Harper's pre-emptive war on labour

Thomas Walkom, Opinion, The Toronto Star:



In ordering an end to the nationwide rail strike by Canadian Pacific workers, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives appear to be following a long-standing tradition.

Canadian governments, whether Liberal or Conservative, have never let railway strikes drag on. Back-to-work legislation has been imposed on striking rail workers at least seven times since 1950.
What is dramatically new about this particular majority government, however, is the break-neck speed with which it acts. It legislates an end to strikes immediately after — and in some cases before — they begin.

It has introduced the concept of pre-emptive warfare to labour negotiations.

The CP strike began last Wednesday. Back-to-work legislation was threatened on Thursday and introduced in the Commons the following Monday.

Compare that to the way in which the Harper minority government handled a similar strike by Canadian National Railway workers in 2007.

In that case, workers were either on strike or locked out for a total of 23 days over three months before the Conservative government — with Liberal support — brought in back-to-work legislation

That same year, CP rail maintenance workers went on strike for three weeks. Yet here, the Conservative government did nothing.

“The government doesn’t introduce a law each time there is a strike,” then labour minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn explained.

By 2009, however, the Conservative approach had subtly changed. In November, the government introduced back-to-work legislation just three days into another CN strike.

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