Challenging State-Organized Repression of
Workers' Rights
Government's Use of Heavy-Handed Tactics to Strip Workers of Their Rights
- Interview, Daniel Légère,
President, New Brunswick Federation of Labour -
Demonstration by nursing home workers, organized in
CUPE, in Fredericton April 12, 2019, as part of their fight against the
violation of their right to strike.
Workers'Forum recently talked with Daniel
Légère, newly
elected President of the New Brunswick Federation of Labour. Daniel was
President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) New
Brunswick for the past 14 years. On behalf of CUPE New Brunswick, he
spearheaded, among other things, the "Breaking the Mandate"
campaign to fight for public sector wage increases. Successive
provincial governments, Progressive Conservative and Liberals, have
imposed a mandate to suppress wage increases. The attacks against wages
and living and working conditions come with state-organized repression
against the workers' struggles that is seen both in the private and the
public sector. Légère shares his views about this problem.
Workers' Forum: You were elected
President of the New
Brunswick Federation of Labour at the end of May. Congratulations! Best
wishes for success in your important work.
In the press release of the Federation following the
Convention, you
write that the labour movement is facing challenging times, both in the
public and the private sector. Can you tell us more about this?
Daniel Légère: What we are
seeing is action by
governments, employers, the courts, and legislation stripping the right
of free collective bargaining away from workers. We have the bitter
example of what happened with Canada Post. CUPW members were on a legal
strike and the federal government legislated them back to
work. Make no mistake about it, this came from the Trudeau government
as Canada Post only has one shareholder, the federal government of
Canada. It is the federal government that legislated them back and
stripped the right to strike away from those workers.
Provincially here in New Brunswick, we are seeing this
as well.
Nursing home workers are facing legislation taking away their right to
strike. The Labour Board declared at some point that it was
unconstitutional to deprive these workers of their right to strike, and
then the provincial government took it to the courts. The most blatant
and the
most upsetting example was that the workers had a victory at the Court
of Queen's Bench when Justice Garnett ruled that to deny the nursing
home workers their right to strike was causing irreparable harm to
them. But
within two hours of that decision, the provincial government had a
hearing by the Court of Appeal. Now who can get in front of the
Court of Appeal within two hours of a verdict being rendered by the
Court of Queen's Bench? The judges of the Court of Appeal reserved
their decision for a later date and meanwhile the nursing home workers
cannot go on strike. This is a government using heavy-handed tactics,
using legislation and the courts to strip the workers of their right to
strike.
At the moment in New Brunswick we have a minority
Conservative
government. The Liberals brought forward a motion that government
should go to unfettered binding arbitration to settle this. In our
nursing homes there is a real crisis as there is across the country in
the long-term care sector. The motion passed with all the opposition
parties
supporting it and still the government refuses to go to unfettered
binding arbitration. They said they agree to binding arbitration but
the arbitrator's hands will be tied and restricted so much that the
outcome will have to be what the government wants. This is a sad day
for democracy when the majority of the Legislative Assembly wants the
government to fix this and says how to fix it and the government still
refuses. I think that the Higgs government does not have the confidence
of the Legislative Assembly.
 If you look at what is
happening in the private sector, in
Belledune, Steelworkers took a strike vote and gave strike notice, but
the employer locked them out instead, ran to the courts and had an
order allowing only six picketers per picket line, and that is in
totality. I have gone up a few times, and when I am on the line with
the strikers, one
member has to drop off. There is all kinds of other stuff. They are
busing scabs in but the court ruled that Steelworkers are not allowed
to demonstrate at the pickup spots for the scabs and are not allowed to
take any photographs except for evidence purposes. Employers are using
the courts to strip free collective bargaining rights away from
workers, both in the private and the public sector.
WF: How do you see the development of this
challenge to workers' rights being stripped away?
DL: The labour movement is at a
crossroads. We have to
challenge all these sorts of things, and at some point we have to be a
little bit more militant I think. It is a level of militancy that seems
to have gone away for the last decade or two.
We have to challenge this at every opportunity. We have
to appeal
these bad decisions. We have got to use every avenue at our disposal to
take this on. It is time for the labour movement to start being a
little more proactive.
They want to reduce the process to collective begging,
not
collective bargaining. Labour has to come together. One union cannot do
it alone. We need the entire labour movement to come together and we
need civil society to come together as well. We have to work beyond the
union movement.
This article was published in
Number 22 - June 13, 2019
Article Link:
Challenging State-Organized Repression of
Workers' Rights: Government's Use of Heavy-Handed Tactics to Strip Workers of Their Rights - Interview, Daniel Légère,
President, New Brunswick Federation of Labour
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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