Excuse me. The member is suggesting my dad and those people were dishonest? I find that to be a repugnant comment from the member of the New Democratic Party.
It was quite the opposite. They were honest, dedicated and faithful to the people they worked for, the men and women who elected them.
I want to tell him something else. I believe it was in 1958. I was a fairly young boy and it was Christmas time. We had a large family. My mom and dad had 10 kids. They were both in labour quite often. There was a strike in district 6 which involved the cities of Hamilton and Sault Ste. Marie. It was a big strike. It was a big issue.
My dad was the national director. I remember my family having some pretty good Christmases, but this one Christmas was particularly lean. My mother explained to me that my father was on strike pay and that it would be a difficult Christmas. Is that not interesting?
The member opposite says he would like to see some solutions that would avoid strikes. How about if the head of the union goes on strike pay when he or she leads their membership out on strike? That might make them change their minds. This is just an alternative idea that I throw out to the member.
The problem with final offer selection is that it works only in financial matters. There is a lot more involved in labour negotiations and labour relations than simply the $1.50 raise the member talked about. There are health and safety issues, conditions in the workplace and the term of the contract. There can be a lot of different issues put forward that simply will not fit in that neat little box that the Reform Party seems to want to wrap up labour relations into.
I heard a member asking if we would expect a police officer to stand by and watch a crime being committed because they were on strike. Everybody knows that the police and firefighters cannot strike. That is a given. That is not what we are talking about.
What we are talking about in this bill is creating a level playing field where labour and management can sit down and negotiate. What are they negotiating? The workers, through their leadership, are negotiating with the only tool they have, their services. Their services are their product. They can go to management and tell it what their services are, that they are underpaid, conditions are bad, they are concerned about its health and safety track record and they want management to improve things.
Some people will say unions were important back in the 1930s and 1940s but they are not important today. I strongly disagree with that. I did not follow in my dad's footsteps in the labour movement. I went into business. I too have concerns when there are irresponsible strikes, which we have all seen. However, I also have concerns when there are companies that refuse to bargain in good faith.
What we are putting forward are a number of amendments that will bring some form of calm to the labour relations movement in this country and bring clarity to the ability to certify a union. What can possibly be wrong with saying to a new organizing union that it must get somewhere between 35% and 50% of the people to join its union and sign a card before a vote is ordered? If the union gets over 50%, which is not just a matter of submitting cards but a clear indication that men and women who have signed these cards want to form a union, then the board can certify a majority of the people who would be in the union or could call for a vote.
In some jurisdictions such as Ontario we have seen where some unions have said that there was going to be a vote no matter what. Even if 90% of the cards are signed, the union does not care because it is an automatic vote and it is a right of democracy. I understand the rationale behind that, but there are also a lot of problems in the federal area when that occurs simply because many of the jurisdictions we are talking about are right across the country.
When we talk about people who work in the airline industry they can come from all across the country. When they land in Montreal are we going to run up and get them to sign a card or cast a ballot as they leave the airplane and come down the ramp? It is very difficult. There must be more structure just because of the 700,000 men and women who work in the private sector regulated under the federal act. That is what this does.
I would also like to talk briefly about what I think is totally a red herring, the issue of giving out names and addresses to people who work off site.
We live in a different economy today. We see what is happening in the union movement. It is now trying to organize McDonald's, taxi companies and other service industries. In the case of the Canadian Auto Workers, only 25% of the membership of the CAW work in the automobile industry.
It is all over the map. Why? The union is a business. It is a thing called dues. When it gets those dues, it has more money. It has more money, it has more members. It has more members, it has more influence in this place and all legislatures. What is wrong with that? That is democracy. It is growing its business. Members would say it ties things up.
Am I out of time already?