Mr. Speaker, I am glad to see we will have an opportunity on Tuesday to test the interest of the House of Commons in the bill put forward by the member for Halifax, Bill C-419, which would amend the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act to give the right to organize and unionize to our Parliament Hill employees.
Other representatives from the NDP have spoken about the importance of the bill. It is something to which we are ideologically committed. The NDP is very proud to say that we are the only political party in the House of Commons today that has a unionized workforce, represented by the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, Local 232. We can speak from experience and can give some comfort and solace to those members from other parties who are apprehensive about the idea of extending the right to organize to Hill staff.
I do not really think we should have to have this debate in this day and age. Frankly, the right to organize, the right to bargain collectively and even the right to withhold services in the event of an impasse are basic tenets of any modern democracy, certainly basic tenets of any western civilization. That much is not in question.
The only reservations we have heard put forward by members are perhaps that they may lose some of the flexibility they believe they need because of the unique workplace in which we all work. I believe we can provide some comfort or solace to those people who are apprehensive by looking at our own experience.
We have a unionized workforce. Our staff have the same challenges that the staff of any member of Parliament may have. They need flexibility in our workplace, but nothing in our collective agreement precludes that flexibility if someone has to work through lunch or stay late. What our collective agreement does preclude is the exploitation of those same workers by members of Parliament who may get too busy to pay due attention to workplace conditions in their office, which is their workplace.
This place has a terrible reputation for its treatment of employees, and this goes back many years. A lot of members of Parliament tell employees that it is a privilege for them to work on Parliament Hill, and it is, but they use that as justification to pay them terribly. We pay our employees a living wage, a fair wage. It is our belief that fair wages benefit the whole community and that there are many good reasons to provide fair compensation, obviously above and beyond any moral and ethical reasons. However we do hear horror stories from other offices.
I was not surprised when our employees felt they needed protection from this exploitation. As members of Parliament get so busy and so caught up in their work, they often forget the human aspects of the employees who work for them and the fact that these people have lives and deserve fair compensation, fair working conditions, fair working rules, fair benefits, fair holidays, et cetera. That is the point here.
I am very proud that the member for Halifax has brought this issue to the forefront. I know the history of this issue has been outlined by other speakers and I will not spend a lot of time on it other than to say that since 1986 all the elements have been in place. It has just been up to the ruling party to give royal assent to phase two and phase three of the Parliamentary Employment Staff Relations Act.
I do not want to be critical in the time I have but I notice the Minister of Labour is listening to the debate, and I am pleased to see she is giving her time to listen to it. However the Liberal Party in another example, with the rural route mail couriers, has seen fit to deny the basic right to organize to that group of workers as well.
There is very little justification, although we do hear people standing up and saying it, for not allowing our employees to unionize. We cannot really make the case that it would grind Parliament to a halt and therefore do a disservice to the country, because in other situations, for instance, firemen or policemen, they do have the right to organize and they do have the right to bargain collectively. In those instances they do not have the right to withhold their services. There is some other type of binding third party arbitration that takes the place of a strike or a lockout.
That is something that can be dealt with if the case can be made that Parliament, especially during times of war, et cetera, cannot be stopped because of labour unrest, but it is certainly no excuse for not allowing these basic freedoms to the many hardworking Canadians who work on Parliament Hill.
In my own experience as a labour leader for the carpenters' union, I had the opportunity to organize many workplaces, speaking with workers and employees in their kitchens. We had to sneak around many times in order to organize a workplace. I do not think the employees on Parliament Hill deserve to be treated that way when their employer is the Government of Canada, the Parliament of Canada, the members of Parliament, who surely accept that Canadians believe in the right to free collective bargaining.
The rigidity that some members fear in a collective agreement, as I said before, is no excuse. I am holding a recent Hill Times article in which some staff employees of members of Parliament were interviewed. One individual works for one of our members of Parliament and he points out that it is not unusual for him and his colleagues to have to be very flexible in their working rules. He also points out the benefit of having an avenue of recourse if there are disagreements with an employer, whether it is about holiday time or working conditions or working rules.
Being a unionized employee is not all about money. Frankly, negotiating the actual salary and wage is something that happens once every two or three years when people bargain the terms of their collective agreement. Being unionized employees means knowing they have an avenue of recourse that does not put their jobs in jeopardy if they do have a comment or a criticism to make of the work rules, or a simple avenue to air their views and their opinions.
We believe it is wrong to deny these basic freedoms. I can point out some recent examples on the Hill when Hill employees have had difficulties when they were laid off without cause, for instance. Their only avenue of recourse was going to the courts or, I suppose, asking for an audience with the Speaker and asking him to intervene. That system cannot be relied on. We need a better process than that.
We heard about one member of Parliament not too long ago who laid off one of his staff because she became pregnant. The woman had no avenue of recourse. She was not covered by the Canada Labour Code nor was she covered by employment standards legislation. She could not go to the Ontario Labour Relations Board. This woman had no one to advocate on her behalf other than going to the courts, and that is ridiculous. That is why employment situations need a process by which grieved employees can seek justice. Surely in a case like that it is terribly unjust treatment.
There is another example. Some members of Parliament lay off their staff over the summer months because they do not need them. Some of these individuals are long term employees. It is a terribly unfair thing to do in order to save a few dollars in their budgets.
I will end by saying that I am very proud to be involved with this initiative. I again compliment the member for Halifax for tirelessly bringing this issue forward again and again. Hopefully it is starting to resonate with enough other members of Parliament so they will see that fair wages benefit the whole community and Canadian workers have a right to be represented by the union of their choice. It is our duty to be an example to the public in that way.