The Impact of Legislative Framework on Unionization Rates for Temporary Workers in Quebec and in France

The temporary placement industry has seen remarkable growth both in France and in Quebec over the past few decades. Interim workers hired by temporary work agencies to provide work services within end user businesses have seen an increase in their ranks over the past twenty years. However, if French and Quebec interim workers work within totally different legal systems, they nevertheless have one trait in common: these workers are not significantly unionized within the temporary work agencies.Our hypothesis is that this situation is the result of characteristics which are inherent to interim work and which make the union mobilization and organization of this category of worker difficult; these workers are scattered throughout many end user businesses. In order to verify the accuracy of this hypothesis, we will present an overview of this industry for the two countries, describe the legal frameworks which govern interim work, study certain characteristics of collective representation schemes, and will analyse the conditions under which the unionism of interim workers in Quebec and in France takes place. If the characteristics inherent to interim work make it effectively difficult to mobilize and unionize this type or worker, the very low level of union presence within the industry is a result of certain features specific to each of the two countries. In Quebec, the lack of unionization within temporary placement agencies is primarily the result of legal considerations, which reveal the inherent limitations of the collective representation already in place, whereas in France, the very low level of unionization can be explained by many factors which are not obviously legal in nature.Even though the interim industry is clearly more developed in France than in Quebec, there are wide spread similarities in this industry’s key features within the two countries. In both cases, one can find the same main industry players in the placement worker industry, who hire a major pool of young workers, mostly male, to carry out duties normally requiring few qualifications. The industry is thriving because it allows end-user industries to gain major savings in labour costs because they incur no selection, training or recruitment costs for their personnel, do not pay any indemnities in case of lay-offs and do not need to pay higher wages for workers as they gain seniority.As far as a regulatory framework for the industry is concerned, France has been quite interventionist in bringing in legislation since the beginning of the 1970s in order to attempt to limit the growth of the interim employment industry. If France has clearly failed on this account, it has nonetheless been able to put into place a legal framework so as to support and control industrial practices and to protect interim workers from abusive practices to which they might otherwise fall victim. In Quebec, legislators have neglected to implement the various recommendations which have been suggested by the many experts who have studied the question. As a result, the relative uncertainty as to the true employer of interim workers continues, and this category of worker rarely enjoys the same benefits as do regular salaried workers at end user companies.The collective representation programs in place in Quebec and in France are completely different from one other. France’s system, unlike Quebec’s, is highly centralized, and is based on union pluralism, and does not allow for payroll union dues contributions or for the negotiation of mandatory union membership clauses. The French collective system applies to all paid workers in a specific area of the economy, or a profession, whether they are unionized or not. French legislation contains original wording making it possible to adapt the collective representation scheme to the specific situations of interim workers. On the other hand, in Quebec, the unionization of interim workers within temporary work businesses is practically impossible because there are too many major legal obstacles linked to with the particular characteristics of the collective representation agreement.However, even though Quebec is the most unionized region in North America with a unionization rate of 41.4% in 2003, there was no accreditation in Quebec for a “temporary work agency” or a “placement agency.” This situation can be explained, in particular, by the fact that the courts generally consider the end user enterprises as the true employers of interim workers as far as the “Labour Code” is concerned, and also because of the inherent difficulty in setting up an appropriate bargaining unit because the employees are scattered among many user businesses.In France, only 2.5% of interim workers are unionized. The reasons for this very low degree of union presence in the temp placement industry are very different than in Quebec. In fact, temporary workers do not run into any legal obstacles when they wish to unionize within temporary businesses, and they have little to gain from unionization in terms of improvement in working conditions since nine out of ten benefit from “branch agreements” negotiated by major unions. This low rate of unionization is the result of a combination of several factors. Firstly, the central features of interim employment make unionization and mobilization difficult and cumbersome. Secondly, unions in France are historically absent from SMBs, to the extent that it is difficult for them to make inroads into these new workspaces in the absence of their traditional militant base. In the end, one can wonder if the deep and generalized unionization crisis in France is not one of the main reasons which might help to explain the very low level of French unionism in this field.In order to become established in the interim sector, Quebec union organizations must definitely mobilize to make the necessary demands to the government so as to make the proper legislative changes since the current laws in Quebec are totally unadapted to the reality of this type of salaried workers. On the other side of the Atlantic, if French unions wish to increase significantly their membership, especially in the interim sector, they must try to improve their image, rethink their practices, become closer to workers, and adapt their collective action to the new realities of the workplace.

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