Trudeau govt strikebreaks. Again.

You probably heard that the Trudeau government forced striking postal workers back to work. I mean, it was all over the news.

The workers employed by Canada Post had been on strike since 15 November after they gave the union a 95% strike mandate back in October.

Canada Post had been dragging their feet on negotiations, refusing to make significant concessions. Negotiations began last November, a year to the day of when the strike began.

Originally, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers planned to implement a rolling strike, which would mean only certain workers would strike, not all of them. However, Canada Post had different plans and responded by locking out everyone, thereby shutting down the entire system.

This, of course, threw the national postal system into chaos just as consumers are buying Christmas gifts online or shipping packages to families for Christmas.

The lockout disrupted the system far more than a rolling strike would have. In fact, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, small- and medium-sized businesses were losing $75 million a day because of the lockout.

That economic impact put pressure on Trudeau and his government to intervene, and they did just that, after the lockout lasted for over a month.

Last Friday, Steven MacKinnon, the so-called labour minister under Trudeau’s administration, sent the labour dispute to the Canada Industrial Relations Board.

He asked them to look into the stalemate and if they determine that the parties are truly at an impasse, they were order the lockout (and the strike) over, and the workers were to return to work under the current collective agreement, which was to be extended to May 2025.

And the CIRB did just that, as of this past Monday.

This contract was supposed to expire in 2021, but Canada Post had convinced CUPW to just extend it by two years. It’s a tactic employers use to avoid collective bargaining. Workers get a “new” contract but with very few improvements.

So now this contract has been extended by another year and a half, for a total of 3.5 years.

But this isn’t the first time the Trudeau Liberals have interfered in the constitutional right of workers to strike (even if it’s a response to a lockout). Heck, it’s not even the first time they’ve forced postal workers back to work.

In fact, the last time postal workers were forced back to work was connected to their last contract!

Back then, it was also rolling strikes, which began in October 2018 in Edmonton. Halifax, Victoria, and Windsor. After just a month, however, the Trudeau government introduced and passed Bill C-89 over the course of just two days, with the help of the Conservatives. Only 6 Liberals, along with 5 Bloc and 31 NDP members of parliament, voted against it.

The workers went nearly 3 years without a new agreement, before ratifying one in September 2021, the one that they later extended to November 2023.

Also in 2021, they did the same thing to striking dockworkers in Montréal.

Their most recent contract between these dockworkers and their employer had expired nearly 3 years before, in December 2018.

The employer—The Maritime Employers Association—dragged their feet for years, even trying to get the workers classified as providing an essential service, which would’ve restricted their right to strike. Luckily, the Canadian Labour Relations Board shut that down.

The workers, which were represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, originally went on strike in the summer of 2020. Initially a rolling strike, the workers escalated it to an indefinite strike after about two weeks. However, the workers and the employer came to a deal by September 2020, without interference from the Liberals.

Well, it was sort of a deal.

It was a 7-month truce, set to expire in March 2021. It was supposed to pause not only striking from the workers but strikebreaking actions from MEA, such as cutting overtime rates on shift differentials and calling the cops on striking workers after a security guard drove through the picket line.

Unfortunately, MEA refused to make significant concessions by the end of the truce, so a month later, workers went back on strike.

The work stoppage began the evening of 23 April 2021 (although officially not until the morning of the 26th). But in less than a week, the Trudeau government, once again, introduced and passed back-to-work legislation.

Bill C-29 passed second reading after 144 Liberals, 110 Conservatives, and a single independent voted in favour of it. All of the Bloc, Green, and NDP members who participated ended up joining 3 Liberals in opposing it.

After the senate passed the bill, striking became illegal for these workers. It also extended their previous contract indefinitely—until they got a new collective agreement.

Negotiations went to arbitration, which eventually resulted in a new contract. However, the arbitrator, André G. Lavoie, didn’t issue it until the December 2022, 4 years after the previous one expired, and this new one would expire itself in just a year.

Which brings us to the latest strikebreaking efforts of Trudeau and his cabinet to target these same dockworkers.

After the MEA dragged their feet for several months on negotiating a new contract, yet again, the workers had enough. They issued a notice that they intended to conduct a limited strike: 72 hours at two terminals, both run by Termont Terminal, Inc.

The employer tried to get the Canadian Labour Relations Board declare the tiny strike illegal, but the CLRB refused.

After that strike produced no significant movement from MEA, the workers issued a second strike notice. They waited nearly a month for MEA to do something. This time, it was for just 24 hours.

The day after the second strike ended, the workers issued a third strike notice, and they went on strike again on Halloween, this time with no end date. However, it was directed at only the two Termont terminals again.

The employer responded the following week by threatening to lockout every worker, escalating tensions between the two parties and, like with Canada Post, pressuring the government to intervene.

This time, the Trudeau government didn’t enact back-to-work legislation, but they still interfered in the negotiations process. Like they did with postal workers this month, as I outlined above, the Liberals got the Canadian Industrial Relations Board involved.

MacKinnon directed the CIRB to force everyone back to work and to imposing binding arbitration on the workers.

This not only takes away the right of these workers to use striking to increase bargaining leverage but also robs them of their ability to negotiate their own contract.

Keep in mind that while this was going on, there was a similar work stoppage on the other side of the country.

The most recent contract for dockworkers in British Columbia expired in March 2023. After the BC Maritime Employers Association failed to negotiate a new contract (even with federal mediation) over more than a year and a half, the workers issued a 72-hour strike notice.

They had voted 96% in September to authorize strike action if needed.

Workers were set to strike starting 4 November, and like their fellow workers in Montréal, they were going to conduct only a partial strike. However, the BCMEA decided to respond by locking out all workers along the entire BC coast.

Are you sensing a theme here? Rolling strikes by postal workers and limited strikes by dockworkers, and in all 3 cases, the employers respond with system-wide lockout, crippling the country’s logistics infrastructure.

Each time, the employer forces the government to intervene, and this time was no different. MacKinnon’s directive to the CIRB was to include BC dockworker in addition to the ones in Montréal.

But we’re not done yet.

This summer, something similar happened to railworkers in Canada.

Workers employed by the Canadian National Railway Company and Canadian Pacific Kansas City had been without a contract since the end of last year.

In August, the workers, represented by the Teamsters, issued a 72-hour strike notice to both employers. And once again, the employers responded with lockout notices.

MacKinnon had the CIRB impose binding arbitration on the parties, forcing these workers, too, to accept a contract they weren’t allowed to negotiate.

The Teamsters are taking the Liberal government to court, filing a constitutional challenge with the Federal Court of Appeal.

So, if I am counting this correctly, that’s 6 times that the Trudeau government has interfered with the constitutionally guaranteed freedom to strike: twice for postal workers, twice for Montréal dockworkers, once for BC dockworkers, and once for rail workers.

Is it any wonder that employers drag their feet in negotiations, refusing to offer any significant material improvements for their workers?

The workers get frustrated then threaten to strike. The employers respond with lockout notices, shutting down the entire system. Then they complain to the media, “Look what the striking union workers have done” and beg the federal government to strike break.

There is no incentive for employers to negotiate in good faith if they know that the government will impose a contract on the worker that is far less than what the workers proposed in negotiations.

The Liberal Party of Canada is no friend to the working class.