Canada’s legislation banning some replacement workers, known as the “anti-scab” bill, has cleared its final vote in the House of Commons.
Bill C-58 seeks to ban the use of replacement workers if there’s a strike in a federally regulated workplace, a key part of the supply-and-confidence agreement between the Liberals and NDP.
The bill was adopted in the House of Commons with 317 votes in support from all parties, and no opposing votes. It will now head to the Senate.
“We hope that not only will we make sure this is banned at the federal level, but we can inspire provinces and territories to put in place similar legislation so that we can, once and for all, ban scab workers at every level across this country,” NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said ahead of question period Monday, flanked by members of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC).
“That’s our ultimate goal.”
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Both British Columbia and Quebec have their own pieces of legislation banning the use of replacement workers on the books already.
“This is something that workers and their unions have been fighting for decades for. It’s incredibly important that we level the playing field at the bargaining table. And this legislation does exactly that,” CLC president Bea Bruske said Monday afternoon.
“The use of scabs really just drags out negotiations. And not only does it drag out negotiations, employers can decide that they will never actually get to a deal, that they’re just going to try to starve out their workforce.”
Under this legislation, as part of job action both the employer and union would have to come to a “maintenance of services” agreement on what work could be done during a strike or lockout in the event an incident took place that threatens public or environmental health and safety.
If a union feels an employer is using replacement workers in a way that goes beyond this agreement, they can file a complaint with the Canada Industrial Relations Board. If the complaint is valid, the employer faces fines of up to $100,000 per day.
In the 2021 election campaign, the Liberals committed to bringing in replacement worker legislation and it is also stated as a priority in Labour Minister Seamus O’Reagan’s mandate letter.
Speaking on background, a government source says the maintenance of service clause is the key difference for the Liberals bringing this forward from past bills introduced by the NDP.
At the time of its introduction, O’Reagan said he plans to implement the bill 18 months after its passage. However, the NDP introduced an amendment to speed up this timeline, and now the legislation is set to take effect 12 months after it is adopted.
With this legislation applying to federally regulated workers, it covers a wide variety of workplaces including ports, airports, railways, telecommunications, broadcasting, banking and federal Crown corporations.
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