The Seafarers’ International Union of Canada (SIU Canada) strongly condemns the recommendations contained within a Senate Committee report ‘Keep Canada Moving: Labour, Management and Supply Chain in the Rail and Maritime Sectors’. The report represents yet another blatant attack on the rights of Canadian workers and the principles of free and fair collective bargaining. There is an increasingly alarming pattern of government interference in labour relations in this country, all despite the fact that the International Court of Justice recently ruled that the right to strike is protected under international law.
A particularly concerning aspect of the report, published by the Senate Committee on Transport and Communications, is its explicit focus on the marine and rail sectors, calling for new mechanisms that would effectively strip Canadian seafarers and other transportation workers of their Charter-protected right to strike. The message being sent by the government is clear and deeply disturbing: fundamental rights are no longer fundamental. If a constitutional freedom can be taken away whenever those in power find it inconvenient, then it was never truly a right to begin with. The SIU Canada rejects this dangerous line of thinking and will stand shoulder to shoulder with workers across the country in opposing any attempt to erode the freedoms that generations of Canadians fought to win.
Suggesting that the answer to labour disputes is to weaken workers’ bargaining power and impose government-controlled outcomes represents a dangerous approach that threatens the basis of collective bargaining in this country. The right to strike is not an inconvenience to be managed away whenever powerful interests demand uninterrupted service. It is a fundamental democratic right and an essential safeguard against the imbalance of power that exists between employers and workers. Undermining that right does not create stability, it creates resentment, prolongs disputes, and weakens confidence in the bargaining process itself.
“The Senate Committee on Transport should be ashamed of this disgraceful report, which reads more like a wish list from big business than the work of an independent committee. Once again, unelected senators have chosen to be champions of their big-business allies at the expense of working Canadians and undermine the balance that exists between workers and employers. It is a shameful abuse of their position and Canadians should be outraged,” stated Chris Given, President, SIU Canada.
It is particularly troubling that these recommendations come at a time when the Government of Canada is stressing the importance of strengthening Canada’s economic sovereignty, supply chains, and national resilience. Those objectives cannot be achieved by attacking the very workers whose skill, experience and dedication make the success of those supply chains possible.
By singling out the marine sector, the Senate Committee has placed a target on the backs of Canadian seafarers. SIU Canada will oppose any attempt to suppress the rights of maritime workers whose constitutional rights cannot just be discarded in the name of convenience.
Canada’s supply chains are strengthened when workers are respected, not when their rights are sacrificed. Any effort to weaken collective bargaining or diminish the Charter rights of Canadian seafarers will be met with the strongest possible opposition from SIU Canada.
