Hysteria is in the air as lobbyists try their best to block Bill C-257
Ottawa (5 Dec. 2006) - Corporate Canada is mounting a major push to stop MPs from passing a bill that would remove one of the great advantages employers now enjoy over their employees, the right to replace them with "scabs" when they exercise their legal right to strike.
Bill C-257, a Bloc Quebecois and NDP bill that won the support of all three opposition parties at second reading in October, moves on to the next phase of passage today when committee hearings open on Parliament Hill.
Predictably, Ottawa is crawling with big-money lobbyists determined to cajole, scare and bully MPs into voting against the proposal at final reading. They will do whatever it takes and they are not accustomed to losing.
Thus, the "big lie" that anti-scab legislation would give employees an unfair advantage in labour disputes is ringing in the pre-Christmas air this week on the hill.
Restoring balance
In reality, Bill C-257 would have exactly the opposite effect. It would put workers and employers on a far more equal footing.
Employees already suffer disproportionately when they go on strike, or are locked out by their employers. They lose their pay cheques. Employers suffer only the inconvenience of hiring scabs to replace them, often carrying on as usual until they starve employees into bending to their will.
Anti-scab legislation is already on the books in Quebec and Ontario, where it has worked well for many years. Recent statistics show that labour disruptions in B.C. are among the lowest in Canada.
Ontario once had an anti-scab law too. It was repealed without any sound reason - apart from marketplace ideology and anti-labour spite - by the union-hating government of Tory premier Mike Harris. But that's not the case elsewhere.
Quebec has kept anti-scab legislation on its books through a series of governments, and even the ultra-right administration of B.C. Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell, a foe to workers on many issues, has left B.C.'s anti-scab law alone.
Nonetheless, corporate Canada is fighting hard once again to hold onto its advantage at the federal level.
More than three dozen companies and lobbying outfits, including the secretly-funded Canadian Federation of Independent Business, are paying for advertising in the Hill Times, the newspaper that goes to all MPs, trying to portray the corporate interest as the public interest in a bid to win the day.
Harperites anti-labour
Big business already has the support of the pro-corporate Stephen Harper Conservatives, who routinely oppose changes that would help workers. But this time big business is up against a minority parliament with a combined opposition that voted for C-257 by a margin of 167 to 101 at second reading.
Thus, there is more than a note of desperation in the corporate pitch this week. The rhetoric in the Hill Times ad, for example, borders on hysteria.
''Bill C-257 will risk the uninterrupted provision of critical services that affect seniors, families, small businesses, and the Canadian economy services such as 911; health and emergency services; transportation services (air, rail, marine, and road) and news and weather warnings in the event of a storm or tragedy," the ad reads.
Yet there is no guarantee for workers that the bill will ever reach third reading and pass. The Conservatives may not have a majority but they may be able to prevent it from coming to a vote.
Another unknown, as of the weekend, is the position the Liberals will take on the bill under their new leader, Stephane Dion. As a candidate, Dion was absent from the Commons for the second reading vote. In the previous Liberal government, as a cabinet minister required to toe the party line of the day, he voted against an earlier version of the bill.
The other two party leaders, Jack Layton of the NDP and Gilles Duceppe of the BQ, have been strong supporters of anti-scab legislation throughout their political careers.
Heavy-handed corporate tactics often work on MPs, but not always. If ever there was a time for such bullying by lobbyists to fail, it is on Bill C-257. NUPGE
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