Thank you, Chair.
Through you, thank you to the clerk and to the members of the committee for the chance to join you today.
I'm Marty Warren. I'm the national director for the United Steelworkers Union. The USW is the largest private sector union in North America, with 225,000 members in nearly every economic sector across Canada, including federally regulated members in rail, telecommunications, airport security and ports.
Steelworkers have been part of the anti-scab fight for decades. Our experience shows that bans on replacement workers improve labour relations, reduce the number and lengths of conflicts, and lead to better working and living standards for workers.
Strikes and lockouts are hard enough on the community, but the use of scabs pits workers against workers, neighbours against neighbours and, sometimes, even family members against family members. Further, it leads to decades of poor labour relations moving forward.
Anti-scab legislation already exists in B.C. and Quebec. Soon, Manitoba will be added to the list. We were happy when the NDP included the anti-scab legislation in the supply and confidence agreement, and when the Liberals tabled that legislation.
That said, it still falls short. It currently has loopholes, and employers will hire scabs and not live up to the intent of the legislation. Further, the delay of its coming into force is not reasonable. It's way too long.
As you can see from our submission, we have some clear recommendations to solve the problems.
First, anyone doing the job of a worker who is on strike or locked out must be included in the ban, no matter when they were hired. As it stands, as long as they were hired or contracted on or before the notice to bargain was served, employers could still use scabs who are from outside of the bargaining unit, from other locations, managerial or confidential employees, or contractors or employees from another employer.
Of course, we accept exceptions for work needed to prevent an imminent threat to life, health and safety, destruction of property or environmental damage.
This brings me to the second recommendation, which is that an agreement about who would perform the conservation work needs to be made between both the employer and the union. The bill currently leaves it to the employer alone. If both sides can't agree, it should go to the Industrial Relations Board. Unions should have the right of first refusal to perform such work.
Third, any temporary employee hired to do conservation work cannot automatically become an employee in the bargaining unit. The current language would give preferential reinstatement to scabs over existing employees after the strike or lockout. That just doesn’t make sense.
Fourth, it needs to be clear that dependent contractors are not allowed to perform bargaining committee work. The bill specifically excludes dependent contractors from the ban, even though the Labour Code defines “employee” to include dependent contractors. The exception needs to be removed from proposed paragraph 94(4)(b).
Fifth, the waiting period for the IRB needs to be cut from 90 days to 45 days. At very least, the IRB needs to issue an interim or bottom-line decision within 45 days. Employers already take advantage of delays at the IRB for months and even years. Again, that has to be fixed, not allowed to get worse.
Finally, and very importantly, the delay before the implementation of this bill, once passed, needs to be scrapped. We have heard from public sector servants with experience that there's no need for this delay. If the government is serious about the law, it needs to come into force before the next election. It's far easier for the next government, whatever stripe it may be, to scrap a law that people haven't yet been able to use.
Workers can't afford to wait. In just the last year, we had members at our tugboat operations in Quebec and our telecom workers in B.C. stuck on the line when scabs came through.
In both of these cases, if they had been provincially regulated, they would have had the protection of anti-scab legislation, but since they were not, they did not.
For the good of all federally regulated workers, and to set an example to the provinces who still fall short, please accept and pass these amendments, and let Bill C-58 pass for implementation.
Thank you.