On Friday September 23rd, the CUPE National Executive Board “passed a unanimous resolution vowing to defy the Liberal government’s Bill C-39 limiting the constitutional right to strike if it is passed unamended through Parliament.”
The Executive Board of CUPE 4600 is proud to stand in solidarity with our union siblings in the federal public service and federally regulated private sector who will have their right to strike severely restricted if the federal government passes Bill C-39 unamended. While the university sector is provincially regulated, we recognize that any legislation at the federal level that gives a minister such sweeping overreach may one day be replicated in sectors such as our own. Being located in the national capital region, we are keenly aware of the impact this legislation will have on collective bargaining rights for over 140,000 federal public service union members.
In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada recognized that the right to strike was constitutionally protected. In a 5-2 decision, the Court ruled that the right to strike falls under section 2(d) freedom of association of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that it should be “limited as little as possible.” The Canadian Labour Congress has found that “Bill C-39 would give the Canadian government the broadest strike intervention powers” compared to every other G7 country, including the United States. You can read more of that analysis here.
In 2022, CUPE 4600 joined a multitude of other unions across the province in rising up against the Ontario Conservative government’s attempt to curtail the right to strike. The proposed Bill-28 would have prohibited looming job action and would have imposed a contract on 55,000 education workers facing a hostile employer led by Education Minister Stephen Lecce. The massive cross-sector union response to these draconian measures was successful, and the Ford government’s attacks on the right to strike were defeated.
We oppose the federal government’s attempt to limit the right to strike via this “flooding-the-zone” omnibus bill and call for the amendment of Bill C-39 to remove threats to the right to strike, as well as for the repeal of Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, which gives the federal minister undue authority to intervene in the collective bargaining process.
You can take action by writing to Prime Minister Mark Carney, Minister Patty Hajdu, and your local MP to demand that fair deals be settled at the bargaining table and not in the boardroom. Today, as in 2022, our local is ready to take action to protect every worker’s right to strike and to fight for better working conditions.