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INTRODUCTION--LEGISLATIVE ISSUES VS. COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
For several years, we have been demanding changes to bring about a fairer society that meets our needs. As you all know, we have been "spinning our wheels" in some cases, and have even slipped significantly backwards in others because of the introduction of provincial (Harris) and federal (unemployment, retirement, etc.) legislation. This legislation has only succeeded in eroding the workers' buying power, working conditions and social benefits.
If we ever hope to succeed, our legislative recommendations must be backed up by sustained and aggressive bargaining at the bargaining table. To bring about legislative changes, we must SET THE PACE: leadership must come from the bargaining table. If we cannot demonstrate the serious nature of our priorities, government will brush off our demands.
In the past, we did not fully achieve all our bargaining demands and in 1996 we are determined to achieve past and newly emerging goals.
We must take action on two fronts:
Tired of talking the talk, the CAW-Quebec walked the walk with a document entitled Time Is on Our Side. This document was meant to be a tool to raise awareness and incite us to take action, that is, to get us to the bargaining table.
We have established a programme to meet with all the unit presidents to make them aware of the significant impact that shorter work hours on all levels would have: work year (more paid holidays or vacation), career length (earlier retirement), work week (36 hours for example). The workweek has not changed in almost 40 years. If we ever hope to improve our quality of life, we have to make significant progress in this area and ensure that our members take their vacation and holidays as paid leave.
Now, let's look at the tendency regarding overtime. Workers are putting in more overtime, and over 800,000 are putting in an average of eight hours of overtime per week, adding up to 6.4 million hours of paid overtime. If all of these hours were converted into jobs, it would represent full-time employment for 80,000 people. Can it be done? Although the principles regarding overtime were introduced in our collective agreements to be used only in emergency situations, they now represent a normal state of affairs, and overtime is an integral part of life for many workers, who spend their lives on make a living.
Therefore, we must demand the following legislative changes:
In conclusion, the reduction of work hours must be part of our overall plan, which is linked to policies to stimulate the economy as well as to an industrial development and full employment strategy. We must not be afraid to demand the reduction of work hours, for in doing so we will be killing two birds with one stone: meeting the workers' need for more time for themselves; and meeting the economy's need for Job creation.
The act respecting industrial accidents and occupational disease should enable representatives responsible for prevention to stop dangerous work without reprisal from the employer.
At present, the law stipulates that an employer cannot use disciplinary or discriminatory measures against workers or representatives responsible for prevention when they exercise a right or function provided for by law. However, in the event that an employer uses disciplinary or discriminatory measures, the CSST (Quebec's Safety and Worker's Compensation) should assume the cost incurred by workers or their certified associations.
No sector should be exempt from the application of the law with regard to health and safety committees, representatives responsible for prevention, and health and prevention programmes.
The whole appeal process consequent to exercising a right to refusal should be made more flexible and more speedy when workers, individually or through their certified association, appeal a decision on the interpretation of a right to refusal; all the costs for witnesses and experts should be assumed by the CSST.
The CSST should hire inspectors in sufficient numbers and should allow qualified workers access to this position. The CSST should also increase the budgets allocated for inspections to meet the demand for intervention. The government must radically increase the number of interventions in the workplace by inspectors, and to impose the corrective measures and fines necessary to promote prevention. Their mandates should be fulfilled as provided for by law, and this, without any restriction.
With regard to industrial medicine, we demand that the government develop a real programme for training, motivation and information processing in this field, so that community health departments might offer comprehensive and effective industrial medical services as soon as possible.
We ask that the period during which workers who have suffered a work-related injury can exercise their right to return to work be indefinite. We demand a real rehabilitation system for injured workers that will allow quick and effective return to work in jobs that offer opportunities for career advancement. We demand a real rehabilitation system, improved and suited to the rehabilitation of injured workers. Adapting the work station to the needs of a worker who is returning after an injury must be made mandatory, and this, as provided for by law and without taking into account the cost when it comes to choosing a rehabilitation programme. An employer who cannot offer an injured worker adequate work should be made to assume all the additional related costs and fines.
The cost of hearing the litigant, witnesses, doctors and so on, should be paid by the employer who contests a claim pertaining to a work-related accident. Despite all the existing conciliation mechanisms, the government should make the process of dealing with industrial accidents and occupational disease less legalistic. With regard to prevention, the necessary information campaigns and training programmes must be developed.
Given the number of environmental catastrophes that have occurred over the past few years and the incompetence of governments who refuse to regulate the private sector, the disengagement of the State with regard to supervision of environmental controls is irreconcilable with better environmental protection.
If we hope to put an end to these ecological disasters, government must adopt a real environmental policy. The CAW therefore asks government to:
One goal has been reached since our last Collective Bargaining Convention. We had asked for a law on occupational training, accessible to all without discrimination, with union participation, whose purpose would be to control our jobs and offer the opportunity to open doors to other work places, all of which would be financed by the employer.
Well, Bill 90 (act regarding occupational training) has finally been adopted with financing equivalent to 1% of the private sector's wage bill. We have achieved our goals: to allow access to formal training to improve workers' skills and increase their chances of remaining active on the job market; and to encourage the formation of committees with the mandate of developing training plans.
Training must be an integral part of business operations and must be integrated into the work of employees.
Within the framework of this act, we must demand increased financing and ensure that the training is distributed equitably between management and workers.
Over the last ten years, the unemployment rate in Quebec has averaged in excess of 11%; over the last 20 years, it has been over 11%; the last 30 years, over 10%. This means that for 30 years, more than one in ten Quebecers have not benefitted from a paying job, nor have they participated in the collective effort to produce the goods and services which constitute collective wealth.
The current official unemployment rate is 10.9%. However, the experts all agree that if we take into account the people who, out of despair, have stopped looking for work because they can't find any, nearly 25% of Quebecers who are fit for work do not have a job.
This is a disastrous situation for any society who claims to be humane, fair and solidaristic, and it cannot be allowed go on. How many lives have been ruined by unemployment over the last 30 years? How many marriages broken, often because of violence? How many families torn asunder? How many illnesses, physical and mental, cases of alcoholism and addiction to controlled substances, aggravated assaults, thefts, rapes, murders and suicides can be linked to the despair that inevitably comes with the loss of a job? How much does this cost society?
And what of the cost to the economy? Everybody loses: the unemployed, yes, but also those who are employed, the businesses who employ them and government. A study carried out by researchers in Quebec revealed that the economic cost of unemployment in Quebec in 1993 totalled $30.7 billion, that is, 20% of the GDP: the unemployed lost $1.6 billion; the employed lost $4.6 billion; businesses and business owners lost $10.3 billion; and government lost $14.1 billion.
The significance of these figures is mind-boggling. It represents 20% of what could be Quebec's collective wealth, which is not produced and can therefore not be distributed over the course of a given year. How many personal bankruptcies, houses lost, families doing without the essentials, do these impersonal statistics represent? How many businesses going under, losses in sales, in productivity, in profitability? What does this represent in deficits and debts accumulated by government? And what if we added up all the losses over all of these years?
The CAW have always denounced the impact of unemployment on the population. We have always maintained that any person who can work has the right to a useful, gratifying, well-paid job of their choice that meets their aspirations and calls upon their skills, regardless of whether these skills were already acquired or obtained through the appropriate training. We have always maintained that the goal of access to employment for all can only be achieved by introducing a full employment policy in Quebec.
Full employment is the best way to ensure the economic and social progress of workers and of the population as a whole. It is also the only way to achieve more equality between social groups, maximum use of human resources as well as the maintenance and improvement of our social programmes.
A full employment policy must be backed up by unflagging political determination. The government must put employment ahead of all other State priorities. It must ensure that all of its economic policies - budget, taxation, currency, commercial, industrial, regional, manpower, education and occupational training - work coherently toward this one goal.
A full employment policy requires great social cohesion, characterized by the involvement of the socio-economic partners - employers, unions, community groups - in setting priorities and developing economic and social policies.
The process toward full employment must be supported by one organization, directed by the social partners and introduced at national, regional and local levels. This organization must work exclusively on developing and implementing policies pertaining to the job market, with one goal in mind, that is, to provide the "right person for the right job at the right moment". Thus, local employment centres could provide information, guidance, placement and relocation services for people who are looking for jobs. These centres could also serve as points of entry to educational, occupational training and professional development services. They could provide services to meet the specific needs of young and older workers, women, immigrants and the long-term unemployed. They would also ensure job security through the control of mergers, acquisitions and business closures, as well as by providing services to businesses during slow periods and by directly and indirectly creating jobs during slumps in the economy.
Government must also implement a regional development strategy that would give local and regional elected officials and decision-makers the financial resources and decisional powers necessary for economic development and job creation.
Finally, if a full employment policy in Quebec is to be effective, we maintain that:
Introduction
The Martin budget presented on March 6, 1996, established a series of measures affecting both private and public retirement plans. The budget introduced a system of "Elderly Benefits" to replace the present benefits of the Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement Act. The system is alleged to provide more adequate security to retired individuals with the lowest incomes and to protect the benefits of individuals aged 60 or older on December 31, 1995.
With regard to individuals aged 60 or older on December 31, 1995, the benefits payable under the new system of "Elderly Benefits" will be less advantageous for individuals living alone and couples earning over $45,000 than the benefits that were payable under the old system. There will be no benefits at all for individuals living alone earning over $52,000 and for couples earning over $78,000. Under the old system, the income ceilings were $85,000 for individuals living alone and $170,000 for couples.
For individuals with lower incomes, the new system is slightly more advantageous in most cases. However, the income ceilings previously mentioned are only going to be indexed to inflation after 2001. Since it is expected that the average income will increase faster than the adjustment of the ceilings, the new system will benefit fewer and fewer people. Many retired individuals will end up on the losing end with the new system of "Elderly Benefits", since the federal government hopes to save $200 million by 2001, a sum which should reach $2.1 billion by 2011.
The budget will also reduce tax assistance for retirement savings. The ceiling for contribution to an RRSP, which already dropped from $15,500 to $13,500 with the 1995 Martin budget, is not to be adjusted until 2004. Although this measure presently affects individuals with high incomes, government seems to want to put increasing limits on tax assistance for retirement savings. Other measures, namely the reduction of tax credits granted to investments in the QFL's solidarity fund and the CSN's Fondaction, and the shortening by two years (from 71 to 69 years old) of the coming to term of RRSPs or of retirement savings plans, also limit tax assistance for retirement savings for individuals of all income levels.
Public Retirement Plans
Since the principle of the universality of Old Age Security benefits is now nonexistent thanks to the introduction of the new "Elderly Benefits" system, we deem it important to take action with regard to Régime de rentes du Québec to ensure that workers have access to adequate retirement income. Régime de rentes du Québec must eventually become the cornerstone of our public system of retirement security and, to do this, it must be improved so as to maintain the quality of life previously enjoyed by retired individuals. The CAW therefore reiterate the following recommendations:
Complementary Retirement Plans
Given the tendency to limit the tax assistance for retirement savings, complementary retirement plans, which are another important pillar of the retirement security system, must be improved. The CAW therefore reiterates the following demands:
Pay equity means recognizing the value of the work of women. In other words: EQUAL PAY FOR EQUIVALENT WORK. For example, a shorthand typist ($22,677) earns less than a truck driver ($28,001), a nurse ($32,227) earns less than an insurance salesman ($33,945), and so on.
We want a law that would enable us to eliminate this discrimination, in as much as it would contain all the necessary tools and mechanisms to accomplish this goal, and that would be of universal scope. In this way, an equity programme by virtue of such a law should define, among other things, the factors on which are based the criteria used to compare men's and women's work, the time frame for the completion of the programme, the sanctions to be imposed on employers who refuse to respect the law and recourse available to women to enforce the law.
The purpose of such a law must be to implement and maintain pay equity. To achieve this goal, the government must set up a commission on pay equity and provide the necessary resources for the application and enforcement of the law.
Such a law would be an investment, a contribution to economic growth. The distinction must be made between the employers' short-term interests and the long-term benefits that pay equity can bring to society. We must do away with the undervaluation of work done by women.
We must continue to fight for women's rights (the March for Women) and support their demands.
It is clear that we must act quickly. The number of unionized workers is dropping dramatically in the United States and under threat in Canada (the percentage of unionized workers is under 15% in the United States and 35% in Canada). We are now seeing new legislation being adopted in several Canadian provinces that favours businesses, namely the changes brought about by the Harris government in Ontario, AND WE MUST TAKE ACTION or our ratio of unionized workers will also drop dramatically.
As we all know, the percentage of unionized workers has begun to fall in Quebec and has already dropped by 8%. The decrease in the percentage of unionized workers will bring about increasing socio-economic inequalities as well as the loss of ground in working conditions and work relations. By impeding access to unionization, the right-wing, which is growing in power, can settle in and eliminate existing laws, rights which unionized and non-unionized workers have fought for and acquired over the last decades.
We are therefore in favour of legislated changes that provide for:
Presently in Quebec, spouses have to do a juggling act-- Reconcile the irreconcilable. Today, to combine activities and responsibilities relative to work, family and personal life, couples must develop strategies that take into account the constraints and demands of the different, often conflicting worlds of productivity and competitiveness versus human reproduction.
Reconciliation is the process by which one attempts to find solutions to situations that are often problematic and related for the most part to work schedules.
Best case scenario; the "flexible schedule". It allows and facilitates reconciliation while offering workers a degree of autonomy in the organization of their work. Flexible schedules allows workers to work around their children's schedules, to deal with unexpected situations, to rush less at the beginning and end of the day, and can be adjusted to the spouse's schedule.
Worst case scenario; the "varying and unpredictable schedule". This type of schedule is one of the most disruptive factors for family life (spouse, children, friends) because it leaves no room for anything else but work. The situation is further aggravated when both spouses are on atypical schedules.
A study carried out jointly by the QFL and UQAM focussed on the following goals:
1) to draw up an overall view of the difficulties involved in reconciliation;
2) to encourage collective dialogue in the workplace and propose leads to solutions;
3) to question social partners on the issues pertaining to reconciliation.
Within the framework of the QFL-UQAM study, the answers point to an overall state of health, especially mental health, that is deplorable. The word exhaustion keeps coming up.
This is why we ask the government to:
Source: Joint study QFL/UQAM
CHANGES TO PROVINCIAL AND FEDERAL
LAWS ON LABOUR STANDARDS
1. At the provincial level:
2. At the federal level:
In addition to our legislative agenda, we must now define a framework for the action to be taken by unions. All levels of our union structure are to be called upon: locals and units. Furthermore, our actions must be deployed at different levels of intervention: sector-based, local, regional, national, and even international.
Involvement of the Locals and the Units
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