Proper to strike have to be protected, CUPE tells federal assessment on labour code modifications

CUPE has submitted a complete response to the federal authorities’s session on reforms to the Canada Labour Code and the federal labour relations framework.

In its submission, CUPE says the assessment needs to be used as a possibility to strengthen collective bargaining rights, enhance labour peace, and construct a fairer financial system for working folks. CUPE has additionally warned the Carney authorities towards utilizing the assessment course of to weaken employees’ rights, limit the correct to strike, or “Americanize” Canada’s labour legal guidelines to profit massive firms and the super-rich.

CUPE says that current federal interventions in collective bargaining disputes – together with repeated use of Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code – have undermined free and truthful bargaining by encouraging employers to delay negotiations and depend on authorities intervention relatively than negotiating agreements on the desk. 

CUPE’s submission calls on the federal authorities to:

• defend and strengthen the constitutional proper to strike
• reject proposals that might additional delay or limit collective bargaining
• enhance protections towards wage theft and employee misclassification
• strengthen well being and security protections
• broaden successor rights and entry to union illustration
• guarantee employees profit from coaching and protections associated to synthetic intelligence and automation.

The submission additionally rejects calls from employer teams to mannequin Canada’s labour legal guidelines on the United States system, warning that American-style labour relations have weakened unions and made it tougher for employees to train collective energy.

Strong labour rights create stability, equity, and actual labour peace. Any try to weaken collective bargaining rights would undermine democracy within the office, and quantity to a serious step backwards for employees in Canada.

You can learn CUPE’s full submission right here.