OPSEU/SEFPO condemns the Carney government’s recent introduction of Bill C-39, an omnibus bill that includes proposed changes to Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code.
OPSEU/SEFPO will stand in solidarity with any workers who decide to defy these changes, which would give the federal government more powers to end a legal strike if they deem it to be against the national interest.
While the Carney government has said that proposed changes will put ‘guardrails’ around Section 107, no amount of rhetoric will change what is, at its core, a weakening of workers’ rights.
We only need to look at their track record to see the writing on the wall. Since 2024, the Liberal government has used Section 107 with increasing regularity, invoking it at least eight times over the past two years.
As a union representing more than 200,000 workers, we will not stand by and watch the Carney government undermine Canadian workers and signal to provincial governments that workers’ rights are up for grabs. We will not watch this government threaten good union jobs in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis while the richest Canadians continue to get richer.
At a time when our government is trying unravel decades of hard-fought gains, we will not back down. We will not only fight back but we will demand more. In the past, the labour movement defeated similar legislation in Ontario through organizing and solidarity. Once again, in solidarity, we are ready to fight Bill C-39.
The right to strike is essential to workers’ rights. It is our last line of defence when many attempts at negotiations have broken down and when the employer refuses to provide safe and healthy working conditions. Intervening in strikes, near-strikes and lockouts, as this government has continued to do, is an attack on workers. With Bill C-39, the Carney government is now seeking to normalize behaviour that should never have occurred at all.
If this government is serious about strengthening Canada’s economy, it must ensure the protection of the workers who drive the economy with tremendous skill and diligence. It must ensure that they are empowered to do their work under safe conditions, and this requires strengthening—not weakening—workers’ rights. Today and always, OPSEU/SEFPO stands in solidarity all who recognize that Canada’s future will be built, not with guardrails, but with and by unionized workers. Solidarity!