Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, the complexity and whole nature of unions have changed tremendously. The point I will make goes back a long way and I do not want anybody to misunderstand it. It goes right back to the very origins of the trade union movement.
We found by and large that union workers did not have access to education or training and were often in the workforce at the age of 12 or 13. They counted on the union leader who hopefully had some education and some training, and the thick skull and brawny arm which was necessary in those early days, to look after them. These were young men who had neither the education or training, or anything else to collectively or individually deal with an oppressive company. It is understandable that unions were extremely necessary by the nature of how employers operated in those days.
Union workers in the 21st century have not only completed their high school education, but in many cases have completed university and sometimes have more than one degree. They also have a variety of training. Many of them operate their own successful businesses on the side. It is a different nature of person entirely. Consequently, the leadership needs to change too. In some cases there is very enlightened leadership in trade union movements, but some still operate under the old premise of might is right and one union had better have more might than the other. Some unions like to operate from a strong arm point of view which shows a lack of growth and a lack of evolution inside the union movement itself.
Originally when strikes took place they were primarily an economic tug of war between an employer and an employee or a group of employees. It was a question of how long the two sides could do without money. In other words, who would blink first. The employer and employee or group of employees primarily suffered from the damage. For example, if it involved a mill in a mill town there obviously would be some collateral damage. The town itself would suffer because no money would be available while this would be going on. Primarily it would be very isolated.
The most simple example I could give the House would be to pick on a bakery where workers would feel that they should have a higher wage. If they did not get the higher wage they would go on strike. Without the employees the bakery would not have any bread to sell so therefore it would have no revenue. People in the community would go somewhere else to get their bread or they would bake their own or even do without. This is an example of the economic tug of war between an employer and an employee. That has changed immensely.
I used an example the other night where under our current system a handful of longshoremen went out on strike in the port of Vancouver. As a direct result of that, a farmer and his family in Manitoba, thousands of miles away, could possibly end up losing their farm.
There is a difference in complexity and a difference in the nature of the impact of strikes and lockouts now. There is a tremendous national impact. That is something that must be addressed. It is not addressed by shuffling the chairs on the Titanic and not by taking a little portion that has some clear impact in certain unique circumstances and ignoring all the other things that are wrong with the system that need to be looked at and taken into consideration.
Bloc Québécois members spoke about labour relations this morning. I was making notes of certain key things that they said. I would like to talk for a moment about labour relations. There are exceptions to everything, but primarily labour relations in collective bargaining are confrontational.
I am the official opposition critic for public works and government services which includes Canada Post. I worked very closely with both sides when Canada Post went on its fourth national strike, and I have never seen worse labour relations in my life than what I saw between Canada Post and its workers at that time. It was absolutely unbelievable. Under those kinds of conditions it would be a shock if they actually sat down and simply negotiated something. The premise that they started from was so far out that it just could not be done.
There are other problems. I recall when I was a city councillor and was asked questions by a number of school teachers inside my community because I was involved quite a bit with the school board. They were in a labour dispute with the B.C. government and they wanted me to address them because they wanted to ask me some questions. The very first question I was asked was whether I would support the teacher's right to strike. I replied that I would give them a real honest answer provided that they listened to the entire reply.
My answer was that I did not believe that the teachers should have the right to strike and I used the scenario that I just did with the bakery. I said that in this case the economic tug of war or the battle was not between them and the employer. In theory and on paper it was, but the person who got hurt was not the employer. Children were counting on them to educate them in school. They had an economic battle with their employer and the collateral damage would affect all the children who were counting on them for an education. I also used a number of other scenarios.
I want to make one particular point that I told the teachers in this case because this is an example of how there are so many other factors that we must take into consideration. I addressed the teachers by asking them to imagine the minister of education coming out before the microphones and all the media, wringing his hands in anguish and saying that everything was being done to get them back to the bargaining table to resolve this. He would say, “We will bend over backwards. We will do almost anything. We want the children back in school”. Then the lights would go out, the microphones would go dead, and the minister would walk back into the cabinet room and say, “Okay, folks, how do we piss them off enough to keep them out another month so we can resolve a lot of our budget problems?” The teachers would get the flak for not educating the children. The employer would be in the reverse of the normal economic tug of war. The employer would actually be saving money. There are all kinds of issues that we must look at in terms of what happens in labour disputes.
Back to the situation with Canada Post. One of the things that I explained to both Canada Post and the union was the impact of what they were doing. I said that when union members go on strike, Canada Post shuts down. The union wants better wages, guarantees that no one will be laid off, and it wants part time people being made full time. Yet the nature of it going on strike, withdrawing its services, and consequently Canada Post not providing postal services would force people in the public to start considering alternatives in order to get their mail, cheques, information, and everything else delivered.
In this electronic age it is getting easier to do that and a whole lot of people would suddenly start finding alternatives to Canada Post during a strike. When the strike is finally over, many people find that it was suitable enough and non-disruptive enough that they do not go back to use Canada Pose. Canada Post gets back into business with less business. As a result it would need less workers, so the very reason that the union went on strike in some cases would cause union workers to lose the very things that they were fighting for. That is something that must be taken into consideration as well.
Let me talk about essential services. We recognize that certain services should not or cannot have the right to strike, such as policemen or firemen. There must be a provision for policing, even in the event of a dispute between police officers and their employer, between firemen and their employer. We recognize that and so do they. They are good, honourable people, and accept and recognize that. There are people like that and it is becoming more widespread all the time.
Then there are transportation services. Marine Atlantic is a good example right now. Its hearing has not started yet but is coming up. It may withdraw its services which will essentially shut down the ferry between Newfoundland and the mainland. It is obviously a pretty essential service.
These things exist and where they exist we must have something that says that this is how we will settle for these people. They should not be penalized because they are important. We must come up with something that is fair, that recognizes they cannot withdraw their services, and yet they must be treated fairly. We need to work on that because therein lies the real answer to labour problems in the country. If we were to come up with something that is fair for these people, and we had better, then why would it not apply to everyone? Why would we allow all the other types of damages that I have talked about instead of resolving the disputes that we have now?
This is about helping workers. However, we must recognize that it is about helping workers in a new economy, in a new concept of how the country works. Bloc members have taken a kernel of a good idea, just a kernel, but we need something much broader. I would ask them to withdraw their supply day motion, which has good intentions, and come back with it again but in a much broader context. We cannot micro manage a system that is highly complex, but instead we must find a new way for better union labour harmony in the country for the benefit of all Canadians.