Collective Bargaining

Let’s Make a Deal

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In the midst of all of the reporting on the pandemic crisis, there was some good news from the labour relations front. In Ontario, three of the four unions representing teachers announced that they had reached tentative collective bargaining agreements with the province.

As reported by Global News, both the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) and the Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens (AEFO) were able to negotiate revised working conditions. The Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA), representing its elementary and secondary school teachers, was able to reach a tentative agreement as noted in this news posting.

From a process perspective, once a tentative agreement is reached between the representatives of all parties, the details of the agreement must be voted on by their respective memberships in order for it to be ratified. Ratification means that the agreement is final, and the terms of the new collective agreement are in place for each of the unions and their employer. The OECTA membership announced the successful ratification of the revised terms as noted in this article. The ETFO and AEFO agreements are still pending.

Does this mean that the collective bargaining process is over?

Not yet.

In Ontario, public education for elementary and secondary schools are governed by numerous pieces of legislation. These include the Labour Relations Act, the Education Act, and the School Boards Collective Bargaining Act, 2014. Needless to say, teaching is a highly prescriptive and heavily regulated profession resulting in an occasionally complicated approach to labour relations.

Prior to the implementation of the School Boards Collective Bargaining Act, 2014, individual school boards would negotiate collective agreements with their local bargaining units, representing the teachers within their jurisdiction. As each agreement was reached, there was a tweak, or a better term negotiated, that caused a laddering effect from board to board. This resulted in inconsistent terms within agreements based on local or regional resources.

With the implementation of the School Boards Collective Bargaining Act, 2014, common items for all school boards pertaining to wages and working conditions are negotiated at the provincial level and implemented locally once ratified. As noted in the news articles, each school board will continue to negotiate with its local bargaining unit to address any outstanding issues that pertain to the local community.

At the beginning of April 2020, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF) and the province renewed their talks at the bargaining table with a changed approach. The bargaining process between these two parties was particularly hostile and aggressive, resulting in limited progress towards any agreement. As noted in this news article, what forced a change between the two parties was the impact of the pandemic crisis.

With the province abandoning its use of flaming rhetoric, the hostile environment on both sides appears to be diminished. Presently, there appears to be a more open space that will allow the parties to focus on the issues that are important, using a calm and reasonable approach, in order to achieve a mutually satisfactory settlement.

No matter if it is local or provincial, the continued need to listen in any bargaining process is critical as a means to reach a peaceful settlement in these truly turbulent times.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Browse through different websites for teacher unions in Canada. What information is posted about the collective bargaining process and the union’s role? What information is available that identifies issues for local bargaining?
  2. If you were representing the province at the bargaining table with the teacher unions, which approach would work best for you? Aggressive or conciliatory? Explain your rationale.

Job Security in the Newspaper Industry

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“No layoffs for newspaper workers.”

No, this is not an embellished headline from a tabloid. This comes from the Canadian Labour Reporter: “Winnipeg Free Press workers ratify new agreements with no layoff clause.”

Why is this so shocking to the labour relations world? It’s because no layoff clauses are very rare in any collective agreement. No employer wants to be obligated to keep employees when they have no work available. Even more shocking is the fact that this no layoff clause is in the traditional newspaper industry, which has been in significant decline (with large layoffs) since the invention of the Internet.

Unifor, the union that negotiated the no layoff clause, is claiming it as a huge win for their members. (click here to read Unifor’s news release)

Is it a true win for the union and its members? In reality, it is only a two-year deal, so the employees do get job security but only for two years, what happens after that? Who knows? In addition, in this new collective agreement there was no wage increases for the employees but the union was able to stabilize the workers’ pension and that is a big win.

This Unifor deal may not be the most lucrative collective agreement ever. However, it is a very interesting event that may have an impact on other collective bargaining negotiations in other industries. Keep posted.

Discussion Questions

Research other collective agreements to see if they have a “no layoff” clause.  Are they in the public sector or the private sector?

In future negotiations, do you see Unifor being successful in adding a “no layoff” clause with other employers in other industries?  Why or why not? Defend your argument.

Are the Teamsters the new Luddites?

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Oh, how workplace relationships have changed since the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s.

Or have they? Are the Teamsters the modern-day equivalent of the 18th century Luddites? These are very interesting questions for a Human Resources practitioner to ponder.

Granted, with the rise of unions in the 19th century, there is greater employment and safety laws in the 20th century, and greater government regulations to protect workers. Due to this, the quality of working life for the individual workers has improved greatly. But has the fundamental relationship between workers and employers really changed?

That thought brings us to current events that reinforce that the fundamental relationship between employers and employees in the 21st century is the same as the 18th century.

Here is a brief labour relations history lesson for those of you who don’t know who the Luddites were, and need a refresher about the Teamsters.

Let’s start with getting to know the Teamsters. Here is a brief background right from their website:

  • The Teamsters are America’s largest, most diverse union. In 1903, the Teamsters started as a merger of the two leading team driver associations. These drivers were the backbone of America’s robust economic growth, but they needed to organize to wrestle their fair share from greedy corporations. Today, the Union’s task is exactly the same.
  • The Teamsters have over 1.4 million union members.

Now, who are the Luddites?

The term Luddite now refers to an individual who is against the effects of technological change. To be more historically correct, the Luddites were against new technology that changed working methods that reduced jobs. In other words, they were against automation. To read a history of the Luddites, click here.

In reality, the Luddites were British craftsmen who smashed and burned the new technology of weaving machines that was taking away their highly skilled jobs. The Luddites wanted the government to ban the new weaving machines but they did not reach their objective. The government passed a law that anyone who damaged a machine would be put to death.

What are the Teamsters trying to accomplish two hundred years later? They are trying to prevent a loss of trucking jobs to drones and autonomous vehicles. Currently, the Teamsters are in collective bargaining negotiations with UPS and have placed demands on the table that UPS will not use drones or autonomous vehicle to deliver packages.  Click here to read greater details about the UPS/ Teamsters negotiations.

The Teamsters have not acted the same way as the Luddites. They have not attempted to sabotage, smash, or burn the new technology. They have been more successful than the Luddites in obtaining political action. The Teamsters have:

So, the fundamental relationship between employers and employees has not changed. Each party wants to protect their interests and increase their share of the economic pie.  Will the Teamsters be successful against the rise of new technology, unlike the Luddites?  Only time will tell, but past history is not on the Teamsters side.

Discussion Questions:

What are your thoughts – should government step in to prevent automation from taking away jobs?

Research the advancements on Artificial Intelligence (AI). What jobs are experts predicting will disappear in the next 20 years? How is HR and society as a whole going to respond to these changes?

Labour Disputes: Understanding Competing Pressures of Collective Bargaining

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Collective bargaining (CB) is the process of establishing or reviewing the conditions of employment between an employer and its unionized workforce.

On the face of it that seems to be a very simple concept. In fact, nothing is further from the truth. It is very difficult to understand and learn how to manage the collective bargaining process until you have actually experienced the process several times.

A good place to start when examining the CB process is with what happens when there is a conflict during negotiations and a new Collective Agreement (CA) between the parties cannot be reached. The resolution model for a contract dispute typically involves a union going on strike, or the employer locking out the union members. In both scenarios production stops and little or no unionized work gets done. This is exactly what happened in the GM Cami plant.

The last strike that occurred at the plant, located in Ingersoll, Ontario, was in 1992, and it lasted 5 weeks. It was what we in the labour-relations world would call a bread and butter strike. The union went on strike for better workplace relationships, wages, and benefits.

Click here for more details about the 1992 Cami GM Strike.

Let’s move forward 25 years to this current strike. Today’s Cami plant strike is not about wages, it is about saving jobs and improving job security. In 2015 the Cami Plant lost 400 jobs to Mexico.

The union is looking for GM to guarantee that the Cami Plant becomes the lead production facility of the Equinox, which would essentially mean a commitment to maintaining union jobs in Ontario. The union workers are committed to taking this stance as 99.8 percent of Cami plant workers voted to support the strike.

Click here to read more about the current Cami Strike.

This Cami plant strike is dealing with much bigger concerns than the typical bread and butter issues of employment conditions. It is really trying to address what is happening in today’s global economy, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and keeping manufacturing jobs in Canada. These are big issues that all HR professionals have to think about, whether they are working in a unionized or non-unionized industry.

 

Discussion Questions:

Discuss and critically support your position on the following statement. Does a union have a right to ask for an employer to provide job security?

Identify and discuss the concept of the triangle of pressure during collective bargaining negotiations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Failure to Communicate

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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?