Groupe Guilbault trucks are stopped for inspection by road controllers an average of 15 times per month. On Tuesday alone, 24 Guilbault trucks were stopped by Quebec enforcement officers who are negotiating a collective agreement renewal. But this could just be a coincidence, according to the Brotherhood of Road Controllers of Quebec .
Traffic controllers also stopped 72 Groupe Robert trucks last Tuesday alone. And checks targeting major carriers were continuing Wednesday, when we spoke to Éric Gignac, CEO of Groupe Guilbault.
“That’s 24 interceptions that cost us about 20 minutes each time. I have a driver who was intercepted three times in 24 hours. And we didn’t have any infractions,” Gignac told Transport Routier.
Reports that major fleets were being targeted by enforcement began to leak earlier this week.
“There is no escalation, there are no real means of pressure,” Jean-Claude Daignault, president of the Brotherhood of Road Control Constables of Quebec, claimed to the Journal de Montréal .
Such a strategy would potentially disrupt the largest carriers so they would alert government authorities, bringing attention to the union’s plight.
“They knew very well that by targeting the large carriers, we would talk about it, that the message would reach higher up the ladder and that it would bring the parties back to the negotiating table,” said Gignac in an interview with Transport Routier .
The collective agreement for Quebec enforcement officers expired two years ago.
Carriers who preferred to speak anonymously for fear of reprisals denounced this pressure tactic, calling it unacceptable and likely to call into question the support that the industry provides to the enforcement workers. These interventions have the effect of causing delays for customers and frustrating drivers.
“If they wanted to be heard by the government, they could have chosen other, equally effective means,” one carrier said, “for example, no longer issuing infractions unless they were major and targeting Hydro-Québec vehicles.”
A joint formal notice, obtained by Transport Routier, was sent to Contrôle routier Québec (CRQ) on behalf of Groupe Guilbault and Groupe Robert. It says the two companies were informed that, among the pressure tactics used by members of the Fraternité des constables de Contrôle routier Québec, they were going to target some of the largest carriers in Quebec. The formal notice demanded that these pressure tactics cease immediately.
The CEO of the Quebec Trucking Association , Marc Cadieux, is sorry to see CRQ “use an industry as an instrument to advance labor relations and disputes that have existed for several years between the government and the Brotherhood.”
“The Association and CRQ, together with the Fraternity, have maintained harmonious relations for quite some time, which has allowed them to give full value and a recognized image to their employment body,” continued Cadieux, admitting that he is extremely disappointed to see “that a good part of this reputational work has been tarnished by an action like this.”
