Liberals say anti-replacement worker bill coming next year

The Liberal government is moving forward with its promise to implement legislation forbidding the use of replacement workers in federally regulated sectors during strikes or lockouts.

The government launched consultations on developing the new legislation Wednesday, and said it is “committed” to introducing a bill by the end of 2023.

ichael Harvey, vice-president of policy and international at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said the bill raises “some red flags for some of our members.”

“Right now, the main concern is that you could disrupt or delay the supply chain processes and that would raise costs more and then those costs would get passed down to Canadians. A lot of our members are the people that keep the supply chains of the country moving.”

Harvey said the government should use the consultation as a chance to hear business concerns and take them into consideration.

Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan acknowledged the business community is “not entirely happy” about the legislation.

“But I think that as we sit down and we work this through… we can come to common cause on this,” he said at a press conference. “I really do believe that it’s important. I really do believe that this is the natural evolution of workers’ rights in this country.”

Similar legislation already exists at the provincial level in Quebec and B.C.

The bill targets federally-regulated industries, which make up about five per cent of employees in Canada, employment lawyer Howard Levitt said. The legislation would most affect those federally-regulated industries that are more unionized, such as railways and airlines, as well as some trucking companies and some types of employees at telecom companies, he said.

Levitt predicted the new legislation would be “disastrous” for employers.

Employers who can’t use replacement workers won’t be able to operate at all during a strike, meaning their customers will have to go to another supplier for the duration. That new supplier can then use its bargaining power to insist the customer sign exclusive, longer-term deals, Levitt said.

“Then when the strike-bound customer has the strike end, it has no customers anymore and that will be the end of it. The employer, knowing this, simply cannot afford a strike and has to give in to outrageous union demands which will itself cripple it,” Levitt said.

He said the legislation “tilts the advantage entirely to labour.”

Bea Bruske, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, said enacting anti-replacement worker legislation is “critically important in leveling the playing field for workers in terms of getting a fair deal.”

She noted the legislation is something “that labor has been fighting for for a very long period of time.”

Bruske said “it will mean that employers can’t starve workers by leaving them on a picket line for months on time at a time.”