Evidence of meeting #15 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was workers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
President Yussuff, thank you for your testimony. I have a thousand questions for you.
From the outset, I must say I agree with you on some things. For example, investing in quality flagship public services is necessary for economic recovery. That is part of the solution. We have the same opinion on that, and that is also often the case with regard to certain struggles we have to wage.
My question will focus more specifically on pension funds. I don't know if you have the full picture, but what's happening is quite disturbing. As you mentioned, the economic recovery is not happening evenly across the board. Some companies are already moving to creditor protection, and there may be more bankruptcies than we thought.
With regard to pension funds, until the government decides to amend the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act and the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, do you think it could at least do something to protect workers?
President, Canadian Labour Congress
Yes, of course. I really want to thank you for the question. This is an area that worries workers a lot, especially with the reality that some companies might be insolvent during this COVID-19 pandemic.
Minister Morneau has made some incredible improvements to the solvency issues that our pension plans are going to be faced with—trying to get recognition of that reality. Equally, I highlighted today in our brief that it's quite likely some pension plans might suffer insolvency during this period.
In that regard, what we're saying is quite possible. The federal government could come up with a scheme to take over a plan should it become orphaned, in consultation with the workers and the employer, to decide how to manage that plan during the insolvency period to bring it back to life.
There are also other worries, of course. If a company should go bankrupt, the remaining assets of that company are not prioritized to go to workers. We have been calling for some time now that the workers should be first in line for the bankrupt assets to fund their pension. These were promises made by the employer. These are diverted wages. More importantly, employers should not be released from their responsibility during a bankruptcy period.
We also believe, at the same time, that it's quite important to do as Ontario has done. They have an insurance scheme. When a company goes bankrupt and the pension plan is completely orphaned, the insurance scheme is there to give the workers a degree of protection. Most recently we saw this with the workers from Sears. That company went bankrupt. The workers in Ontario fared better than workers outside of Ontario because of the pension insurance scheme that the Ontario government had in place.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Is the pension protection mechanism in place in Ontario a formal program, or is it a trust, as many unions and retirees have, as we know, tried to have established and recognized? Is the Ontario mechanism different from this type of trust or not? That is not clear.
President, Canadian Labour Congress
If your pension plan is registered in Ontario, then you automatically are part of the insurance scheme. You have to pay a premium because your pension plan is registered in Ontario. Should your pension plan become insolvent and it's not fully funded, the insurance scheme is there to alleviate some—not all, but some—of the challenges the workers might face in regard to their pension.
With any pension plan registered in Ontario, it's automatic. They have to register no matter if their plan is a subsidiary of any other registration across the country at the provincial level. It's critical for plans that are registered in Ontario. They automatically have to be part of the insurance scheme.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you.
I have another question on the whole area of health care, since there is a lot of talk about what happened in our long-term care homes. You didn't talk about it in your brief, but there's a question that is bothering me.
We know the money is in Ottawa, which transfers it to the provinces. However, everything related to health, social services, societal program choices, employee compensation and education standards falls under provincial jurisdiction. In order to take action on health, the provinces need the Canada Health Transfer to be increased. Do you agree with this and, if you do, by how much should it be increased?
President, Canadian Labour Congress
The transfer payments for health care have been going on and have been the source of tension between the provinces and territories and the federal government for quite some time.
The reality here, I think, is that the provinces also have some responsibility. A lot of the underfunding has come from the provinces and territories choosing to shortchange long-term care and to not adequately fund it to the degree that could have prevented some of the deaths and more importantly, of course, the shortages in the wages the workers are paid in this sector.
I think it's critical to recognize that provinces have chosen—and I'm not here to simply excuse them—to cut taxes and reduce the amount of money they have to fund these services. At the end of the day, what we are seeing here is stuff we have been saying in the labour movement for decades. The reality is that you have staff who are inadequately paid, who have to work at three or four jobs to make ends meet, and they're working in long-term care. Many of them make just about minimum wage.
Had it not been for the federal government commitment to give a special boost to pay for these workers.... Most provinces are saying that once that funding is gone, they are not going to continue to maintain that special payment they are making to workers, even though we know these workers are highly under-represented. There is no question the federal government can increase the health transfers to the provinces, but what guarantee do we have that the provinces are going to spend it on long-term care? What commitment do we have from the provinces that they will enforce the rules to make sure the services these seniors receive are adequate?
More important, we have advocated and said that if we take the profit out of it, that means every penny you give to a long-term care facility would be invested in the long-term care facility and would not simply be siphoned off to pay shareholders. I think this is the fundamental issue if you know that most of the businesses that are operating long-term care are not doing so out of the kindness of their hearts but are doing so because they want to make money out of the service.
We think if you took the profit motivation out of our health care system, you could invest all that money to ensure the system was better off for the people who were receiving the care and make sure the workers could be paid and the staffing would be adequate to ensure this did not happen again.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
I'm sorry, but you have already had eight minutes. It was a long answer.
Mr. Duvall, welcome to the committee. You have six minutes.
NDP
Scott Duvall NDP Hamilton Mountain, ON
Thank you.
I appreciate our guests coming today and making their statements. It really helps.
I have a question for Mr. Yussuff.
You referred to the supplementary unemployment benefit. This is a negotiated item between the employee and the employer that actually is being costed to the employees on their hourly wages. The benefit kicks in when people are laid off and they are eligible for unemployment insurance.
We understand now that many people who were laid off prior to March 14 are eligible to collect this and are on normal EI, but the next batch of workers, who were laid off after March 15, have to go on CERB, which is a lower benefit than their regular EI and they're not eligible now for their supplementary benefit. This has really caused an inequity and has put some financial stresses on working families.
Do you believe that this rule the government has imposed should be stopped and that workers should be allowed to collect their negotiated benefit when they are on CERB?
President, Canadian Labour Congress
I have two answers for you, and I may be correcting myself or somebody will correct me over time.
My understanding is that the department has allowed people who are on CERB to get $1,000 from their supplementary plan. That's what they have allowed workers who are going to work and getting CERB to earn.
My understanding is, at least, that for clarity purposes, those who are getting the wage subsidy can have their supplementary plan top them up from their wage subsidy to their full salary as intended.
That should be the norm, of course. The CERB was brought in, of course, to try to streamline the process to get benefits quickly. The rules only allowed for workers to earn up to $1,000.
We've been urging the government to continue to make improvements so that workers who are paying into their supplementary plan should be able to access that. You're absolutely correct that would have been the norm if they were on employment benefits. Of course that's not fully allowed 100% if they're getting the CERB right now.
They can get up to $1,000, as we understand it, working with the department, and similarly, up to the difference between their wage subsidy and their full salary under the supplemental plan currently.
NDP
Scott Duvall NDP Hamilton Mountain, ON
Thank you. There seems to be some miscommunication there. Some of the unions that I've been talking to about getting to collect up to $1,000 have been told that they cannot collect their SUB up to that $1,000. I will take that up with the minister. I just needed your input on that.
Mr. Yussuff, another good point you brought up was about bankruptcies and protection for workers. Right now a lot of workers, unions, businesses and analysts across the country are raising the alarm over potential bankruptcies due to COVID-19. Our government has said that they made some changes in legislation about a year ago; however, if companies go into bankruptcy, employees can lose thousands of dollars in severance payments and termination payments. They lose their health care benefits, and they take a huge reduction in their pension plans. That can happen.
Do you think the laws under the bankruptcy protection act are adequate to protect the workers, even with the changes the government has recently announced?
President, Canadian Labour Congress
No. I think the changes obviously are positive and are long overdue, but the reality is that if a company were to go bankrupt, with the current rules as they are, the workers' pension plan would not see the remaining assets of that company go to fund the unfunded liability of that pension plan. This is wrong.
Workers are not like investors. We go to work every single day. We make a commitment. We perform our jobs accordingly. When the company goes bankrupt, we should not be left to take the risk simply because the creditors are somehow given superpriority and workers are told to wait in line. We've been advocating on this for decades and saying that the law should change.
Fundamentally, of course, this is an important aspect of reforms that need to happen. We know that some companies will fail during this pandemic, and we're hoping that the pension plan will be better and will be solvent. So far, what we're seeing in the evidence about how pension plans are faring seems reasonable, but at the end of the day, if a pension plan was in trouble before the pandemic, this problem of the pandemic will just make it that much worse.
We think workers should be prioritized. The bankruptcy and insolvency laws in this country do not serve workers to the full extent that they could. Changes need to be made.
NDP
Scott Duvall NDP Hamilton Mountain, ON
Do you believe, Mr. Yussuff, that the government should be working on these changes immediately to protect workers as this may happen going into the future?
President, Canadian Labour Congress
Absolutely so. There is no reason to have workers starting to panic about the fact that their pension plan could be in trouble, that their company could be in even further trouble and whether or not they're going to remain in their employment at the end of the day. It's a lot of stress. As you know, when you spend a lifetime working, you expect at the end of the day to ensure that you're not worrying about whether your pension is going to be there. Workers should not have to be put in this situation currently.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Mr. Yussuff.
Thank you, Mr. Duvall.
We're going to Mr. Albas for five minutes, please.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to both our witnesses for being here today.
Mr. Prins, I'm going to start with you.
In our last meeting, we did have the building trades come in. They talked about a number of things, including community benefit agreements. You've spoken about my home province of British Columbia. Can you elaborate a bit further as to what you believe has worked well under it?
You didn't say that they were a tool that should be cast away, but it's about how and who can participate in them. Can you elaborate a bit on the experience of British Columbia and what that has done?
Executive Director, Christian Labour Association of Canada
Why we say we support community benefit agreements is that, as we heard earlier, there are a lot of good community benefits to pursue in the spending of public money. To use a contractual tool like a community benefit agreement to interfere with the normal dynamic of a competitive marketplace by saying to that market, “Here are the benefits that we want to pursue within this community, and we as the government select only this group to pursue it with”, in our view is just a wrong-headed manipulation of the market.
The things you gain and benefit from a competitive dynamic in a marketplace should be preserved, even as we have identified the benefits that we want to see within that community. Then you use that community benefit agreement to ensure that this list—whatever you want on that list—is achieved by the end of that project.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
In these community benefit agreements, if there is a proviso that we want a certain number of apprentices, that we would like to see involvement of first nation communities or particularly marginalized groups or persons with disabilities, you would be in favour of that as long as the community benefit agreement was open to anyone to bid on. Is that correct?
Executive Director, Christian Labour Association of Canada
Absolutely.
If you look to your province, you'll be familiar with the replacement of the Pattullo Bridge. It's a massive infrastructure project. All of those things you referred to are objectives for the community on that project, which is absolutely great. No one can argue with whether that's a good desire. The problem is that it has been kind of packaged in a restrictive exclusive agreement that prevents a whole bunch of British Columbians.... Actually, the vast majority of construction workers in British Columbia who are not members of the building trades are not welcome to work on that project.
From a public policy perspective, what's equally alarming is the fact that you artificially inflate the cost of these projects by massive amounts of numbers, and all that means is—
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
As someone who is concerned for the taxpayer, you've raised the point that taxpayers will be paying more.
Quite honestly, if these CBAs are not allowing non-unionized members, or unions such as yours to not participate, what does that do to your members? Does that put them in a position where they have to go further away to other jurisdictions that don't have these CBAs, or do they join the unions that have the monopoly?
Executive Director, Christian Labour Association of Canada
Every worker is left to their own choice. Some will join the union; some will look for work elsewhere.
I should note that the agreement in B.C. is the subject of a lawsuit alleging, among other things, that depriving workers of the choice of which union to represent them is a breach of the freedom of association, which is a cornerstone of Canadian labour law. That's playing itself out.
Of course I'm concerned about the choice and opportunity for our members. I'm equally concerned about the value that the taxpayers get for the money they spend. It's not that they're going to spend more overall; it's just that they're going to receive far less infrastructure. Governments will still spend $10 billion; they will just have way fewer pieces of infrastructure to show for it.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Yes, I appreciate that.
The building trades also talked about their support for the development of Canada's potential in terms of pipeline access to be able to export our products to the world. Where is your union on this?