Mr. Speaker, let me reiterate what has been said many times today to make sure everyone understands. The legislation we are debating deals with the federal labour code. It does not deal with provincial codes. However, things set in motion at one level of government often eventually see their way to the other end.
I come from British Columbia, a very strong labour province with an NDP government. When it is not in power the NDP represents the unions. It talks about the rights of workers and all the great things it will do for them. However, once the NDP takes power it often finds its policies have changed considerably and it does not represent the people it claimed to represent before getting there. Such has been the case in British Columbia.
When we talk in terms of unions we go back to their history and ask ourselves if they are necessary. Historically unions were not only necessary but absolutely essential. The conditions under which workers toiled were absolutely deplorable. In eastern Canada, in one case I read, in the last century if workers banded together to ask for a raise they could be sent to jail. Those were conditions that people worked under in Canada.
There was child labour and slave labour. There were improper breaks. Working conditions were dangerous, totally unhealthy and unsafe. The wages were such that a person could not eke out a meagre living. The unions when they came in were absolutely necessary.
The model of a union is very simplistic. The workers band together as a group, go to the employer and ask for conditions that are safe or wages that allow them to live. If their demands are not met they withdraw their work until such time as the company listens and grants them a reasonable wage or better working conditions.
Time moved on and that model continued. It continues basically unchanged today. It started in North America in the 19th century and now, as we are about to move into the 21st century, we are still working with that same model.
One of the many attributes of Reform Party members is that we listen to what constituents have to say. We listen to what different groups in our society have to say. Not only do we differ from other parties, but from time to time we differ within our own party. We represent the things we were elected within our various ridings to represent, having in mind the common goal of Canada.
In my riding of Kootenay West-Revelstoke, in southeastern British Columbia, there are two very big companies and two sets of unions at each company. As well there is considerable union organization throughout the workforce in other areas.
I have sought out these union groups and have talked to them at length about the various problems they are facing. Union popularity is falling. Right or wrong union popularity and membership are falling. The pendulum has swung a little too far to the other side for some unions but not for all, not by any stretch of the imagination. For a few very powerful unions the pendulum has swung too far. My hon. colleague from Capilano-Howe Sound alluded to some of them. All unions are tainted when a couple of unions get too powerful and demand too much.
I talked to them about alternatives to this model and why we are going into the 21st century using a 19th century model for labour dispute settlements.
One principal item the legislation the government is bringing forward deals with is the banning of replacement workers. I cannot speak for all members of my party, but I can say from my perspective that I am not in favour of replacement workers. I agree with the concept of not allowing replacement workers. The reason is that union workers, if they are on strike, cannot replace the company. Then why should the company be able to replace the workers if the kind of system to be used is one where either the employees withdraw their services or the company locks them out? It seems absolutely ludicrous that a company could lock out employees and simply go to other people.
The greater problem is that strikes in themselves do little good for anyone. It is an economic battle between the employer and the employee. Unless there is something very lucrative at the end or huge concessions neither side wins. The greater loser is all the collateral damage it does. When we talk about it from the federal perspective in terms of the transportation system in particular the losses are catastrophic.
There are not only the losses. We talk in terms of hundreds of millions of dollars while those strikes are under way with the loss of confidence by foreign purchasers of our products and our goods and our services who start to think perhaps they should not order from Canadian companies because there are too many strikes and they may not get what they need when they need it. They better look at some area that is more reliable.
One of the ironies of the government's putting in a restriction on replacement workers is the government knows full well that if it sets up some kind of legislation which ends up in a full blown strike with both sides at an absolute impasse, it would legislate everybody back to work.
What it is really doing is setting itself up to have more power in terms of legislating ends to strikes. What happens? We have a grain shipment strike. The government legislates the grain handlers back to work. We have a longshoremen strike in the harbours. The government legislates them back to work. It has done so in British Columbia twice in this Parliament. The rail companies go on strike. The government legislates them back to work.
The government has made one error in its philosophy. For years the air traffic control system, the air navigation system, was under federal law. During that time air traffic controllers were not allowed to strike. Technically they were allowed to strike but they were all designated in the event of a strike. They had to go to work. They had to do their normal designated duties. That was the government's idea of how to allow a strike. What it is doing is either playing games with the unions, pretending to help them when the reality is it is doing the exact opposite, or it has just not thought out this legislation very well at all.
The public has certain notions. We build a lot of our laws, our regulations and our policies based on this perception by the public. It is absolutely unthinkable to have the concept of a policeman standing on the sidewalk watching somebody being mugged, raped or murdered and doing nothing because they are on strike. The public will not accept that. The police understand this and they too accept that they are an essential service. Consequently no one sees that situation occur.
It is equally unthinkable for a group of firemen to stand on the sidewalk watching someone's house burn down, perhaps with a small child still inside and not do something about it. They are very important. They are an essential service. Those firemen accept this and the public has a right to expect that kind of service.
How do we deal with these people? Look at a smaller company. I do not want to name one because no matter which one I name, I take risk of offending the industry. If there is something of lesser importance than those two examples it can be said that it is all right for the employer and the employee to have the economic tug of war to see who could do without wages or corporate revenue long enough to be declared the winner.
Generally that is where the struggle is. There is some collateral damage in terms of the family of the workers or perhaps if it is in a small town, some of the other businesses, because some of the local spending is down. However, primarily it is between that company.
Essentially what we are saying is that because they are not important we will let them withdraw services, lock their employees
out, let them have this economic tug of war and may the richest person win, because that is what it is sometimes almost amounts to.
There is something terribly wrong with the system. It says that police, firemen, air traffic controllers, because they are important, their right to have a strike will be restricted. Other companies, because they are of lesser importance, will be allowed to have it.
Then there are those in the middle, like the rail companies. They are allowed to go on strike for a while and then we say this has gone on long enough. We have made our point. We cannot let them strike. We legislate them back.
If there is an essential service, there needs to be a mechanism that ensures that they are dealt with fairly. If something can be brought up that truly is fair, why not apply it to all people.
I mentioned earlier that I have sought out union groups and I have asked for their input. I have spoken to them about alternatives to the dispute settlement mechanism of a lockout or strike.
When we talk about final offer selection arbitration a lot of people think we are completely subverting the whole negotiation process. It has been mentioned but perhaps it needs to be clarified. When we talk in terms of final offer selection arbitration all the other mechanisms of collective bargaining still exist. They still go through the whole negotiation process. They can have conciliation. If they agree they can have arbitration. They can have virtually anything they agree to. But there has to be something at the end of the day when negotiations break down, when all other means have been exhausted, that they use for that final dispute settlement mechanism.
Some of the union leaders I have spoken to point out that rarely in the event of collective bargaining do unions end up in a strike position. He is absolutely right, but it is those times when they do that cause the problem. Their argument is that the reason they rarely end up going on strike is the hammer, the hammer known as the strike.
We have to reinvent the hammer. I believe that the new hammer should be final offer selection arbitration. It has been spoken of at length today. Perhaps if we speak of it long enough and often enough the government might finally start to listen to it. It is a workable solution.
If someone has something better, I am certainly prepared to listen to it. That is what I have been saying to the union groups and the corporate groups that I have talked to about this.
As has been pointed out, they still negotiate, go through the process and try to move as close as possible. What invariably happens where final offer selection arbitration is used is usually each party knows that if they are too far away from the norm of
where they should be, then they are likely to lose when this is submitted to the arbitrator.
If industry standards, for example, suggest that a company should pay a $1 raise to its workers and the company says it will give them 90 cents and the union says it wants $3.75, if that goes to arbitration the company will win. If, however, the company says it actually cannot afford to give a raise this year and was thinking of asking employees to take a cut but is prepared to sign at the same rate, and under those circumstances the union asks for $1.35, the union would prevail.
What happens is both the union and the company know this and they move much closer together, often to the point where they may ultimately finally agree to settle. That is often the case.
I have heard people argue the concept that perhaps that works if it is just wages or it is just something else. But they are afraid of what will happen is the company will offer a big raise, something that is equal to or which even slightly exceeds the industry standard that they are entitled to. The company will offer the hours that they want and several other advantages but it will slip something else in with no particular monetary value that would be catastrophic for them to lose and they lose that.
There is nothing that says that in a model to be set up for final offer selection arbitration those items cannot be separated. There is nothing that says it has to be done all in one full package.
These are things that need to be determined if the government would ever become willing to give meaningful discussions and debate to the concept of considering final offer selection arbitration.
What happens too often is we end up in an antagonist position where people have to take one side or the other. What happens too often with unions is unions get their back up and all companies are bad and the companies in turn get their back up and all unions are bad. This is the method by which we approach it.
There is an old theory in psychology, theory X and theory Y. Theory X says everybody is lazy and everybody does not want to work and on and on. Theory Y says the exact opposite. These sort of ideas were really pushed hard in past decades, suggesting that the only way we can have workers work is to squeeze them. Most people want a decent job. They want a decent wage.
Now in this time of restraint most people recognize you can only push a company so far and a lot of concessions have been made by unions. With certain exceptions, unions are getting a bad rap, just as some companies are. During a time of restraint, of unemployment, of all kinds of problems in our economy, there are chartered banks reporting profits of over a billion dollars. They are coming out and saying "this year it is even bigger, we are doing better and we are so happy about it that we are giving $1 million to $3 million salaries to our presidents".
No wonder people get their backs up. No wonder people start talking about rich corporations and how we should go on strike and force them to pay more. Just as a couple of militant unions can taint the unions, a couple of greedy corporations can taint the corporate side. Most jobs out there are not high income corporate jobs but regular companies struggling to continue to make a living in a time of economic restraint and recession. This is the kind of attitude we have to come up with.
That is why we have to move to something that provides an alternative to this confrontational type of approach to labour settlement. "You give me this money or I will withdraw my services. You take this cut in wages or we are going to lock you out". That was a 19th century solution. We are going into the 21st century; we need a new solution.
I call on the government to consider this whole concept of final offer selection arbitration. I have never heard a meaningful discussion from the government side on this topic. I would love to have some input. I trust the parliamentary secretary to the minister will make an appropriate question or comment to this to the effect that the government will open meaningful dialogue and discussion on this. That would be progress, and progress is much better than playing games.
I fear the Liberals are playing games with this legislation. They put in provisions to make unions stronger while they recognize and by example demonstrate that they are going the opposite way. They set them up so they can go on strike but legislate them back once they do. They are playing cat and mouse. They are putting a bandage on a serious labour hemmorhage. We have to solve some of the problems in this country instead of continuing to put band-aids on them.
If the Liberals are really concerned about the workers why did they hike the Canada pension plan by 70 per cent? This is an enormous hike in costs to employees. Why would they do such a thing at a time when they are saying that they are going to do something good for workers, that they are going to give them more power so they can go out on strike and demand higher wages? They have just put the need for a demand for a $700 raise on all the workers in this country and said "We are going to take your money. We are going to take an extra $10 billion out of the economy just for the Canada pension plan payroll tax alone, but we are going to strengthen the labour code so you can go on strike and extract that from your employers".
If the government wanted to do it right, it should not have put that on in the first place. I look forward to the comments of the parliamentary secretary saying he will consider final offer selection arbitration.
I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word "That" and substituting the following therefor:
"Bill C-66, an act to amend the Canada Labour Code (Part I) and the Corporations and Labour Unions returns Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts, be not now read a third time but it be read a third time this day six months hence".
