Behaviours

In Labour Relations History Truly Repeats Itself

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Sandra Matic/Shutterstock

What is going in the world of labour relations now, and what can we learn from labour history?

Remember learning the significance of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike?

Click here if you need an LR history refresher.

The 1919 Winnipeg General Strike saw 30,000 people, including telephone operators, postal workers, police, fire fighters, cooks, and contractors take to the streets. But how relevant is this historical event to labour relations today?

In the hundred years that have passed since 1919, business has changed, employers and employment laws have changed, and employment standards have improved markedly for workers in most developed countries. If standards and laws have improved so much, why are general strikes and civil protest still happening?

In 2015, 400,000 public sector employees went on strike in Quebec. In France, a quarter of a million employees went on strike in October 2017, and 10,000 civil servants and railway staff joined forces and went on strike in April 2018.

Let’s look at the most recent strike occurring in France.

Click here to read a short article on this latest strike.

This has moved beyond a typical single employer/employee labour dispute, and is turning into a social movement. It now includes railway workers, teachers, and air traffic controllers. It has become a general strike.

The question is, why in seemingly well-developed societies, like Canada or France, have we not found a better way to resolve labour disputes than taking to the streets in protest? Is it because workers or employers are unreasonable people with unreasonable demands? If so, who determines which side is unreasonable?

Is there a better way? According to Roger Fisher and William Ury from Harvard University, there is.

Click here to read a summary of their book, Getting to Yes.

Getting to Yes talks about BATNA, an acronym coined by Fisher and Ury, which stands for the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA). Fisher and Ury emphasize that positional bargaining is not the most effective way to reach an agreement, and that it can actually do more harm than good. With positional bargaining one side must win and the other must lose. This is no way for employers and unions to treat each other in the 21st century.

Getting to Yes has been around for 40 years, yet employers and unions are still using positional bargaining. Why? Perhaps many unions and employers do not feel it meets their needs.

Does history repeat itself? It certainly seems to with Labour Relations. Where are we 100 years after the Winnipeg general strike? It looks like we’re in the very same place. Perhaps it is time to move past the adversarial model of Labour Relations. The question is, do employers and unions have the will to do that?

 

Discussion Questions:

  1. Read this summary of the concepts in Getting to Yes.
  2. Discuss why unions and management might be against using Getting to Yes principles.
  3. Can you describe specific situations where it would be more beneficial to use Getting to Yes concepts, such as interest-based bargaining, rather than traditional positional bargaining?

 

Failure to Communicate

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kenary820/Shutterstock

For personal reasons, there are certain communities that are near and dear to this blogger’s heart. The Deaf, deafened and hard-of-hearing constituencies served by the Canadian Hearing Society are in that category. So, reading about the on-going labour struggles between the union and management of this particular organization raises conflicting emotional and intellectual responses for someone who has sat on both sides of that particular table.

The Canadian Hearing Society provides services to thousands of people in Ontario who are Deaf, deafened or hard-of-hearing. It is a unique organization in that the service providers are also members of the communities that they serve. Both employees and management members use the services of the organization, such as sign-language interpreters, and are active in the promotion of consumer advocacy.

As of the writing of this blog, the employees of the Canadian Hearing Society (represented by CUPE) are on strike. They have been without a renewed collective agreement for four years and have been unable to negotiate a new agreement with their employer.

As a result of the on-going strike action the parties have now received a fair bit of media attention.

Click here to read a CBC interview about the strike.

Click here to read an update on the strike.

Among the many unfortunate things that happen in any strike is that the parties are unable to sit down together and communicate with each other. Instead, they start to ‘negotiate’ their perspectives through the media. As we see in both of these news articles, each side presents the rightness of their respective positions. Both the union and the management side have a valid rationale for explaining the position in which they find themselves. Unfortunately, this approach is not constructive. As we may experience in our own lives, the more we tell someone else about our story, the more attached we become to our own version of its events.

The same thing happens when parties start to tell their negotiations stories through the media. Instead of communicating with each other, the parties are now communicating at each other.

As a result, the parties become further and further entrenched with no resolution in sight. Until these particular parties are able to sit down and re-establish communications, it does not seem that this strike will have a successful resolution any time soon.

Discussion Questions:

  1. What are the ‘issues’ for each party causing the strike?
  2. What would your approach be to bring these parties together for resolution?
  3. How can the employer re-establish a positive public image with its community members and employees?

What’s in a Name?

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Disputes often arise from good intentions gone wrong.

Source: Paul Lemon/Shutterstock
Source: Paul Lemon/Shutterstock

In a recent case, the Prairie North Health Region (PNHR) tried to amend its practice for employees wearing name tags.   The change was to have the full name (first and last), job title, and picture of the employee on an identity badge, rather than just the employee’s first name.  As noted in the article, the purpose of implementing this change came as a result of the employer wanting to promote a patient first philosophy and to equalize the balance of power between patient and health care provider.

Click Here to Read the Article.

The union representing the workers, CUPE Local 5111, disagreed and filed a grievance in order to stop this change in practice.  The grievance, as noted in the article was based on several grounds, with the allegation of violation of employee privacy as the primary concern. The matter was not resolved internally.  As a result, the dispute went to arbitration for a final resolution imposed by a three-party panel of arbitrators.

The arbitrators’ decision fell on the side of the union.  The employer had to rescind the new policy and had to implement new cards showing only employee first names, job titles along with a photo.

Click Here to Read the Case.

As you will note, this case is extensive.  It shows the amount of critical detail, witnesses, testimony, legislative impact, evidence of past practice and presentation of other precedent setting cases required in order for this matter to be resolved through a board of arbitration.  It was definitely a costly exercise for everyone involved.

Clearly, our names and our right to protect our own personal privacy has value.

One wonders, however, how much the value of good intentions truly cost all of the parties in this case.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Who would benefit from employees wearing name tags with first and last name?
  2. Why do employees, in this case, have a ‘greater’ right to privacy than patients?
  3. What elements of this case would prevent it from being resolved within the applicable grievance resolution process?
  4. Why, do you think, a case like this would proceed to arbitration?
  5. What lessons would you take from your reading of this case?

 

Whose Job Is It Anyway?

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The Role of Human Resources in Labour Relations.

One of the trickiest elements that Human Resources professionals face is the need for clarity of the Human Resources role when working with managers in a unionized environment.  Viki Scott, of Scott & Associates, provides excellent insight into the pro-active role the Human Resources professional should play with regard to conflict management and manager management in a labour relations setting. View her interview, below.

Human Resources has a unique role in walking the tightrope between management and union representation.  While it may be difficult at times, part of this unique role allows for the benefit of accumulating organizational knowledge from each particular situation in which the Human Resources professional is involved.  When the Human Resources professional works with managers on an individual basis, she or he is able to collect an inventory of situations that may or may not have had successful resolution.  This should allow the Human Resources professional to share that accrued insight with managers on a pro-active basis.  If the Human Resources professional is able to intervene pro-actively, they should be instrumental in preventing workplace situations from escalating, due to the breakdown of workplace relationships and the escalation of unwanted employee and management behaviours.

There is a saying, that past behaviour predicts future behaviour.  By relying on what is learned from working with the behaviours of others in the past, the Human Resources professional can and should play a critical role in shaping the best of management behaviours for future success.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Why would managers benefit from coaching by the HR professional in any unionized organization?
  2. Why should HR professionals not take ownership for management roles?
  3. What impact does a negative relationship or behaviour issue have on the work environment?
  4. What is the difference between consensus bargaining and wage bargaining?
  5. Why is consensus bargaining more prevalent in this current economy?