Federal legislation guaranteeing that export grain will flow through west coast ports even if a labor dispute is blocking movement of other commodities could win House of Commons approval as early as this week.
It will then go to the Senate for final debate and approval before an expected spring or autumn election.
However, critics of the legislation failed last week to convince the government that the scope of the bill’s intervention in labor-management dealings should be broadened.
The Liberals rejected proposals from Reform MPs, supported by many grain sector employers and west coast bulk commodity shippers, that employers be given more freedom to use replacement workers to keep commodities flowing in the event of a strike or lockout.
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The government also rejected complaints from west coast non-grain shippers that it is unfair to give grain special status.
The amendments to the Canada Labor Code are making their way through Parliament little changed from the way they were unveiled by labor minister Alfonso Gagliano last year.
The government says the new Canada Labor Code will help avoid the sight of grain farmers and exporters being held hostage to another sector’s labor problems.
In the past quarter century, labor disputes have halted grain exports a dozen times and in most cases, the dispute was between longshoremen and their employers, rather than between workers and employers in the grain industry. Under the new legislation, only a dispute directly between grain handlers and their employers would be allowed to tie up the flow of export grain.
Liberal MP George Proud, who shepherded the amendments through Commons debate last week, said the changes strike a necessary balance between the needs of farmers and the rights of labor and employers.
For Reform MPs, that was one of the flaws of the government approach.
They promoted their policy that a system of “final offer arbitration” be used to end contract disputes without allowing strike or lockout disruptions.
They also proposed amendments that would have extended the “no export disruption” clause to other commodities important to the economy.
The Liberals, with support from the Bloc QuŽbecois, argued that extending the ‘no disruption’ status to other commodities would be undue interference in free collective bargaining.
The Liberals also walked a line between Reform demands that employers be given more freedom to replace striking or locked out workers with temporary workers, and BQ and NDP proposals that the use of replacement workers be banned as an unfair advantage for employers.
The Liberals are proposing that replacement workers be allowed, but only if they are not used by the employer as a way to undermine the union.
