Interviews
Kevin McLean, Chair of the Health-Safety-Environment Committee of the Federation of Public Service Employees-CSN 
My union is the Montreal Transit Union. I am an
electromechanic and
I do repairs on the mechanical components of the Montreal Metro. Bill
59 is very backward. It is an entirely pro-employer bill. For a long
time now, employers have been asking for reforms that will turn the
clock back with regards to workers' health and safety. They
want to have health and safety protection that has the least possible
impact on their business because having such measures restricts what
they can do. When workers start enforcing safety standards, they can
quickly shut down a business if conditions are not safe. That's why in
the bill, health and safety conditions are left to the discretion of
the
employer. In my union, our health and safety
conditions are negotiated. They
are part of the collective agreement. We assume that in the next
agreement our employer will ask for concessions. They will say that the
law does not provide for these things. They will want to take them away
from us and we will have to fight even to keep what we have
already achieved. We did a survey of our member
unions and we found that many union
contracts say that health and safety standards are those that are in
legislation. If the law changes, the health and safety standards for
the workers covered by those union contracts change. To fight this, we
are going to have to equip our unions to negotiate health and safety
language so as to keep what we have and to assist those who have the
legislation as the reference point for health and safety standards in
their collective agreements. Otherwise, they will lose a lot.
For example, my collective agreement clearly states that there
are
six people who work 40 hours a week in health and safety. They are paid
by the employer, and we meet twice a month with the employer in a
health and safety committee meeting. We bring up issues. We discuss. We
participate in investigations. All this is written in our
collective agreement. In collective agreements where the law is the
reference point, if the law changes the situation can change overnight.
This may be legal, but it is shameful. It is unacceptable that we have
to change our collective agreements to ensure that workers are
protected. In the bill, health and safety hours are
left to the discretion of
employers, which makes no sense. There is also an issue concerning
employers with several workplaces. According to the bill, it will now
be possible for employers who have several establishments to set up a
single prevention program, a single health and safety committee and a
single prevention representative for all of their establishments. This
could affect us very seriously at the Société de
transport de Montréal, given the fact, for example, that
each
Metro station has its own civic address and that we have several
different repair shops. What will happen if the employer uses this to
say that it is a multi-establishment
employer and so it can reduce the number of prevention representatives?
The federation is very active against Bill 59. We are
participating
in demonstrations. We participated in the 59-hour vigil that started on
May 31, in front of the National Assembly.   
Workers
visit MNA's offices, January 2021We
have asked our members to contact their Member of the National Assembly
(MNA), whether he or she is in government or in opposition. This is a
very different method than simply having the central union write to the
minister. We have had responses from MNAs. They are not used to this,
to being questioned in this way, to being asked
to take a position. Then we organized 'phase two.'
We made a Facebook post that said
that the latest amendments proposed by Minister Boulet to Bill 59 are
not only insufficient but downright backward and that the occupational
health and safety law must protect all workers. I was the one who
signed it, and we asked the unions to send it to their members and
tell them to put it on their Facebook pages and tag their MNA. We gave
them the list of MNAs and government ministers and the constituencies
they represent. We continue to put pressure. We are
not going to give up. We need a health and safety law that protects all
workers.
This article was published in
August 20, 2021 -
No. 72
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/WF2021/Articles/WO08722.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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