Droits de la personne, relations du travail et défis pour les syndicats contemporains

Abstract

Les chartes des droits de la personne, les lois protégeant ces mêmes droits et la jurisprudence qu’elles engendrent provoquent des bouleversements dans les milieux de travail régis par le droit des rapports collectifs de travail et dans les règles de fonctionnement syndical. Les cas des femmes intégrant des secteurs d’emploi non traditionnellement féminins par le truchement des programmes d’accès à l’égalité et des associations regroupant les syndiqués contestant les effets des clauses de disparité de traitement sont ici utilisés pour illustrer la profondeur du choc entre les nouvelles règles fondées sur l’équité qu’introduisent les droits de la personne et les règles de l’égalité formelle entre syndiqués qui ont traditionnellement régi le fonctionnement syndical.Since the 1980s, and especially since the 1990s, European and North American researchers have been examining what is referred to as a “crisis” in the labour movement. This “crisis” contrasts with the unity and representative power that seemed to characterize organized labour up until the late 1970s. Local trade unions and union confederations seem to be having more and more difficulty recognizing and aggregating common interests.This situation is closely linked to the emergence of new factors contributing to the segmentation of labour, which in turn may have the effect of segmenting unionized workers. Some of the sources of segmentation stem from human resource management decisions: promoting flexibility, increasing the number of atypical workers, introducing variable forms of compensation, and the consequent disparities in status and pay. Other sources of segmentation originate in the workers themselves or are appropriated and promoted by them.Under human rights charters and the case law that results from them, some categories of workers or target groups demonstrate specific interests that are distinct from those of the larger group of unionized workers to which they belong, sometimes to the point of contesting what are regarded as important gains for the union or certain union choices based on majority votes. Two relevant target groups are women hired through affirmative action programs and employees paid according to two-tier wage systems, known as “orphan clauses” in Québec.This article attempts to show how the demands made by these two target groups are sometimes so distinct from those of the majority in the local union that they affect solidarity and lead to conflicts. These cases raise important questions because they challenge a major political assumption in a unionized setting: that of the formal equality of all union members and the corollary duty of treating them all in the same way and, specifically, of giving them the same weight in collective decision making. Indeed, the demands made by these target groups call into question the whole concept of union democracy, based as it is on the primacy of a majority vote in union meetings.The charters, on the other hand, incorporate a line of reasoning and promote an approach based on equity with resp...

Le mouvement syndical québécois face à la constitutionnalisation du droit du travail : naviguer en eau trouble… Des précaires chez les protégés!

“…Pour le dire autrement, la transformation du marché du travail introduit dans les milieux de travail, une disparité de traitement, tant par la création de statut d'emploi atypique que par la difficile intégration des nouveaux travailleurs. À l'instar de Legault (2005Legault ( et 2006, nous avons constaté qu'en regard des disparités de traitement, les différentes stratégies déployées se traduisent par une ligne de rupture entre les intérêts des anciens travailleurs (les permanents) et ceux des employés lésés (les occasionnels). Cette incompatibilité peut causer des fractures dans la solidarité syndicale, en sachant que « la division du collectif syndiqué multiplie les situations de conflits intra-organisationnels et intergénérationnels dans les milieux syndiqués, en plus d'entraîner une segmentation des rapports sociaux » (Legault : 2005 : 699 Afin de corriger la situation, une partie de la solution repose manifestement sur une certaine volonté politique.…”

Too Bad, You Were Too Late Coming In!

“…Legislators, as we have formerly said, recognize that it is sometimes necessary to treat the members of certain groups differently, for instance to temporarily give preferential treatment, until a situation of equality of results (for instance, in representation) has been established. Preferential treatment in a unionized environment may extend, for example, to temporarily suspending seniority as the basis upon which to award promotions, training opportunities and the like, if it is shown that seniority-based decisions produce systemic discriminatory effects (Killenbeck 1999;Koggel 1994;Legault 2005;Lepofsky 1995;MacLeod 1994).…”

“…One of these rules, the majority rule, allows for many union decisions that can be damaging to some particular members' interests, as long as the vote is handled in accordance with the rules in a democratic, general meeting, and these decisions respect the laws. Traditionally, labour courts have granted union executives a great freedom of manoeuvre in negotiating matters, since collective agreements are said to be "the parties' law" (Legault et al 2007;Legault 2005). But since the existence of the charter of rights, under the equity principle, union executives are also required to avoid discrimination and, if needed, treat individuals from different groups differently in order to give them equal chances of arriving at the finish line.…”

“…Also contributing to this challenge is that newly hired workers may share interests with women in traditionally male job categories, immigrants, persons with disabilities, the gay community, etc., in that they all may feel that they have been denied representation in traditional political decision making processes that are based on majority vote. They also have in common the fact that they are currently demanding (and I am exaggerating only slightly here) a new type of "union citizenship" for marginal workers such as women (in what are non-traditionally female job categories), young people, victims of two-tiered wage scales, immigrants, persons with disabilities, and so forth (Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse du Québec, 1990Québec, , 1998Coutu 2000;Legault 2005;Lepage 1989;Liggett 1987;Bich 1999;Collectif 1999).…”

Theoretical Issues with New Actors and Emergent Modes of Labour Regulation

“…Since the 2000s, authors like Kochan (2000), , Edwards (2005) and the ones gathered in the BJIR (2006), have promoted the inclusion of the study of the relations of IR system actors with local communities and national and international social movements, which in our view means that it is necessary to take into account the fluctuating boundaries of IR systems instead of promoting static analytical models. In Québec, there have been cases of intra-union interest groups fighting for equity and the respect of fundamental labour rights in relation to gender or age in collective agreements negotiated by their unions (Brunelle, 2002;Legault, 2005a In the North American tradition of industrial relations, the main way to approach this kind of situation was through the intra-party attitudinal structuration in the theory of collective bargaining (for example, Walton, McKersie 1995). Yet, in the latter cases, we have to account for the fact that some groups in a unionized context rely on the support of extra-unions organizations (in these cases, feminist and human rights groups) to defend their cause at work, bringing non-union actors in the field and, moreover, bringing judicial authorities other than labour judicial bodies in the field.…”