Quebec union leaders slam proposed labour law ahead of parliamentary hearings

Union leaders from sectors across the province gathered in Quebec City on Sunday to decry a new bill they say could severely limit how unions are allowed to use dues collected from their members.

Quebec Labour Minister Jean Boulet tabled the bill, which proposes dividing union dues into mandatory and optional ones.

Under the proposed law, any activities deemed to be outside of a union's primary mission wouldn't be eligible for financing via mandatory fees, but through optional ones only. Optional dues would also have to be approved through a majority vote before they could be collected.

"Jean Boulet is declaring war on labour unions. He's going to create chaos like never before," said Patrick Gloutney, the president of the Quebec branch of Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents roughly 143,000 workers in the province.

The union is one of more than 30 represented under the Féderation des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec, which hosted the press conference at a convention centre ahead of a congress set to kick off there Monday.

The federation representing more than 600,000 workers is also among several expected to take part in parliamentary hearings beginning this Tuesday over the bill, one it described as a "frontal attack on the rights of workers."

Magali Picard, the president of the federation, said Boulet is well aware of the administrative nightmare the law will provoke for unions should it be adopted.

"Do you think the labour minister, who's been there for the last seven years, doesn't understand our (union dues) structures? I think he knows them very well. The message is clear, he's trying to muzzle us," she said.

Boulet tabled Bill 3 at the end of October in the aims of increasing transparency between unions and their members.

"We want to give workers more reliable access to information, because obviously they pay dues and they want to know, they need to know, how those dues are being used," Boulet told reporters on Oct 30.

Under the proposed law, any activities not directly related to negotiating, the application of collective agreements, working conditions or a union's "rights and obligations in the normal course of its activities," would be barred from being financed through mandatory members dues.

"Everything peripheral to that becomes optional," Boulet also told reporters upon tabling the bill.

According to the bill, any activities related to the launching of legal challenges over the constitutionality or validity of laws, the running ad campaigns, or a union's participation in social movements would all fall under the optional due model.

Renaud Plant, among the leadership at Unifor's Quebec chapter, called the proposed structure an "administrative quaternary designed to eliminate us."