Leverage

Why Should Canada Post Employees Strike?

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Canada Post is in the news again.  The crown corporation is facing the potential of another labour disruption by its postal workers. Over the past 50 years, Canada Post has experienced approximately 20 work stoppages (strike or lockout) with the last action ending in arbitrated back-to-work legislation in 2011.  Due to this troubled labour history and the impact of the disruption of services to Canadians, the corporation has been declared an essential service. This means that the federal government can, once again, enact legislation that forces postal workers back to their jobs if there is a strike.

Global News provides us with a summary of the issues facing Canada Post and its workers at the bargaining table.

Forcing unionized employees back to work when they are exercising their reasonable and legitimate rights, is not something that governments implement lightly. Declaring Canada Post an essential service came as a result of the significant and direct financial impact on Canadians when the mail was not being delivered. In the not too distant past, thousands of Canadians were reliant on supplemental or basic incomes in the form of paper cheques which were issued by the federal government. When the mail was not being delivered, low-income and senior Canadians did not receive these cheques or the funds they needed in order to survive. While current technology has allowed for direct deposits and online banking, not all Canadians have access to these resources. In the event of a strike by postal workers, some Canadians may continue to be at risk, which may result in a repeat of back-to-work legislation in order to protect vulnerable Canadians.

Having said all of this, the impact of technology has also changed how Canadians use the services of Canada Post. Most Canadians do use electronic options such as e-mail and social media to order to communicate and share information.  The days of buying stamps in order to post a letter writing are dwindling quickly. Further, there are numerous delivery services available to Canadian consumers as alternatives to Canada Post, such as Fedex, Purolator, or UPS.

Why then would postal workers choose to go on strike in the face of legislative restrictions and an ever-decreasing amount of consumer demand?  As noted in the article, a strike vote does not necessarily mean that there will be a strike. A strike vote does send a clear message to the employer that the workers are serious about their demands and that they are willing to take the risks that come from the potential of strike action. Hopefully, both parties will see the benefit of continuing their discussions at the bargaining table rather than fighting it out through the picket line.

Time will tell how this particular set of negotiations works its way through to a successful conclusion.

In the meantime, it may be a good idea to check the mail, just in case.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How would a strike by Canada Post impact you as a customer?
  2. If you were negotiating for the union, what leverage do you have at the bargaining table and how would you use it?
  3. If you were negotiating for the employer, how far would you go to avoid strike action? What items would you offer to the Union in order to settle this contract?

Striking A Balance

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Ilin Sergey / Shutterstock

As we have learned in our industrial relations studies, taking strike action is a decision made by the members of a bargaining unit in order to send a very strong message to the employer. This message is usually clear about the lack of progress at, or acceptance of proposals from the negotiating table. Taking strike action is not something that unions do lightly. It is a strong tactic, used for leverage in order to influence the employer to do better at the table. The message is simple and clear, the employees will not work until the issues that are unresolved through the bargaining process are settled and a new contract is proposed between the parties.

The power of a strike lies in the lack of employee labour, which means that the employer’s levels of production would be impacted in a negative way. No work should mean no production and no output.

What happens, however, when the union goes on strike and the work continues? This scenario is playing out with the ground crew workers who work at Toronto Pearson International Airport. These workers are employees of Swissport. They are represented by the Teamster’s union (Local 419) and they went on strike in late July. The work, however, is continuing.

The duties that are usually done by ground crew workers are now being done by management or supervisory staff which has raised the risk of safety issues, specifically linked to the duties of load controllers.

Click here to read the article on load controllers.

As noted in the article, the few supervisors who have taken on the duties of specialized load controllers are working around the clock to ensure that customer flights are not impacted negatively. This arrangement, however, raises some significant risk concerns not only for the safety of airline crew and passengers, but also for the supervisors who have taken on multiple additional workloads. The leverage played out in this scenario does not seem to be enough to cause the employer to amend its position at the bargaining table. One wonders, however, how much of a risk the employer is willing to take before safe airline travel comes to an unfortunate stop?

Discussion Questions:

  1. The article describes supervisors taking over the duties of specialized workers during this strike. From a Human Resources perspective, what types of employment-related concerns does this raise?
  2. In your opinion, how much of a risk would you be willing to take in order to keep airplanes and the paying customer moving?
  3. What issues need to be settled in order for this dispute to be resolved?

Organizing Change at Walmart

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One large, red sphere weighs one end of a gray balance beam down
Mark Carrel/Shutterstock

Walmart is a well-known discount retailer with stores across Canada and around the world.

Walmart is also well known for its long history of opposition to unionization within its employee population. There have been a few attempts to unionize Walmart stores in Canada, most notably in Quebec and Saskatchewan. These attempts have not been successful to date, and have resulted in a continued commitment by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada (UFCW Canada) to try to have Walmart employees represented by their union.

UFCW Canada is affiliated with UFCW International, which is one of North America’s largest private sector unions with over 1.3 million members. Even with these significant numbers, the union has not been able to breach the Walmart fortress of resistance to unionization in Canada, across North America, or at an international level.

Does the absence of unionization mean that the employee workforce is content?

Apparently not.

Continued media reports chronicle the dissatisfaction of Walmart workers in relation to their wages and working conditions. In the absence of a formal union, some employees have formed an ‘association’ called OUR Walmart (Organization United for Respect) at Walmart in an attempt to continue the fight for changes to working conditions.  However, this association, while backed by the UFCW, is not a formal union, and as such, does not have the ability to represent the workers through the power of a collective bargaining process. It does, however, provide the opportunity to exercise more power for employees by expanding these associations across the global Walmart chain.

Recently, the American component of OUR Walmart was able to join with its Chinese counterpart in an attempt to increase its power base. The American and Chinese workers wanted to impose a coordinated ‘strike’ action at an international level on the retailer in order to stop a scheduling system change.

Click here to see a clip on OUR Walmart’s progress at an international level.

As we note in this clip, the expansion of the collective voice through the power of association is a critical element in an attempt to force the employer to change its practices. However, the clip also identifies the key weaknesses of a non-unionized employee association. This weakness is the lack of real, legal status and power.

Without the protection of a formal union, employees at Walmart have no legitimate power that is provided by the legal parameters of the right to association and to bargain collectively. Walmart, as an employer, is under no legal obligation to recognize any informal employee association. It can choose to listen to employee concerns or it can choose not to. If employees decide to leave their work for a day, the employer can decide not to have them back at work the next day. In Canada, in the absence of a collective agreement, the employer is bound by the provisions of common law and legislated employment standards and has the power to run the workplace as it sees fit.

Until there is a shift in power through the establishment of legitimate union authority, it seems that the status quo between employer and worker relations at Walmart will continue to be maintained.

For an extensive exploration of the labour-management struggles between Walmart, UFCW and OUR Walmart, click here.

Discussion Questions:

  1. What benefit does Walmart gain from having non-unionized workers?
  2. Identify how an employee group could gain power through unionization.
  3. As an HR practitioner, identify five key steps that you would recommend to an employer who was facing the possibility of unionization within its workforce.