Employee Relations

1
Employee Relations
2
Facilitating Effective Communication

• Develop procedures for information dissemination
• develop procedures for employee feedback
• develop employee assistance programs

3
Employee Feedback

• Employee attitude surveys
• appeals procedures

4
Employee Recognition Programs

• Suggestion systems
• recognition awards

5
Working with Organized Labour

• 1872 - Trade Unions Act, Criminal Law Amendment
  Act (protection against charges of criminal
  conspiracy - legitimized unions)
• 1907 Industrial Disputes Investigations (IDI) Act
  - cemented use of federal law, disputing parties
  must appear before conciliatory board

6
P. C. 1003

• 1944
• Influenced by the Wagner Act (U. S.)
• Wartime Labour Relations Board
• administered certification processes
• prevent and remedy unfair labour practices
• established mandatory conciliation process using
  neutral 3rd party

7
Industrial Relations Disputes Investigations Act

• 1947
• applied only to thin slice of workforce
• provinces enacted their own legislation

8
Union Representation

• Excludes employees dealing with confidential
  industrial relations (i.e. Human Resources
  personnel, and often Information Technology)
• excludes managers

9
Legal Framework

• Recognition of a Union (determining the unit,
  certification, community of interests)
• Contract Negotiation (compensation, hours of
  work, working conditions)
• Contract Interpretation (grievance process)
• Jurisdictional Disputes

10
Public SectorWorkers

• Limited right to strike
• non-interruption of essential services
• Public Staff Relations Act (1967) - covers
  federal jurisdiction, provides right to unionize
  and to strike

11
NA Labour Relations

• Business unionism
• unions structured by job
• focus on collective bargaining
• collective agreements
• adversarial union-management relations
• growth of unions in public sector

12
International Front

• Germany - work councils, co-determination
• Japan - enterprise unions

13
Labour Relations Strategies

• Union Acceptance - co-operation
• Union Avoidance - substitution or suppression

14
Relationships

• Confrontational (Distributive) -We They (fight)
• Cooperation (Integrative) - We They (legally
  required to work together for common purpose)
• Collaboration (Concession)- We We (work together
  for common purpose to achieve best interests of
  both)
• Co-Determination - Us (structured to work
  together for common purpose)

15
Labour Relations

• Union organizing
• collective bargaining
• contract administration

16
Union Organizing

• Regular Certification
• Authorization cards submitted to Labour Relations
  Board
• Secret ballot (maybe) - in Ontario Union must win
  50 of the people that vote
• illegal labour practices threats, inducements,
  intimidation

17
Collective Bargaining

• Bargaining behaviour - good faith
• bargaining power
• bargaining topics
• impasses in bargaining

18
Bargaining Behaviour

• Distributive Bargaining
• win/lose
• fixed sum
• history of mistrust/conflict
• Integrative Bargaining
• variable sum (win/win, lose/lose, win/lose)
• mutual trust and problem solving

19
Bargaining Topics

• Basic
• elective
• illegal

20
Bargaining Impasses

• Compulsory Conciliation (neutral 3rd party with
  limited intervention capability)
• Mediation - neutral 3rd party who will try to
  resolve conflict
• Interest Arbitration - legally binding decision
  by a neutral 3rd party (could be a panel of 3
  people 1 for each side and 1 mutually agreed upon)

21
Strikes/Lockouts

• Lockouts when rotating strikes, or work to rule
• Economic strikes are legal after conciliation
  phase/upon expiry of current contract
• Wildcat strikes - illegal

22
Grievances

• Move up the steps - usually cant skip
• verbal discussion - employee/line spvr
• written grievance - employee and union rep / line
  spvr and line manager meet formally
• next step local and national union reps and
  corporate HR manager
• arbitration

23
Grievance Types

• Contract interpretation
• Employee discipline - was due process used?

24
Unfair Labour Practices

• Obstructing employees from joining unions
• refusing to bargain/bargaining in bad faith
• discriminating against employees for engaging in
  union activities

25
Management Rights

• Items that are not part of contract negotiations,
  such as how to run the company or how much to
  charge for products