OTTAWA – When grain movement to the ports is disrupted by a labor dispute, MPs are quick to use Parliament to demand back-to-work legislation.
Farmers are being hurt, they argue.
And the public interest is being damaged because Canada’s reliability as a grain supplier is undermined.
Last week, a federal advisory panel on changes to the Canada Labor Code suggested the issue of public interest in such a grain-affecting dispute is not a simple matter of identifying uninterrupted grain flow as the only goal.
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The panel offered a chronology of how grain, as an innocent bystander, can be held hostage to labor disputes between two other parties.
The report to labor minister Alfonso Gagliano highlighted grain in a section on public interest issues.
Farmers consider reliable delivery as essential to Canada’s competitive reputation, said the panel headed by Edmonton lawyer Andrew Sims. “But efficient industrial practices in grain handling and the price of labor are also important to our competitive position.”
In other words, there may be trade-offs.
“If an employer uses a lockout to obtain lower unit costs from its workforce, should this be blocked by legislation in order to protect our reputation for reliability?” asks the report.
“A reliable but overpriced source of grain may be even less attractive to our customers.”
Farm produce an advantage
If that is not complex enough, says the report, there is the fallout from the fact that both sides know public pressure to end the work stoppage will be greater if farm produce is involved.
In some cases, one or both sides want to be ordered back to work, figuring they will do better through politics than through bargaining.
“This leads both labor and management to try to keep grain tied into their dispute if they want back-to-work legislation.”
So grain gets dragged into a dispute in which it is not a central issue and politics take over.
“The parties, by posturing in this way, avoid their responsibilities to resolve their own disputes directly without endangering a major industry in the process.”
