplated in its conception.
I think that's the point here. We're talking about results that are not contemplated in an ad hoc piece of legislation like this, without proper comprehensive review.
He goes on to say:
There will be disputes as to whether a strike was lawful. It will have to be legally determined as to when a strike was over.