Higgs government proposes changes that would allow essential workers to be replaced during a strike

New Brunswick’s Progressive Conservative government is proposing stricter rules around strikes and lockouts by essential workers in the public sector, including a change that would allow unionized workers to be replaced during a strike.

The government says the amendments to the Public Service Labour Relations Act are intended to ensure essential services are still available during labour disputes, and would clarify the rules of engagement between the employer and bargaining agents during the collective bargaining process.

But Stephen Drost, president of the New Brunswick branch of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, says the proposed changes are concerning.

"Instead of trying to improve relations with the workers of this province it looks like the government is looking for a strike,” said Drost.

Trevor Holder, New Brunswick’s minister of post-secondary education, training and labour, says the current act is “outdated and ineffective.”

“These changes, which align with what we have already implemented with the Industrial Relations Act and the Essential Services in Nursing Homes Act, are intended to promote balance by ensuring bargaining units can continue to take action during a labour dispute while essential services are maintained,” Holder said in a government news release.

The amendments would:

• require strike votes to expire after one year
• require 72-hour notice for strike action and 24-hour notice before a lockout
• allow picketing for striking workers
• allow changes to designation levels later in the bargaining process
• allow designated essential workers who don’t show up to work during a labour dispute to be replaced
• allow changes to the work schedules of essential workers during a strike or lockout
• update what an arbitrator must consider during the binding arbitration process

“The Public Service Labour Relations Act regulates the organization, classification and unionization of the work in Parts I, II, III and IV of the public service as well as the collective bargaining process between the employer, employees and their bargaining agents,” government said in the release.

The act was last updated 12 years ago when, as a result of a court decision, collective bargaining rights were extended to casual workers who have less than six months of service.