The Legault government is basing its comprehensive reform of the construction industry on a “biased” study, criticizes the Quebec Provincial Council of Construction Trades (International).
• Also read: Construction reform and labor mobility: No impact on working conditions
To defend their modernization project, which will be tabled in the National Assembly on Thursday, the prime minister and his labor minister have for months touted research claiming a 10% gain in productivity would be possible if barriers between construction trades were reduced.
“It's really a survey that is oriented and [les résultats] are downright biased! says the president of the central union, Michel Trépanier. We cannot assume that it is an economic study if it is based only on an opinion survey and the sample is not representative.
The study, commissioned by the Quebec Construction Association, was conducted with 112 contractors. It concludes that commercial sprawl has a negative impact on labor efficiency in industry, as do regulations that force large metropolitan companies to hire local workers if they win contracts outside major centers.
Inter had the study analyzed by independent economists. They judge that “the conclusions are based on a highly biased survey without any representativeness or statistical value.”
The CAQ has the same speech as the bosses
The fact that the government and the bosses are giving an identical speech makes the president of Inter fear the worst.
“I fear that the entrepreneurs will get exactly what they wanted,” claims Michel Trépanier. “We have the opportunity to improve our industry, but we seem to be obsessed with employer demands and our obsession with productivity compared to Ontario.”
He assures that the unions are still open to modernizing the industry. Of course everyone wants to build faster. But we also have to ensure that we do better and at the same time improve the working environment of employees and their retention, argues the trade unionist.
“These are all elements that unfortunately I have not heard from the government.”
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