production in its Cory potash mines<\/a> had to be reduced. <\/p>\n\u201cIf we\u2019re going to have that conversation, we have to throw everything on the table and look at what some of the really big challenges are here,\u201d said Payne.<\/p>\n
\u201cRights for working people are not something that we can trade away.\u201d<\/p>\n
She argued that larger threats to trade infrastructure are aging systems and climate-related disruptions, rather than just labour action.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter where you are in North America, particularly in the U.S. or Canada, you are going to face disputes,\u201d said Payne. \u201cWorkers have rights. They have rights in the U.S., too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anti-replacement worker law tested<\/p>\n
Payne pointed to how government policy can help strengthen collective bargaining. <\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s Bill C-58 went into effect in the summer. It bans employers in federally regulated sectors from bringing in replacement workers during labour strikes and lockouts. <\/p>\n
She said the law proved to be a success when it was tested during a lockout dispute this summer, with U.S. based shipping company DHL, which employs nearly 3,000 Canadian workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin, a matter of hours days, we had a settlement. Collective bargaining worked and that\u2019s the way it should occur,\u201d said Payne. <\/p>\n
Temporary workers and wage pressure<\/p>\n
Payne also warned employers against using the government\u2019s temporary worker program to suppress wages.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to be careful that we\u2019re looking at true labour shortages, and not wage shortages in this scenario,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Payne said the focus should be on what is needed for the economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot just listen to the employer side of this that, \u2018we need temporary workers all the time in every sector.\u2019 That\u2019s not true,\u201d said Payne. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lana Payne, national president of Unifor, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss the year’s recap for the union and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-357089","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}