The Commission des Transports du Quebec said a ruling earlier this month that allows union-affiliated associations to represent owner-operators on a key industry-government working group is being misrepresented
by the media and misinterpreted by truckers in the province.
The CTQ said its decision simply recognizes that professional associations managed by three labor unions, the Syndicats des Metallos/Cooperative des Camionneurs, the Centrale des Syndicats Democratique, and the Confederation des Syndicats Nationaux, have met membership targets that allow them to represent owner-operators on the Forum des Intervenants de l'Industrie du Camionnage General.
The ruling, issued Dec. 7, does not require owner-operators registered with the CTQ to join the unions that manage the associations, the commission said.
The Forum was established by the province last year. It was created in part to outline the parameters of a formal business contract between trucking companies and owner-operators.
The associations were required to collectively have 50%-plus-one of the province's owner-operators as members. The associations won by the thinnest of margins: out of the 5237 owner-operators registered with the CTQ, the total represented by the three groups is 50.9%. Each must represent at least 10% of owner-operators on the CTQ's list.
According to the new law, owner-operators not currently associated with any one of the groups will have to select and join one or risk losing their operating authority with the CTQ.
The CTQ will accept appeals of its decision until Jan. 7 and said it will make no further comment on the matter until then.
In an interview with Transport Routier last summer, Forum president Paul-Émile Thellend stated that the associations "have no authority to unionize their members."
Quebec law bars independent contractors from bargaining collectively. However, many owner-operators who operate outside Quebec are federally regulated.