Evidence of meeting #88 for International Trade in the 44th 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.
Director, Centre for Trade and Trade Infrastructure, Canada West Foundation
Correct. You may solve problems in the short term, but in the longer term, you have not dealt with the systemic issues. You are at a comparative disadvantage against jurisdictions that compete with us and that have done this. Again, you're getting suboptimal outcomes.
The evidence on this is clear. International best practice, cross-country comparisons and the decade of research that we and others have done has shown this very clearly.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much, Mr. Dade.
We will move on to Madame Larouche for six minutes, please.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Filling in for my colleague Mr. Savard-Tremblay, I will turn to Mr. Barry Eidlin for this round of questions.
Mr. Eidlin, during the strike, a number of economic players, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, one of whose representatives is present, asked the government to introduce special legislation forcing strikers back to work. That did not happen, but we know that Canada has a sorry record when it comes to the forced return of workers through special legislation.
Can you tell us about the impact of back-to-work special legislation on workers' rights?
Prof. Barry Eidlin
Thank you very much for your question.
First, as I said in my remarks, Canada's use of special legislation to force people back to work is quite exceptional. It is not normal, internationally, to see this kind of special legislation used as frequently as it is in Canada. This is troubling because it does not promote a healthy labour relations system. When you force people back to work, you are not solving the problem that led to the strike. You are simply postponing the problem.
What we've learned, looking at the history of the development of labour relations in Canada, is that the government's response in the 1930s and 1940s was to restrict the right to strike. That didn't work. It was only by trying to reform these laws on a number of occasions that the authorities realized that they should instead establish a process to resolve the problems that led to the strike, and not simply eliminate the possibility of going on strike.
As our labour relations system has developed, we have seen, during strike waves, that the government's response was to strengthen workers' rights, not to eliminate them. The government has learned that only by strengthening these rights can it create a labour relations system that can work well.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you, Mr. Eidlin.
At the last meeting, we also heard from a representative of the longshoreman union in the port of Montreal, who stated that one of the sources of the difficulties that led to strikes, particularly in Vancouver and Montreal, was the lack of real decision-makers at the bargaining table. He was talking about marine carriers.
Do you share that observation? What are your comments on that?
Prof. Barry Eidlin
Yes, absolutely. I would say that this is a consequence of the habit we have in this country of trying to solve these problems through special legislation.
In such a context, employers are not encouraged to resolve problems at the bargaining table, but rather to wait for an intervention or special legislation.
That's why there are no real decision-makers at the table. The people who take their place do not make real decisions because they think those decisions will be made later, after special legislation is imposed or after discussions are held. The existence of special legislation prevents problems from being resolved at the bargaining table.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you.
An anti-scab bill was introduced in the House very recently, in early November. The Bloc Québécois and our NDP colleagues have been asking for this for a long time. I would first like to hear your comments on this bill.
Do you think it's necessary? If so, why?
Prof. Barry Eidlin
Yes, it is absolutely necessary, for the same reason that special legislation must be avoided. Employers need to be incentivized to resolve issues at the bargaining table. If special legislation or strikebreakers are used, it prevents workers from trying to resolve problems at the bargaining table. It undermines the power relationship at the bargaining table.
If we want to have a healthy labour relations system and if we want to respect the right to negotiate and the right to strike, we must avoid the use of strikebreakers and special legislation.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much.
We'll move on to Ms. Zarrillo for six minutes, please.
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you so much, Madam Chair.
Mr. Eidlin, I really appreciated your testimony at the beginning when you talked about how these are not singular events, and how it is important to understand how we got here.
I actually visited some of the workers during the strike in my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam, and Anmore and Belcarra. They were talking about this ability to directly negotiate with the employer. The BCMEA was the intermediary.
When the chamber of commerce talks about all the tools in their tool box, how is the employer using tools such as BCMEA, and how does it either enhance or undermine the process with workers in negotiating?
Prof. Barry Eidlin
For starters, I want to say that I think that having employer associations is a good thing. You want to have coordinated systems of bargaining because you want to have coordinated standards across the board. It's not a good system to have each employer trying to cut its own deal with the union.
The problem is not the existence of the BCMEA per se; the problem is who's at the table and who has the actual power to make decisions.
If you have an employer association that actually has real decision-making power and is familiar with the facts on the ground and has the power to enter into negotiations with the goal of reaching an agreement, then that's a healthy thing.
The problem in the case of the BCMEA is, as we heard previously from Mr. Ashton and others, that they're not sending people with decision-making power to the table. That, as I said earlier, is because the incentive structure is such that they don't have an incentive to reach an agreement at the bargaining table, so they just need people who serve as placeholders essentially. That undermines the overall collective bargaining process.
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
I think this was also what my Bloc colleague was interested in, that is, whether decision-makers are coming to the table in these negotiations.
The goal of this study is to understand the economic impact of the Vancouver port strike. It seems to me that that also involves how it affects families on the ground. If I think about my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam, there were many workers from my riding who were impacted, who were fighting against the rising cost of rents, homes and food.
I wonder if you could just share your thoughts, or even recommendations to this committee, on how it affects workers when negotiation is limited and there is no ability for them to have fair collective bargaining.
Prof. Barry Eidlin
In terms of how it affects collective bargaining, when we set these precedents of, okay, we support collective bargaining except when it doesn't work out the way we want it to, it really undermines workers' leverage.
The whole purpose of collective bargaining is to level the playing field. The Canadian labour relations system starts from the recognition that there's a structural power imbalance between employers and workers, and that you need a system of collective bargaining to level the playing field.
What things like return-to-work legislation, like strikebreakers, do is essentially put the thumb on the scale of the employer, and that undermines the overall system.
Like I said earlier, when I was replying to your Bloc colleague, sweeping the problem under the rug doesn't make the problem go away. The problems at the port, and the problems that we've seen in other strikes across the country this year, are problems that are affecting a wide swath of Canadians, with wages not keeping up with the cost of living, with housing costs, with automation and how those problems are going to affect people's jobs.
We need a system of collective bargaining where these issues can be brought out into the open and dealt with in a public forum in a way that can actually address workers' concerns, because just trying to make them go away doesn't actually resolve the problem and it just kicks the can down the road.
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you for that.
For my last question, I am thinking about workers and the fact that there is a resurgence right now of workers coming forward saying that they haven't been compensated fairly. I think about women in the care economy, nurses, frontline workers, those in emergency response and those who haven't been adequately compensated.
When we talk about having a study around the economy, how do we get a fair voice for workers in studies like this to understand that this also impacts families and people on the ground here in Canada?
Prof. Barry Eidlin
I think your point here is crucial that when we talk about the economy, we can't just talk about numbers on a spreadsheet.
When we talk about what a prosperous society looks like, it has to be a society where prosperity is shared across the entire population. We can be developing an economy that's going gangbusters and the GDP is through the roof, but if that's not actually changing the lives and improving the lives of workers, that's not a healthy economy. I think we need to understand that the broader vision of the economy is what we need to be striving towards, not just what the GDP is looking like.
Liberal
Conservative
Richard Martel Conservative Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I thank the witnesses who are here.
Mr. Guy, some of my colleagues and some witnesses have said that ports are not essential. But I think that ports and railways are the backbone of the economy.
Strikes can lead to business closures. I won't go so far as to say that it can even lead to suicidal ideation, but a business going bankrupt can cause a lot of problems. That's significant.
What do you think of the statement that ports are not essential?
Vice-President and Deputy Leader, Government Relations, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
I think the word “essential” is always a tricky one as there's a legal meaning to it, especially when we're talking about an essential federal service. I would say, as a trading nation that relies on the movement of goods to and from Canada, yes, our ports are critical to being able to grow our economy.
When we're talking about essential federal services, I think it's a little bit of a trickier conversation that we need to have. I think what we really need to do, again, is make sure that the Minister of Labour has the tools that he needs to be able to solve these things, before a strike or a lockout.
Conservative
Richard Martel Conservative Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC
I would like to hear you talk about scabs. This is a subject that we sometimes hear about, especially with the anti-scab bill.
In your opinion, what is the effect of scabs?
Vice-President and Deputy Leader, Government Relations, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
That's a very critical question to be talking about, especially in this context.
I'll make a counter-argument to the comment that there is a push of the thumb on the scale towards one side or another. I would say this is doing the exact same thing, and pushing it towards the one side.
We've seen successive governments work to maintain a carefully constructed balance between the employers and employees. Really, the federal government's own discussion paper on prohibiting replacement workers concluded that when provinces prohibit replacement workers it leads to more frequent strikes and lockouts.
I will also say the replacement worker conversation is awfully misunderstood, I think. We're not talking about somebody like myself going and running a crane at a port, we're talking about people who are often managers at organizations, working to keep the lights on. For example, if there's a rail strike in the country, that could actually impact commuter services in Canada's largest cities. It means that propane might not be able to get to hospitals or homes to heat. It means that grain feed might not get to cattle, so it's a massive piece that I think is bad policy, and I think it's playing politics as opposed to good governance or policies.
Conservative
Richard Martel Conservative Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC
Thank you. That's interesting.
Mr. Dade, I'm looking at a report on port infrastructure. Japan, which was way behind in 2008-2009, has come a long way since then. Canada has done the opposite.
What has Japan done better than Canada for its ports? What has happened to cause Canada's infrastructure to deteriorate to this extent?
Conservative
December 12th, 2023 / 12:25 p.m.
Director, Centre for Trade and Trade Infrastructure, Canada West Foundation
I'm sorry, I thought you were asking other witnesses.
Conservative