Anti-scabs: QS filed a bill to include telework

A bill to this effect has just been filed by the Member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Alexandre Leduc, who hopes to get permission so that it can be quickly debated and adopted, especially since it counts as an article.

The bill provides that popular notion ofemployer establishment, in the context of a strike or lockout, extends to any place where an employee who is a union member performs the duties of a strike or lockout. This specifies that this area may be specifically the area where teleworking takes place.

Jurisprudence has changed. The wind has turned since the ruling of the Administrative Labor Tribunal in the case of the Ash Grove cement plant in Joliette and the Unifor union, MP Leduc said.

With the general teleworking caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the provisions now need to be modernized, he believes.

This is not the first time a political party has tried to modernize these anti -scab provisions.

The Parti Québécois did this. It was also under René Lévesque’s government that these provisions were enacted in 1977, to reduce violence and friction around picket lines and to re-balance the employer-employee power balance.

For his part, the Quebec director of Unifor, Renaud Gagné, judged that the continuation of the law was the easiest way to correct the situationotherwise the case threatens to linger in the courts.

Moreover, the case of Unifor and the Joliette cement plant, which started in November 2021 and which included telework in the scope of application of the anti-scab provisions, was appealed by the employer, the CRH Group.

And this call has never been heard of.