Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon to all the members of the committee.
My name is Mark Hancock, and I'm the national president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
CUPE represents more than 740,000 frontline public service workers across the country. Over 30,000 CUPE members work in federally regulated industries, such as airlines, communications, public transportation, ports, cash transit and security, as well as in indigenous councils and services.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill C-58 and the urgent need for anti-scab legislation in Canada.
I want to sincerely thank the NDP and the Liberals for including this commitment in the supply and confidence agreement, and for supporting anti-scab legislation clearly and publicly.
I also want to thank the Bloc Québécois for its support.
I also want to thank all MPs of all political parties for the unanimous vote in favour of Bill C-58 at second reading.
Why is collective bargaining so important that it is a charter-protected right in this country and in many countries around the world? It's because it is the only tool that workers have to correct a fundamental power imbalance between them and their employers. It is this inequity that Bill C-58 aims to address because collective bargaining without a real right to strike is deeply flawed.
This bill will also correct a disproportionate advantage that employers currently have: the ability to lock out their unionized employees and replace them with non-union workers without restriction. This is a practice that allows for a collective dismissal during bargaining.
Right now, as we speak, two groups of CUPE members working under the federal jurisdiction are victims of this vicious tactic. The committee has already heard about them. They are the Quebec port workers, SCFP 2614, and the Videotron employees in Gatineau, SCFP 2815. Some of them are here today.
Longshore workers in Quebec have been locked out for 18 months. Our members are asking for a basic work-life balance because workers cannot ignore their family responsibilities to work extraordinary hours of overtime due to systemic understaffing. Meanwhile, untrained workers are coming in every day to work as scabs, putting the safety of operations and staff at risk.
Employees of Videotron working in Gatineau were locked out in October 2023. They are simply asking to keep their jobs in Canada. Videotron is circumventing their collective agreement protections by locking them out and contracting out their work overseas, where workers are mistreated with impunity and paid a fraction of what Videotron pays its employees in Canada.
While it is business as usual for these two employers, our members and their families are experiencing the devastating and real impacts of this fundamental power imbalance.
Bill C-58 is a step in the right direction to bring fairness to labour relations at the federal level by getting rid of scabs, but the bill has loopholes. We urge you all to consider our recommendations to make this legislation work more effectively.
First, proposed subsection 94(4) should be a prohibition on performing any struck work or locked-out work. Exceptions should be limited to preventing imminent danger to the health and safety of the public or to the environment, or the threat of destruction to the workplace.
Second, the enforcement mechanism should include workplace investigations, as in Quebec. Investigations already exist in the Canada Labour Code for health and safety and labour standards, so it would be easy to replicate.
Third, the prohibition on using scabs should come into force immediately when the bill is adopted. There is no reason to delay the implementation of proposed subsection 94(4). The CIRB already has the authority to issue orders for unfair labour practices, and there is no need for further regulations there.
Finally, I have a few words on essential services. We heard business representatives talk about expanding the definition of essential services to include different types of economic disruptions, but that's what strikes are about: disruption.
As I said before, because it seeks to address a fundamental inequality, the right to strike is a charter-protected right. That means any limit to striking activity must comply with charter guarantees. If essential services are guaranteed to include economic disruption, this restriction on the right to strike will be unconstitutional.
You know that our members will not remain silent when our fundamental rights are attacked. Just ask Premier Ford.