Serious Concerns About
Quebec Government's Bill 59
- Simon Lévesque - 
Simon Lévesque is the Head of Health and Safety for the Quebec Federation of Labour-Construction (FTQ-Construction).
A big concern right now is with the Quebec government's Bill 59 on the occupational health and safety regime.
We are very far away from an agreement between employers and workers
about this bill, which supposedly has to do with the modernization of
the regime, when essentially it's about managing losses. Employers want
to save money through the regime by penalizing workers.
They do not want to make commitments to prevention at the workplace.
 They
want to save money on the treatment and rehabilitation of workers'
injuries and on compensation, for example by setting the number of
treatments allowed for an injury. The bill places limits on treatment
and hands the authority for the recognition of occupational diseases
over to regulatory committees, which requires an agreement
between the employer, the union and the Labour Standards, Pay Equity
and Workplace Health and Safety Board (CNESST). We know from experience
that it takes so long to get a regulation that I don't see how we could
agree to have occupational diseases recognized by regulatory committees.
We are in a context of labour scarcity, with employers trying to
fill positions quickly by reducing training, by not worrying about
occupational health and safety. If, within such a context, jobs do not
include adequate working conditions and prevention mechanisms that
protect the health and physical integrity of workers, then when is this
going
to happen? It would take a big change for this to happen and we know
that the governments in power are not pro-worker.
Employers are making the same economic arguments as in the early
1900s, that health and safety is expensive, that it will kill the
economy, etc. The human factor is not important to them. Everything is
reduced to an issue of money. They talk about reducing costs by
reducing prevention. In fact, it's through prevention that costs will
be reduced. The
human cost is huge and the economy and society as a whole suffer when a
person can no longer function, go out, afford anything, provide for his
or her children.
For employers to say they want to keep their management rights is
absurd. They'll keep their stewardship rights by saying that something
is good for workers even when they know it's not. Bill 59 gives them
what they want, at the expense of the health and safety of workers.
We cannot agree with that.
This article was published in
September 22, 2021 - No. 86
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/WF2021/Articles/WO08864.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
|
