Chapter 10 Flashcards
What was the first labour relations legislation?
Trades Unions Act 1872: gave the ability to strike & collective bargaining
What is Canada’s labour relations system?
- It is highly decentralized
- 90% of the workforce is governed by provincial legislation
- Each province has a Labour Relations Board (LRB)
What are the 3 main reasons why employees unionize?
- Economic needs
- General dissatisfaction with managerial practices
- Desire to fulfill social & status needs
What is the labour relations process?
- Workers desire collective
- The union or employees begins its organizing campaign
- Collective negotiations lead to a collective agreement/contract
- The contract is administered
What is a union shop, closed shop & open shop?
Union Shop: collective agreement that requires employee to join union as a condition of their employment
Closed Shop: Collective agreement that requires employers to hire only union members
Open Shop: collective agreement that allows employees to join the union or not
What are the strongest reasons why an employee will join a union?
Unhappiness with wages, benefits & working conditions
Provide examples for each reasons why employees unionize.
- Economic needs
- Dissatisfaction with managers
- Social & status concerns
- low wages, poor working conditions, health & safety ignored
- Unfair promotions or transfers, favouritism
- Needs for recognition and status like leadership
Who are the 2 large influential labour unions?
- CAW: Canadian Auto Workers
2. CEP: Communication, Energy & Paperworks Union of Canada
How do employees organize a union? What are the steps?
- A formal organizing campaign may be started either by a union organizer or by employees acting on their own behalf. MOST organizing campaigns are begun by employees
- Should evaluate their chances of success & possible benefits before & employers vulnerability towards unions
- Employee & union contact
- Initial organizational meeting
- Formation of in-house organizing committee
- Application to labour relations board
- Issuance of certification by LRB
- Election of bargaining committee & contract negotiations
Describe each steps for organizing a campaign. (For regular certification)
- Explore possibility of unionization, gather info on employee needs, problems & complaints
- To win employee support: union organizers must build a case against the employer
- Schedule initial union meeting to attract supporters. The organizer will use the info gathered from step1 to address employee needs & explain how the union can secure these goals
- Form a committee composed of employees willing to provide leadership to the campaign, have employees sign a membership card, this card demonstrates the strength of the union (must have at least 50% of employees as members before they apply for certification)
- Application is made to the appropriate LRB. Majority of unions are certified without a vote if the LRB finds that the union has the support of the majority of the employees (based on the # of membership cards)
- LRB reviews the application & informs both the employer & employee about the application so that either the employer or employee have an opp. to challenge
- Once certified, a bargaining committee is put in place to start negotiating
List the employers obligations & tactics & for unions
- Can’t promise better conditions
- Can’t change wages & working conditions during certification process or bargaining
- Can’t coerce/intimidate
- Can’t interfere in certification process
- Must commit to bargain seriously & fairly
Unions: the same applies
-can’t engage in activities like strike before the expiration of the union contract
What are examples of unfair labour practices by employers & unions?
Employers:
- helping to establish or administer a union
- altering work conditions without the unions consent during certification
- intimidation, threats, promises
- hiring professional strike breakers
- failing to recognize or bargain with certified union
Unions:
- not representing fairly the employees in the bargaining unit
- calling/authorizing an unlawful strike or threatening to do so
- negotiation with employer
What was the largest wildcat strike in Canadian History?
- Canadian Union of Postal Workers
- Country wide-strike that lasted 2 weeks
What is a wildcat strike?
- Undertaken by unionized workers without union leadership’s authorization, support, or approval.
- It is illegal
What is compulsory binding arbitration?
To resolve collective-bargaining deadlocks in the public sector. Jobs in which strikes cannot be tolerated (police, fireman)
Unions may exercise power in what ways? (3)
- Strike
- Picketing
- Boycotting
What is a lockout?
- Rarely occurs
- Employer closes its operations
- Used by employers to combat union slowdowns, damage their property or violence
- An employer CANNOT enforce a lockout within a prescribed # of hours (48-72) of a strike vote
- Lockouts do NOT affect nonstriking workers u
When disputing parties are unable to resolve a deadlock, who comes in to help? (3)
- Conciliator
- Mediator
- Arbitrator
What does a mediator do?
- 3rd party to help
- Serves as a fact finder & someone to open up a channel of communication between the 2 parties
- Meets with one side & then the other in order to suggest compromise solutions
What does an arbitrator do?
-Assumes the role of a decision maker & determines the settlement
When 1 or both parties are reluctant to give power to a 3rd party to make the settlement for them, who is used to make the deadlock?
A mediator
What is the grievance procedure?
Provides the union a way to process a complaint that something within the collective agreement has been violated. (Prohibits strike during this period)
A central article in any collective agreement is the management rights clause. Management rights pertain to those decisions over which management is able to exercise exclusive control. What are those 2 rights?
Residual Rights: rights that are not shared with the union
ex: selection of operating equipment, products or services to produce, plant location
Defined Rights: retained by management, but limited by contractual agreement with the union
ex: select employees for assignments or promotions, assign employees to training classes (the union has the right to challenge these actions if it believes that employees’ rights have been violated)
When grievance cannot be resolved during grievance procedure, what are the alternatives (2) besides arbitration?
- Union withdraw the grievance
2. Employer agrees to union demands
