Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to speak to the motions before us today. I am going to concentrate on two of the motions. Primarily I am going to talk about democracy and the democratic rights of labour union members and workers to choose their agents in order to basically have a say in what happens to them.
I think it might be illustrative for all the eager Liberals on the other side, those who really want to hear examples and facts, to tell them a bit of my own personal experience since I worked for many years in what would be called a compulsory union shop. That is rather remarkable since I am a professional mathematician. I taught at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. At the time when I started there was no union there. It was run by the provincial government directly as an arm of the department of advanced education. We had no union.
I remember that those were some of the finest years we had because we were able on very short notice to make adjustments to salaries and benefits as needed in order to attract qualified staff.
It happened a few years later that the provincial government on being pushed by certain numbers of people there allowed the formation of a union, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees. Because we were run directly as an arm of the federal government, we were then forced into membership in the union. Preceding that all we had was a loose association. It was called the CSA, the civil service association.
The civil service association before the union was able to bring matters of concern to the employer. We did that at the local level at the institute and most of our grievances were dealt with fairly and quickly.
Along came the government giving its approval to the union and we then had a forced union membership. Instantly a number of things happened. Instead of having one boss, we now had two bosses. Instead of having quick and easy ways of adjusting our working conditions, salary and so on, it became a cumbersome legal thing.
In saying all this, I am not in any denigrating the unions or the union movement. As has been stated by a number of other people, there has been a number of very positive contributions made by the unions over the past number of years in this country and in other countries in improving the lot of workers. But there are some situations where a union shop just does not fit.
In our professional capacity there as instructors it did not fit. The reason I say this is we were not permitted to exercise our democratic rights. As a matter of fact, and this will come perhaps as a surprise to some members, I was actually for a time the president of the local of the union there. I got totally fed up with the union guys at headquarters telling us what we had to ask for and totally ignoring what our membership at our place of work wanted. It was very frustrating.
In expressing my frustrations against the union my colleagues said that's our man, and lo and behold they elected me and I was the president of the local because I was ready to stand up for democracy. I suppose I was a reformer before Reform was even invented. I thought the wishes of the people represented took precedence over the organization to which they belonged.
We were forced into the union and here I was a member of that union. I tried my best to represent our wishes. I was trying as much as possible to co-operate with our employer, with the administration of the place.
When occasion required it, on behalf of our members I made forceful representations in order to correct things that were not right. Most of my frustration was with the union. It would not listen. We had very inequitable treatment. We were taxed by the union about three times as much as the average for that union. We were about 10% of the total membership so it really did not have to worry about us.
We asked formally if we could get out of the union. We asked our employer, the department of advanced education, if we could form a professional association and represent ourselves. It was not even considered. It would not take it forward. It was so afraid that the union would then call a strike against the whole province and as a result it would tie everything up. The employer was totally intimated by the union.
When I say on one hand the unions have a positive role to play, one of those roles is not intimidation. One of those roles is not to hold everybody else hostage in order for them to promote their agenda. It must be done democratically.
Over a period of time there were some very interesting developments. In 1982 the province of Alberta decided to cut loose the technical institutes and the colleges from direct control and direct administration of the department. Instead they had new boards appointed. I will not get into a discussion of political patronage appointments at this stage. That is not on topic and I know I would be called on it on relevance. So I will not talk about that.
We were called on to choose our bargaining agent. There were at each of these institutes and colleges a number of instructors and teachers. We were called instructors where I worked. There were 750 instructors at the place where I worked and there were about 750 instructors at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. There were a number of different locations with a large number of people. It is quite practical to have a collective agreement in situations like that. No problem there.
They asked if we should have the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees continue to represent us or should we go on our own. Having the board of governors come in gave us that window of opportunity to choose. Under the new legislation there was a choice for a new institution, a new organization for the members to choose.
We had a good debate. It was a great debate. I love a good substantive debate. I love one where all the members opposite are listening without heckling. I do not hear a voice of protest from any of them as I speak.
It really was a great window of opportunity and we discussed it. In the industrial area of our institute there was a greater favour to maintain a union. They thought it would have greater clout. The argument on the other side was that if we had our own association, free from the central office of the union, we could concentrate fully on what we were about at our institute. It was decided that we would have a vote. The vote that decided we would go on our own was as high as it had been on our previous straw votes where we had asked if we wanted to get out of the union.
All I am saying is that we were given the democratic right. There was a vote held. As I recall, 85% of the members of our staff said let us form our own association. I was then further honoured to be asked to be the founding president of the new staff association. I was there to organize it and put it all together. We had a great time representing our people. The key is that the people had the choice.
This bill before us denies the union members, the workers, that actual choice.
It states that if there is some external outfit such as the employment relations board it can say those people have a union whether they want it or not. That is not democratic and is a violation of the very principle of democracy. Therefore I speak very strongly against this bill as it is now stated and very strongly in favour of the Reform motions which will amend it and fix it up.
I see my time is up. Could I have unanimous consent to continue for a few more minutes?