Mr. Speaker, ding dong, the union is calling. That is the way this should lead off. Bill C-19 allows for union organizers to get the lists of off site workers.
What does that mean for all those people who right now are operating in a contract capacity or outside the certification process? Their names, their addresses and their contact information will be given to union organizers. Those organizers will have access to other information available on the corporations' computers.
You ask, Mr. Speaker, by whose consent this is done. It is done by the consent of union organizers but certainly not by the consent of the employees and not by the consent of those employers.
This is all at the wish of the Canadian Industrial Relations Board. I would like to delve right into this if I might. The bill would change the name of the Canada Labour Relations Board and create this new beast, the new Canada Industrial Relations Board.
What are they really doing? What is the whole purpose behind it? They will give it a little more power and they will give it a little less accountability. As a result it creates a whole lot more abuse when the two of them are coupled. That is exactly what they are doing with a whole lot of other tribunals and boards.
They try to remove the minister from accountability and remove the ability of members in the House, including Liberal members, to make accountable these quasi-judicial boards or these governmental bodies. They make them less accountable. The members have less ability to rein in these powers. Yet the boards have more and more power put on their plates.
I would like to speak to some of the things the new Canada Industrial Relations Board will be able to do. Point number one is that it will be able to certify a union without the majority of employees actually taking a ballot, without their majority support.
When we think about that, it is a fundamental violation of democracy, the idea that a majority of employees does not have to vote in favour of certifying a union for it to be certified at that site.
I will refer directly to some of the important decisions that have happened regarding this issue and that a card based system is notoriously unreliable. The Canada Labour Relations Board has said so when confronted with two unions both claiming majority support in the bargaining unit. People can refer to Communications Workers of Canada v. Communications Union Canada, 1979.
The workers' cards are no more reliable when the contest is between union representation and no union representation. This is a great example. Two unions tried to claim majority support by cards. Each union said that by this card based system it was the appropriate union to certify the site. That is a clear demonstration of why the card based system does not work. Two unions can abuse the same card process and each can say that it has majority support. That is one fundamental flaw with the card based system.
The other fundamental flaw is that you can actually have a vast discrepancy in what is considered proper majority support. I refer to a recent Ontario Labour Relations Board decision with regard to the United Steelworkers of America as the bargaining agent for the workers in Wal-Mart Canada. The workers voted 151 to 43 against union representation. That is 151 were against union certification and 43 were in favour of certifying the United Steelworkers of America. Yet the Ontario Labour Relations Board went ahead and decided the steelworkers would represent that site.
Not only is there competition between unions that would violate this system, where multiple unions claim they have enough cards to sign people up, but there are also unions winning representation in places where there is no legitimate vote and where a majority of people have decided against having the steelworkers as their representatives. How is that democratic? It fails so many fundamental tests of what this law should pass. However, the Liberals are going to endorse this legislation which would give these powers to this governmental organization, the proposed Canadian industrial relations board.
It does not make any sense to give these types of powers. You can quote me on this one and I hope others do. No government and no quasi-judicial body asks for powers that it will not use or does not want to use. This case is just like the Canada Wheat Board case. It is asking for powers that it will use and abuse. I have given two perfect examples of how those powers have been abused by similar quasi-judicial bodies and it will be done by the Canada industrial relations board, mark my words.
Those Liberal MPs across the way will have to justify to their constituents, businesses and employees that they have passed this bill. They will go to their MP offices and say “Look what has happened to me. Look what the new monster that you voted in has done to my business or to my job”. Those MPs will have to justify it.
Not only do they not require majority consent and not only are they tossing out the whole idea of a secret ballot, which is fundamental to the concept of democracy, the union organizers will be given information on off site workers against their will. Those workers will have no consent whatsoever in this process. There is no provision in this bill that people must be asked if this should be done, no provision for obtaining their consent. It will be done against their wishes.
I have heard people in the House today refer to notice of a strike or a lockout. They have referred to the grain handling situation. They have said that a 72 hour notice of a lockout or a strike will be able to protect grain shipments in Canada. If only every union obeyed the law and never had a wildcat strike. Unfortunately we have seen too many times that a union has violated the laws and has held a wildcat strike without a proper vote from the workers for the go ahead.
We have seen unions go against their own workers' wishes and order them out on the picket lines. This happens because we do not have sufficient penalties to ensure those people do not violate the law. There is no sequestering of assets. There is no provision for putting union bosses in jail if they order people on to the picket lines without an appropriate vote.
Once again the Liberal government has failed. It has failed because this is not an appropriate guarantee. It has told farmers in western Canada that this legislation has a provision to ensure their grain will not be held up in the ports. It is a misrepresentation. It is pulling the wool over the eyes of Canadian farmers.
Indeed the government cannot guarantee it because this law has no teeth and without teeth it will not be able to enforce it. Wildcat strikes can and will occur under this legislation. There is little or no provision for ensuring they do not. The grain can still be held up.
Replacement workers are effectively banned by Bill C-19. I am sure that Liberal and NDP members will say this is not the case because it will only happen when representational capacity is affected. If we look at other quasi-judicial bodies which have made rulings on these things, indeed they have determined that representational capacity means any situation.
Once again when a quasi-judicial body asks for a power, it will use it and it will abuse it. Therefore we can bet our bottom dollar that replacement workers in this country will not be able to cross picket lines. Operations will not be able to continue. Employers will not be able to use employees who are not unionized to continue their activities during a lockout or a strike. Shame on the Liberal government.
There are some other things in the bill which really get my goat. One is the fact that the definitions are so vague. This will give significant powers to the Canada industrial relations board.
Bureaucrats have designed the legislation and Liberals have not accurately read what it will mean. They have not looked at the fine print. They do not recognize that the bureaucrats have made the legislation vague in certain areas so as to give more powers to the quasi-judicial body which it can then abuse.
I would like to touch on another area which has been mentioned today, that being the whole idea of representing a majority of constituents or union members. Forty-six per cent of all union households in Alberta want voluntary unionism. They believe they should have a choice as to whether they are forced to join a union or pay dues. Sixty-two per cent of all Albertans are in favour of that concept.
New Democrats speak about making sure they represent the majority of their constituents, but it is they who make up the party which only represents big labour. It is over a billion dollar industry in this country and the NDP only represents the top echelon of the labour movement. It no longer represents the workers.
This bill does not provide for secret ballots for union elections. It has no provision for democratic choice. I could go on and on. The bill is flawed. It has to be reviewed. It should not pass as it stands.