Mr. Speaker, on May 1 it is my privilege to rise and talk about this important issue. I commend the Bloc for putting the motion forward. It is important to discuss this in the House and to take it to committee to study it further. I believe it will improve the working conditions of not only the workers of this nation but it will also provide stability for employment in the country by setting out some pragmatic rules that will be very beneficial to other provinces that currently do not have strike breaking legislation.
To start off my comments I want to touch upon the history of Canada and the labour union.
In 1872 Sir John A. Macdonald's government introduced a Trade Unions Act and at that time many nations across the globe were going through industrialized revolutions. There was great strife and concern and a number of different conflicts. At that time workers in towns and cities across the globe were struggling for their rights, not only for themselves but for their families. They often dealt with even more complex issues then. While the issues of child labour, health and safety and others were different back then, they are also very relevant today because some of those issues still persist as our technology and our industries change.
Canada was five years old when that act was created. Therefore we have to recognize that having progressive and important legislation regarding the unions and the trade movement has been something of our history and part of making the foundations of our country. In my opinion it has made us the most successful nation in the world. The movement at that time was pressing for a nine hour workday and we wanted to reduce the hours. There were a number of different issues that they had to face, including organized strikes against media and other industry.
It is important to note that and it brings us to a period of time of 1909 when there were a number of different conflicts. At Fort William freight handlers were on strike against CPR and gun battles actually ensued. Despite having that legislation in place, there was still conflict.
In 1919 there were over 400 strikes in Canada, three of them were the famous Winnipeg, Amherst, Nova Scotia and Toronto general strikes, so it sets out a pattern. Troops where brought in in the 1923 Cape Breton mine and steelworkers strike.
As we go through Canadian history, in 1946 some 2,700 Hamilton workers were on strike and replacement workers were brought in. One witness reported that 300 club-wielding men attacked picketers, dozens injured on both sides.
It is important to note that history because it can return and it did return in my home province of Ontario. Prior to the current Tory government, under Mike Harris originally and now Ernie Eves, we had peaceful labour relations under the NDP government which introduced legislation to prevent scabs from coming into the workplace. Since that time we have witnessed the repealing of that law and it has had a detrimental impact on our province.
I want to touch on that because I believe this movement could improve things significantly. We need to learn the lessons from what has happened in Ontario since the removal of that law. Quebec and British Columbia still have it and other provinces are discussing it. It would be an important role for the federal government to participate in it.
Before Bill 40 was passed, the Conservatives decided they were against it. When their predictions of disaster did not come true, they showed no interest in the facts.
Here is the record of Bill 40 which took effect in 1993, under the Bob Rae government. A total of 220,000 new jobs were created in 1993 and 1994, making it clear that Bill 40 was not a job killer. In fact we had a great deal of automotive growth at that time and it was important for the current economy. For two years new private sector investment in Ontario was $53 billion and for highly unionized manufacturing sector there was $8.8 billion in new private sector investment in 1994 alone, the most for one year in the history of the province of Ontario.
Predictions that Bill 40 would produce more strikes and ballooning labour demands proved false. In 1993 there were 371,000 person days lost due to work stoppages in Ontario, the lowest number on record. In 1994 it was the third lowest record for that year. There was some definite improvements and some stability that ensued.
Wage settlements have generally tracked the rate of inflation. Average wage increases in the agreements in 1994 were under 1%. There was stability again because of the rules set in place and that was because of the legislation.
When Bill 40 was in, there were 25,000 employees and 777 newly certified bargaining units in 1993 and 27,000 workers and 756 units in 1994, for a total of 51,000 units for the full two years.
The use of replacement workers in Ontario disputes has always been rare. As expected, the ban had no a major effect. It may have contributed to ending the work stoppage by major league baseball players and in bringing about a settlement that ended the lockout of major league umpires because it was an issue with which they had to deal.
Since that time we have lost that. We have had some tragic incidences in Ontario and close to my hometown in Chatham where Navistar is located. Previously workers were protected against scabs being brought in and taking on their jobs. What happened was Navistar decided it would use replacement scab workers for those jobs. That came after a long history of the union being very involved in the community and in the company. Despite that, Navistar brought in the scabs because it now had that opportunity.
At that time Navistar hired professional security people, as it called them, but they were just nothing more than organized thugs. They were decked out in black equipment, goggles, often sunglasses. They intimidated the workers and took pictures of them on the line. They went even further than that.
At one demonstration the union members finally decided they had to stop the scabs from coming in, they had to draw a line in the sand. Their families needed them to be employed. They had fought for it and had collectively bargained for it. They took a front to stop this from happening.
What happened was the security people ended up hurting Don Milner, a gentleman from our community. He was run over by one of the security vans. That happened off site, kilometres away from the actual Navistar plant. If Bill 40 had not been taken away, that would not have happened. Mr. Milner is still recovering today. He will never be the same because of the situation that he endured. It set an unfortunate precedent.
It sets up a situation that allows employers to use this as a tool for bargaining and also to use it as a tool to break people. It leads to intimidation and to the elimination of progressive employment, which is so important.
Strikes are never flippant acts. They come about because people have decided over a period of time that they need to fight for their rights. It is not easy to go on strike. It never is. People make it seem that workers go on strike to rebel. Workers go on strike because they think they are right.
The unions, as well as the workers, think very carefully about what it will mean to their families and their community, and I mean the community not just in the sense of their purchasing power because of their employment but also because of their significant contributions to organizations like the United Way and other groups. When there is a strike, it has a big impact. That is addressed when they talk about whether they should strike.
If they decide to strike, it is done democratically. People cast ballots to decide, based upon their information and their circumstances and what they feel is best for themselves and the collective. It is important to note that because a democratic process is used to decide whether they should walk off the job. That is one of the best and most powerful tools that has implemented social change. It is involved in a number of different things, not just about wages.
We have seen many unions walk off the job for health and safety reasons, whether it be the chemicals they must use, or the hours of work, or the way they are being treated. It may be hiring practices. All those different things can precipitate people leaving the workplace.
The one way that we can undermine getting people together is allowing scabs to come in. That divides the community because sometimes in situations where communities have high unemployment rates, people feel they have no other option. It pits brother against brother and sister against sister, and that is not healthy. It is very temporary but it leaves a lasting mark on Canadians and also on their communities.
That is one reason why we support this motion. We believe that the Bloc has got it right. I think that we need to move forward in bringing this to committee so that we can have a good discussion about it.
I know the minister was concerned about consensus and about not having the proper buy-in from both parties. That can be looked at and can be addressed at committee level. It is worth a try to get there. Witnesses can come forward and provide the testimony, and perhaps we might see some movement there. It is not something that is foreign to this country. It is happening in Quebec and in British Columbia. It used to happen in Ontario. There is a precedent here. It happens in other nations.
One of the strike lockout issues that becomes very imperative for a company and the workers is what will happen in times of uncertainty about the company, whether it will lose profits, whether they will undermine their ability to sustain themselves, their future, all those different things. It is important to note that people take that into consideration.
Nobody goes on strike to try to lose their job permanently. Workers go on strike as a last resort. They do it because the terms and conditions of employment have challenged them enough and their brothers and sisters in the plant or in the organization, wherever it might be, to consider going off the job. It is not taken lightly.
Companies that are faced with this, if they are going to throw in labour at the last moment, and we have seen this happen in different areas, it has to be trained. The company has to produce the same type of product. The company will not have as high a level of productivity. It will have issues there. It is not a complete recovery of the product either.
What it does do is it distances the company and the organization to provide buying time that leads to conflict. This is the real problem. It builds to a culmination of conflict. This conflict can be avoided. It does not take a genius to figure out that conflict, like we saw in Navistar, needs to be avoided.
Companies are becoming quite smart in some respects on how they deal with this by hiring so-called security professionals. These people receive very little training. However they do receive specific mandates to do things that involve intimidation of our citizens. Sometimes they are brought in from other communities and they often do that.
It is ironic that some of these companies are not even Canadian. They hire individuals here to promote their work. That has to stop. I believe there should be investigation into some of the practices of some of the security companies and what they do on these picket lines. This is a reason why I believe the motion is so important.
We in the New Democratic Party have been calling for this for a long time. As well, we believe there is other progressive legislation that can happen in the House of Commons. We have a collective group, the CEP, where we have employees working. We have a member from Halifax who introduced that bill. We believe it is important for people to have the right to organize. If people can organize everywhere else in this nation, they should be allowed to do it in these halls. We believe this is worthy of support.
We in the New Democratic Party are very proud to support this effort. We believe the Bloc has done a good job. More important, we need to focus on the fact that this brings us to further discussion about this. This could bring about the consensus which the minister wants. Therefore, it is worthy of pursuit in these halls.
