Prohibiting the use of replacement workers in federally regulated sectors is getting thumbs down from some business groups right across Canada.
“The balance of power is really heavily shifted to the point where it’s not a fair collective bargaining position, so that’s really what this is about,” said Paul Markle, executive director of the Barrie Chamber of Commerce.
Dozens of chambers of commerce in Canada, including Barrie’s, along with the Canadian Automobile Dealers’ Association and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, have signed a letter to that effect for the federal ministries of labour, transport and innovation, science and industry to consider.
“You can see by the number of other organizations that are behind it there are other solutions,” Markle said. “We just want the government to take a harder look at it and to not necessarily just drive this through.”
A replacement worker is someone who does the work of a unionized worker who is on strike or locked out.
The Canadian government has committed to introduce legislation by the end of 2023 to prohibit the use of replacement workers in federally regulated sectors.
Employment and Social Development Canada’s consultation on this matter ran from Oct. 19, 2022 to Jan. 31, 2023.
The feds say the ability to form a union, bargain collectively and strike are essential to a healthy workforce. These rights allow workers to act together and improve the power imbalance between individual workers and their employer, the government says. And in 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms includes the right to strike.
When unionized workers exercise their right to strike, they sacrifice pay and benefits to try to improve their working conditions by putting pressure on their employer, the government says.
However, the feds say this right can be undermined when an employer brings in replacement workers to keep the business going while workers are on strike or locked out.
To ensure that all workers in federally regulated sectors continue to benefit from the right to strike, the government says it will introduce legislation by the end of 2023 to prohibit the use of replacement workers when a union employer in a federally regulated industry has locked out employees or is in a strike.
This would affect banking, telecommunications and broadcasting, air, rail, and maritime transportation, most Crown corporations, Canada Post for example, certain activities such as the governance and administration of First Nations band councils and Indigenous self-governments.
But some business groups say proposing to introduce legislation on prohibiting replacement workers in federally regulated industries raises serious concern for them.
While collective bargaining rights must be respected and protected, the proposed law goes too far, the chambers' letter says, and will disrupt the balance within the labour relations system and lead to more labour strife, threatening to cause disruptions to supply chains.
The letter says replacement workers allow organizations in sectors like trucking, rail, ports, telecom and air travel to provide a basic level of service that preserves critical services to Canadians.
It says eliminating the use of replacement workers to maintain services will provide encouragement to strike, rather than to bargain collectively. The letter says that where replacement worker bans exist, there are more strikes and they last longer.
The federal government is asked to reconsider introducing this legislation.
“It’s mainly just being supportive from a lobbying position, “ Markle said of the letter, “wanting the government to take another look at it and understand the impact it could have that’s maybe not the intended purpose of it.”
