Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to enter the debate on the opposition day motion on changes to the Canada Labour Code.
It was interesting to listen to the previous speaker. She spoke with a great deal of passion about the strikes and so forth that have happened in her riding. It was interesting to hear her say that when members get here they no longer seem to represent the interests of the people in their riding. At the same time she talked about her agenda of sovereignty. If I recall the last polls and the last provincial election in the province of Quebec, the people of Quebec said they do not want to talk about sovereignty. I guess she is an example of that sort of thing.
There is no question that organized labour has made great gains for the working people of this country. My riding has a plethora of auto workers. General Motors is a big manufacturer in Oshawa and Durham. Many of these workers have told me about the hard times they have had in order to gain the great benefits they currently enjoy. With that consistency they are very happy and very proud of the automobiles they manufacture in Oshawa, of which 80% are exported to the United States. They make a fine product and are very proud of their jobs. I thought I would mention them today to say that I understand some of the labour problems because I have seen some of the strikes that have happened.
A strike in and of itself is a conflict. It does not surprise me that the Bloc would bring forward this motion today. Sadly, looking at some of the labour statistics in that province, Quebec has had one of the highest percentages of work stoppages in Canada.
We are trying to compete in a global environment. That means we need a productive labour force. We have to be able to consistently deliver products to our customers, but that does not mean it is at the expense of labour or at the expense of their benefits or protection they have received and other things that are very important.
However, this mode of gaining benefits or recognition of problems that occur on the work site is probably the worst solution. A strike to me is a definition of failure in labour negotiations. I do not think either employers or employees ultimately want work stoppages. We have to find a better way. There have been a number of other models that seem to have worked more effectively. A lot of us will recall some of the Japanese models and others.
I talked about General Motors being organized. At the same time it has a concern that some Japanese labour plants which are operating effectively and efficiently in Canada are not part of organized labour, yet their wage rates and benefit packages are equally as high. This is not to denigrate the union movement and all the wonderful things it has gained, but the question is whether there are more effective ways to resolve disputes.
It goes back to some of our basic teachings in economics. I remember when I was learning economics people were talking about the alienation of workers from the means of production. That is sort of the basic philosophy of a lot of the conflict that has occurred within labour and its tremendous struggle to gain benefits which it so rightly deserves. That alienation basically meant that since the worker did not own or control the actual means of production, he or she therefore had a natural alienation from the employer and by definition they were in conflict.
That is the old school of labour negotiations. In some ways this whole debate hearkens back to the sixties and seventies where this was a prevalent school of thought. This whole concept of whether we need anti-strikebreaking legislation and so forth seems to me an add on to that.
As I understand it, this motion centres on how much latitude employers should possess to keep their businesses operational in the case of a strike. Clearly, the motion reflects the view of labour unions which contends that replacement workers ought not to be allowed in any case and that business operations should be restricted as much as possible during work stoppage. In other words, we should essentially grind the business to a halt.
From time to time we will talk about essential services. Most people will say that if it is an essential service, possibly they do not have the right to strike, and indeed we removed the right to strike in many sectors of our economy. Disruptions occur even in the private sector, whether it is an automobile plant, a telephone company, or freight trains. I recall coming into the House a number of summers ago to legislate the railway workers back to work. They had entered into a strike that would have brought the whole transportation system of our country to a standstill. I do not like that either. The whole idea of a legislative solution is just one more further nail in the coffin of the organized labour movement because it is saying that the whole negotiation process between the employer and employee has failed. This proposed amendment seems to even go further in ensuring that an employer would have to cease operations.
I understand the importance of a strike. When we come to a strike, it should have some meaningful effect. Clearly, employers should not be going out replacing all of their employees with non-union employees just for the purpose of breaking a strike. However, there must be some kind of a balance between that philosophy and one which simply tries to hold up the employer's business basically to ransom.
I recall dealing with grain shipments out of the port of Vancouver and also out of the port of Montreal, and negotiating grain sale agreements with China. I was surprised that the first thing China said was that it wanted a guaranteed delivery date because historically in agreements with Canada we have not been able to meet our delivery dates simply because we have a plethora of labour problems in our country. It was a seemingly odd thing for a communist country to say, but China did not believe we would deliver in time because it did not believe our workers were capable of doing that. I thought that was a terrible slight on Canada and its ability to earn the respect of carrying on productive business throughout the world.
This motion rejects the view held by employer organizations who believe that businesses have the right to continue operations as best they can during a strike. Once again, I do not mean that they will be in full production. Most of us know that they have the right to reallocate labour within their business units. We do not expect them to be able to completely replace the labour. Indeed, within the Canada Labour Code it restricts the ability to replace workers where the purpose of which is simply to undermine the workers themselves. In other words, to replace worker A with worker B. However, it is clear that if an absolute stoppage occurs that there may well be some areas where an employer needs other people just to maintain the site. I know it is almost impossible for General Motors to stop the production line because to get the line up and physically going again takes weeks sometimes.
That one-sided approach is not in keeping with the way the Canada Labour Code has evolved in recent years. It is not in keeping with the approach our government has encouraged and helped to succeed. Our government has taken the view that labour unions and employers must build an industrial relations system that creates a climate within which both can work. Yes, there will be profound differences, but the goal is to create a framework that enables employers and workers to resolve their workplace issues to the greatest extent possible on their own.
The process in recent years to explore each part of the Canada Labour Code has demonstrated how that commitment has been put into practice in reviewing this key legislation. The government started the process. When I look at the Canada Labour Code and listen to the request for amendments, I see that the Canada Labour Code has been revised as recently as 1999. These issues about replacement labour have been discussed at length with organized labour and with employers, et cetera.
Did they come to some kind of an agreement? I do not think they came to an agreement where either one of them were particularly happy, but the point is that they could both live with this agreement. It seems to me that the motion being put forward by the member for Laurentides today tips the balance the other way, so that in fact there would be a group of people who probably could not live with these amendments.
The government started this process by consulting workers, unions, employers, business organizations, industrial relations and human resources experts, as well as many others. The objective was to identify priorities for the revision of part I of the code. The government also created an independent task force to take a look at part I and return with its own recommendations for action, once again based upon an attempt to reach consensus wherever possible.
While the question of replacement workers was a point of deep division, there was consensus on many other issues. The government moved forward on a common ground that led to legislation that Parliament debated and passed, and has been law since the current labour code came into force in January 1999. So, this is a fairly recent revision to the act.
Did that mean that there was no movement at all on the issue of replacement workers? To hear some of the points that the members from the Bloc are making, one would conclude just that. Yet Parliament did agree with the government on five important restrictions on the use of replacement workers. This is important because as we listen to the debate today it would appear that there are no restrictions on the use of replacement workers, and that just is not the case. Once again, it is trying to find that healthy balance between employers and employees to ensure that the element of strike is still available to employees, but that it is not such a disastrous thing that it totally shuts down and in fact may cause costs that are irreparable, both to employers and employees.
First, an employer cannot bring in new people if it is simply to undermine the union's legitimate bargaining objectives. Doing that would be an unfair labour practice under the code. In other words, we have unfair labour practices under the code that prohibit the actual use of replacement workers, the prime purpose of which is to undermine the bargaining position of the union.
Members can see that these are tempered measures that are already in the legislation. It would be an action that the union could take to the Canada Industrial Relations Board for review and a decision. It is worth noting that there have been 11 such complaints since the amended code came into effect in 1999. In eight of these cases the complaint was eventually withdrawn while three are still before the board awaiting decision.
I want to remind my hon. colleagues that the Canada Industrial Relations Board is an independent third party. It is outside of the labour employer relationship and outside of the Canada Labour Code in a sense. The board has an equal number of members who come from employer and employee groups so that they are represented on the industrial labour relations board by individuals who have an expertise in industrial relations. This is important because this is the way to solve these disputes. They are fairly heavy on work stoppage and they are essentially looking for a solution to the work stoppage. We must have mechanisms in place that bring that about. The board is headed by an independent chairperson.
Second, it is now clear in law that replacement workers are excluded from the status of employees in the bargaining unit. A replacement worker cannot take part in a vote to replace or renew a union or a vote related to collective bargaining. In other words, employers cannot bring in replacement workers, the purpose of which is to deregister a union by saying they are part of the bargaining unit and therefore there will be a vote and therefore the union will be deregistered. This would be another way that it would be unfair to workers and their collective bargaining units.
Third, the code explicitly recognizes that employees in the bargaining unit have a right to return to their jobs at the end of the work stoppage ahead of any replacement worker. It acknowledges the importance of seniority. In other words, even though somebody had to replace somebody for some specific reason, a specific reason which is not deemed to undermine the collective bargaining position, if the work resumed, say a year after the fact, any such persons who were hired would basically be subordinated to the existing people who were on strike.
Fourth, any applications under the code to change or decertify a union during a prolonged work stoppage require the consent of the Canadian Industrial Relations Board. This is a change from the old provisions that enabled an employer to apply to decertify a union after six months of work stoppage. This is another way in which bargaining units have been protected, yet employees who are fired or disciplined during a work stoppage can go to a grievance arbitration. None of these measures interfere with the employers trying to keep the business operational during a strike. However, they do make it more likely that the use of replacement workers will be aimed specifically at continuing those operations and not for the purposes that run counter to the Canada Labour Code.
It would appear in the studies that have been undertaken that this kind of provision actually seeks to limit the terms of strikes. In fact, if we look over the history we see that measures of this nature, as opposed to measures that the member wants to bring in, has actually reduced the number of days that employers are strikebound. It is in the interest of everyone to ensure that the business gets back to work, that employers are happy and that employees are back in their work setting. That is a reasonable balance. It may not be what the labour unions want or what the employer organizations want. That is crucial because of the fact that we have disagreement on both sides, but the important thing is that both parties can work with this or they can live with this.
Despite some of the claims that we hear from the Bloc, it is far too early for anyone to decide that the replacement workers provision in the code is not working. It is far too early to decide that we need to override this commitment to a consensus driven approach to resolving these issues. It is time for Parliament to allow workers and employers to develop the experience necessary so that they can determine how well these provisions work.
Finally, it is worth putting all of this in perspective. Looking at the departmental performance before 2001-02 for human resource development, we find that 93.7% of collective bargaining disputes under the current Canada Labour Code were settled without any work stoppage whatsoever. We are talking about a small dispute area. We find that the labour program enjoys strong and effective federal mediation and conciliation so that it can step into work with employers and unions in many of Canada's collective bargaining disputes within the federal and private sector.
Furthermore, we find an increase in the use of preventive mediation tools to resolve issues before they reach a difficult stage.
While there will always be high profile collective bargaining disputes, workplaces under federal jurisdiction have a positive environment in which to resolve the issues that matter to workers and employers.
For these reasons I am opposed to this motion.