From 2014 to 2020, the mediation-conciliation services of the Ministry of Labor have reduced the number of work stoppages in Quebec by 11.7%.
It is thus 1524 interventions in mediation-conciliation which made it possible to avoid several strikes or lockouts, during this period, concludes a compilation made by the Ministry of Labor for this period.
The study calculated that every dollar spent on mediation-conciliation helped save an average of $28.32 from 2014 to 2020.
Labor disputes generate direct costs, in terms of lost wages for the workers affected and lost profits for the employers, as well as indirect costs, for the suppliers of the companies affected, for example.
“Intervention in mediation-conciliation plays an important role not only in reducing the number of work stoppages and their duration, but also in managing new causes of conflict”, emphasizes the report entitled “Measurement of the effects of work stoppages and mediation-conciliation activities on the Quebec economy”.
The cost of work stoppages
It also points out that the number of work stoppages has decreased significantly in Quebec over the past 40 years, but “their costs are still high for Quebec”.
During the period studied, work stoppages caused a loss of 2.9 million person-days, or the number of days of a work stoppage multiplied by the number of employees affected by this work stoppage.
The study highlights that nearly 561,802 workers were directly and indirectly affected by these work stoppages.
And work stoppages during this period cost Quebec $901.4 million, or approximately $607.5 million in direct costs and $293.9 million in indirect costs.
The highest costs come from work stoppages in the tertiary sector, which represent 64.1% of total costs.