The Minister of Labor, Jean Boulet, prefers to speak of “reform” or “modernization” rather than “revolution”. The fact remains that this winter he will undertake, in his own words, “the most important revision” of the Act respecting labor relations, vocational training and workforce management in the construction industry. The union and employer associations are on a war footing.
Mr. Boulet will soon table a bill which will “help [a] » the construction industry to “better respond to the needs of Quebecers”, starting with those hard at work in the energy sector and the battery sector, he indicated a few days before the resumption of work in The national assembly.
“What interests me a lot is that we reduce construction times, that we lower costs and that we have a better connection between Quebec’s capacity to build and the immense needs […] : it’s the early childhood centers, it’s the homes, it’s the housing, the hospitals, the schools…”, he argued in a press scrum.
Mr. Boulet also wants to “ensure that major industrial projects come to fruition in devitalized regions” experiencing a labor shortage. “You know, with the battery sector, the energy sector, there are labor needs. So the bill will focus on this reality,” he noted, hammering out key words like “versatility”, “flexibility” and “mobility”.
Mr. Boulet points to a productivity gap of 9% between Quebec and the rest of Canada (to the disadvantage of Quebec), and of 11.6% between Quebec and Ontario, which “must be filled”.
” Task sharing “
To achieve this, it intends in particular to encourage “a certain sharing of tasks” between some of the workers in the 25 construction trades listed in the law – tinsmiths, refrigeration engineers, carpenters, plasterers, painters, tilers, etc. —, which will not be done by shouting scissors.
Moreover, he invites union and employer associations to participate in the consultation on his bill, which he already describes, even before having tabled it in the National Assembly, as “perfectible”.
“There is no question of affecting working conditions,” repeated Mr. Boulet, before adding: “I think we need to review the work organization in particular, take an interest in access to new people. »
Women, immigrants, indigenous people or people with disabilities, as well as visible minorities are “underrepresented” on construction sites, he insists. “We must allow the carpenter who arrives from Ukraine or the painter who arrives from Colombia to come and work in construction and have their skills, experience and training recognized. It is through a legislative change that we do this,” he explained.
Could his bill contain “quotas” to increase the presence of women on construction sites? They currently constitute 3.65% of construction workers. “I won’t go into details of that nature,” Mr. Boulet simply replied on the sidelines of the pre-sessional caucus of elected officials from the Coalition Avenir Québec in Sherbrooke.