It started with, well, taste. On the shelves of your local branch of the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ) colored tablets appeared, like those informing you that a particular nectar is lively, fruity or delicate. These new stickers carried another message: “health and safety at work”. Or “valuation of our jobs”.
Then the union posters spread. Stickers have appeared on the exterior windows of stores and on the glass doors of refrigerators, to the point that, in my branch, you have to tilt your head to walk around them and read the price or sugar content of the cold wines on sale. I found it astonishing that, from one week to the next, the number of stickers never declined. Obviously, no one was responsible for removing them. For what ?
I asked for it at the SAQ. She replied to me: “The freedom of expression of unions and their members allows them to exert pressure on the employer, including posters. Obviously, no violent or defamatory messages are accepted and the display of stickers or posters must not endanger the safety of our employees and our customers. »
It’s strange, because the Criminal Code is quite clear: “Whoever commits mischief voluntarily, as the case may be: a) destroys or damages property; (b) renders property dangerous, useless, inoperative or ineffective. » The guilty party is liable to a maximum fine of $5,000 or two years in prison. We are therefore in the presence of a misdeed committed or encouraged in complete transparency by a union organization, with the authorization of a state corporation. It’s not as if the union doesn’t have other ways to make its fight known to customers. Nothing prevents him from picketing or distributing leaflets. I would happily welcome a poster explaining their demands on a bulletin board at the entrance.
It happens that employers who are less tolerant (careless?) than the SAQ file grievances when they discover their premises or vehicles transformed into sticker racks. At the end of the collective agreement negotiation, in the return to work protocol, the bosses generally withdraw these grievances. Then, employees are tasked with removing the display or an outside company is hired to do so.
The Police Department of the City of Montreal went as far as the arbitration court in 2016 to force the Brotherhood of Police Officers to stop putting stickers on buildings and police cars, which sometimes hid the registration or other information — and, in the worst case, almost the entire vehicle. The union consistently maintains that this is part of its right of expression. In this case, the argument is all the more valid as police officers do not have the right to strike. So they have to find other ways to be disruptive. The arbitrator considered that “even if I am in the presence of an activity calling into question freedom of expression, this can be limited given its criminal nature”.
Refusal to wear a uniform during a conflict is of another order, he writes, because it “does not result in damage to the employer’s property.” But for the stickers, he ordered the Fraternity to reimburse the cleaning costs and to cease its practice. It has happened that an arbitrator has accepted the wearing of a sticker on the work helmet if the employee is not in contact with customers. In January, regarding the stickers generously placed on Urgences-santé ambulances, the court ruled that one could not put too many. While waiting to render a decision on the merits of the question, he authorized eight by ambulance. Mischief is therefore permitted, but in moderation.
I do not hide my bias in favor of union causes, but you also know that I am quite attached to the meaning of the State and its neutrality. I am struck that the legal debate is only concerned with union rights of expression and employers’ property rights. And U.S ? “The citizen has an interest in ensuring that government properties are administered and operated in a manner consistent with their intended purpose,” wrote the arbitrator in the police officers’ case. Yes, there is interest. But doesn’t he have the right to do so?
On the question of display, but especially religious ones, the European Court of Justice very judiciously rules in favor of the citizen’s rights. In its guide to the European Convention on Human Rights, it explains that the State’s desire to guarantee strict neutrality is a legitimate aim “in order to preserve the rights and interests of users of public services”, which are , they, “the recipients of the requirement of neutrality imposed on agents”. (She believes that this is even more true for patients: “especially when the agent in question is in contact with patients, it is legitimate to demand that the agent not mention his religious beliefs in the “exercise of its functions to guarantee equal treatment of patients”, because it is necessary to ensure that “patients cannot doubt their impartiality”.)
It seems to me that the time has come to ensure that the rights of the user and the citizen prevail, also in Quebec. The other day, at the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec, I had the choice of speaking to either an employee wearing a union cap or an employee wearing a hijab. They each sent me a perfectly assumed message. Did I have the right, in my interaction with them, to display my own beliefs and calmly let them know that I was opposed to union or religious practices? I concluded no, since it would delay service. It fell to me, the citizen, to bear the burden of neutrality.
I held back and remained neutral. I could always, I told myself, write a column.