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CLMRCENTRE FOR LABOUR MANAGEMENT RELATIONS
Vol. 01-4February 01, 2012
In Their Own Words: Advice on Collective Bargaining from
our Expert Panel
In Their Own Words: Advice on Collective
Bargaining From our Expert Panel
January 2012
Centre for Labour Management Relations
Ted Rogers School of Management
Ryerson University
Volume 1: Issue 4 2
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Centre for Labour Management Relations would like to recognize and thank
all the individuals who participated in our workshop on Collective Bargaining on
June 9 and 10, 2011. Your thoughtful discussion, insights and comments have
helped us to put together a series that we hope will be of benefit to anyone
interested in bettering the collective bargaining process in Canada. We would
also like to thank the Ontario Ministry of Labour; without their support this would
not be possible.
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INTRODUCTION
On June 9, 2011 a collective bargaining workshop jointly sponsored by the
Centre for Labour-Management Relations (CLMR) and the Ontario Ministry of Labour
was held at the Ted Rogers School of Management (TRSM) at Ryerson University. The
workshop was attended by over 60 experienced union and management industrial
relations practitioners from both the public and private sectors.
One of the topics discussed by those in attendance was the issue of dealing with
the challenges that a difficult bargaining mandate presents. The scope and speed of
workplace change occurring in many workplaces today is forcing many employers and
unions to re-examine their relationship in order to deal with the possible impact that
these changes present. More often than not, the response by the parties to these
changes often manifests itself in the form of difficult and often conflicting mandates such
as one party pushing for greater productivity and lower labour costs while the other party
is pushing for increased job security and expanded benefits. For those who find
themselves at the bargaining table confronted with these types of mandates, unless
great care is taken, impasse is inevitable.
What follows is taken from the discussions on this topic by the workshop
participants as well as the contribution of a panel of experts, and can be summarized
under Principles; Strategies and Tactics.
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Stacey Allerton-Firth VP Human Resources, Ford Motor Co. Canada
Here are a few lessons that I have learned from the bargaining that I have been
involved in over the years that I would leave with you. First, your negotiations and your
bargaining is your opportunity for you to display your unique leadership style and for you
to be authentic. My message to you is that your own authentic style can be successful,
but it has to be yours. It can’t be someone else’s; it can’t be what you think the role
should be, it shouldn’t be what the person who went before you did. You have to do it
your own way, and there are multiple ways to be successful. So there’s not one right
way, there’s not one right answer.
Another lesion that I learned can be summed up by a quote from one of my
favourite authors on leadership, Colin Powell. He said, “don’t let your ego be so tied to
your position, that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.” So what does that
have to do with bargaining? We get so wrapped up in our idea that it becomes part of
our self-worth and defining our value at the table. So even in the light of compelling
evidence that there is a better solution, we can’t let go of our idea, because it’s ours and
we love it and it defines us and it also shows that we’re contributing. This is something
that I work a lot with my team on in terms of language at the table and around reinforcing
behaviours dealing with collaboration around problem-solving instead of kind of trying to
hang on to an idea because we feel like we need to make a contribution resulting in
sticking to a position beyond a period of time that is reasonable. We really try not to set
up winning and losing arguments or winning and losing positions, because nobody likes
to lose. Instead, we try and redefine what success looks like so it’s not a win/lose
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dynamic, rather, this is one possible solution, what are the other ones, what am I
missing, is there a better way, is there another path?
Another lesson for me, is avoiding having the difficult discussion in the moment
as we’re preparing language. I have seen too many times where we know we don’t really
quite have the issue buttoned down but I’ve got my language written and I kind of like
the way I’ve written it. I know that it’s really not quite what we’ve agreed to but let’s go
with it and then we’ll resolve any ambiguity later. This always, always causes problems,
but I see people do it for a couple reasons. One, they have written the language, they
own it and they like it, Or two, they don’t want to take the time now to have the difficult
discussion with you around really being precise about the extent of this language. I see
quite often having the effect of eroding the integrity of the relationship. It also makes
what should be a fairly clear process very, very imprecise.
In addition to these lessons that I have learned, I want to share one practice that
we, at Ford have used with some success around bargaining preparation, namely the
issue of costing. Going into the first round of bargaining that I led, I was really afraid
because costing is not my strong point. Despite this, I always want to be prepared,
because like many of you, our agreements are complex, and they’re expensive. So the
challenge that I gave to the support team that I have was to build a model before
bargaining where we could very easily and very quickly change different permutations
and combinations of elements of the agreement at the table and to be able to do the
costing in real time. Once we did that we could then quickly see how the changes would
either help or hurt a particular perspective. This also helped to reinforce the theme of
collaboration that we adopted for the negotiations
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Ruth Hamilton Negotiator at OPSEU
I guess there’s about a couple of things I could say but the one that I would start
with is that first of all, negotiating a collective agreement is managing the process, and
the process starts before you give notice to bargain. As the negotiator, I need to build a
relationship with my counterpart across the table, I need to build a relationship with my
own bargaining team, and, obviously doing my research as to what is happening in that
particular sector. Generally speaking, unless there’s some strange surprise, when you
go into bargaining, chances are you will know where the deal will be. You will have a
good sense of what the deal will be when you actually give the exchange of documents
across the table. Of course part of that managing is managing expectations of the
members. The other piece of advice is very simple - when the deal’s staring you in the
face, say hello.
One of my concerns with collective bargaining is why does it always have to
come to a crisis in funding before the public service can actually begin to go on the road
to recovery? Private sector agreements tend to react to and recover from economic
downturns much more quickly than the public sector. As Bob Bass was saying earlier,
his research shows that it can take the public sector up to a decade to recover from an
economic downturn.
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Brian Blakely School Board Coordinator for CUPE
I think we’ve all been talking about what’s important and I think there are a
couple things that are critically important. Don’t play games. It’s not an opportunity to act
clever, to pull wool over peoples’ eyes. It’s not about playing games. Collective
bargaining is seriously important. I’ve rarely dealt with the private sector, but when I
have, I admire the fact that there are immediate consequences for management on the
other side of the table for making mistakes in bargaining. People want to tell you why
they brought something to a table. They want to tell you what they need. They want to
tell you what they can do for you. And if you are shouting at them and jumping up and
down, you’re not listening. I have tried to never do what doesn’t work. And what doesn’t
work is being disrespectful. So it is important to listen. When a change is proposed, you
have to ask “Why do you need that?” The greatest question in the world is “why is this
important to you?” People love to answer that question, in great detail. That helps you
get a deal.
I think the biggest concern I have is disrespect for the process. You know, in
North America we have been following a very similar process since the Second World
War, which was set up for very specific reasons. I really don’t it like when you get to a
bargaining table and someone or some group of people don’t understand the value of
the process that we’re engaged in. Quite often they’re on my team and quite often these
people like being booked off work because it’s more interesting than what they do at
work. So the longer they can be booked off the better it is for them. But what if what we
need to do can be done in two hours? Why then do we have to sit there for two weeks?
This is disrespect for the process, just as is not coming prepared. It is this disrespect for
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the process that I think undermines collectively what we’re doing. I also think that it puts
those of us who work in the public sector at risk of being viewed negatively by the public.
This disrespect takes away from what we actually do in collective bargaining, which is to
find amazing solutions to all sorts of problems that are not insignificant. The systemic
undervaluing of female contributions in the workplace has been significantly impacted by
pay equity which didn’t mean anything until it got to us and we actually negotiated
changes in compensation systems that changed the total approach to compensation for
women. Another area where important progress has been made is with people’s health
concerns. Even though we like to say that we have a publicly funded universal health
system, your coverage is more comprehensive if you’re covered by a collective
agreement. These examples show that we solved a lot of really big problems, and were
able to harness a lot of creative energy in doing so, which is why when somebody shows
up and doesn’t do their homework, it really bothers me. It wastes time, it’s disrespectful
to the process and I think it’s incredible when you see that. I know that I try to address it
in my caucuses and that everybody in this room probably tries to address it in their
caucuses in one form or another.
Periodically I get to teach a week-long arbitration course, and one of the things that
never fails to amaze me is the shock that is registered with people in the course when
you tell them that each word in their collective agreement has a meaning. When you tell
them that the same word has the same meaning from the arbitrator’s perspective, you
can see the light go on in people’s minds. I think that one of the things that we need to
do from the union side more frequently is to send more of our members to arbitration
courses. My experience is that people don’t pay enough attention to the wording in the
collective agreement even though, for example, we keep changing the posting language
by adding a clause here and there. Sometimes, we decide to reorder things, so we take
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a clause from page 43 and put it on page 33. Doing this changes the collective
agreement and as a result you end up with a collective agreement that creates situations
that result in going in front of an arbitrator, and you’re in trouble.
Don Sinclair CEO, College Employer Council
The playbook, as they say, is never the same in each round of bargaining. I have
participated in ten rounds of bargaining in both the private and public sectors and the
playbook is never the same. You think that you have this one figured out and then
something throws a curve at you. My experience has been that if you go into a round of
bargaining thinking that it should be relatively easy, it’ll be the exact opposite.
Remember, you are there to get a deal and to ensure the longevity of your organization
and to also ensure the longevity of the employees of the organization. This is why it is
very important to not underestimate the importance of managing expectations at the
bargaining table as well as those of your principals.
One of my concerns with the current system is spending money needlessly. In
particular where I am seeing more of this taking place is in the areas of
arbitration/mediation. For example, there are too many occasions when you see
grievances that involve amounts of five hundred dollars or less to settle, end up with
spending a day at arbitration and by the time you add legal fees, all the time for
prepping, etc., it would have been better to have said, “look, let’s go in the back room,
cut a cheque, and just forget about this particular issue.” Unfortunately, quite often the
parties don’t really turn their mind to the costs until the day of the arbitration. There have
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to be better ways of being able to resolve those particular issues well before it gets to
this stage.
In my current organization, we have two master rounds of bargaining - support staff
and faculty. I have always had a sense of pride in having good relationships with my
colleagues across the table. Having said that, the bargaining for support staff and for our
academic is very different. For support staff, the approach is very respectful and
business-like. On the academic side, it has been nothing but adversarial making it
difficult to develop that relationship. Contributing to this difficulty are the nature of the
issues that we’re trying to deal with and the fact that even though you’re only bargaining
every three or four years, you may or may not necessarily see that person across the
table because of the way the union elects its bargaining team. Given the reality that both
parties are going to disagree on certain things because of their respective stakeholders,
the job of both teams is to manage these issues. Right now the broad public sector is the
current media whipping boy or girl and that’s not very pretty. So in addition to dealing
with our differences, it has never been more critical to work together to overcome this
external criticism in order to continue to provide very good jobs and good services. If we
fail to do this, then what we have been observing taking place in the United States in
their public sector may be a preview of what could happen here.
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Reg Pearson Director, Dispute Resolution Services, Ontario Ministry of Labour
Remember than progress in collective bargaining, collective agreement to
collective agreement to collective agreement is incremental. However, having said that,
there have been many occasions when our staff have come into a situation where it’s a
first collective agreement and there on the table is the boilerplate agreement.
Unfortunately, this has the effect of reinforcing people’s expectations that what they’re
going to achieve in one round of bargaining is that which took others decades to bargain
in similar locations in that sector. The other advice I would give is never plan to be home
for dinner. One other thing is, listen to the neutral. They are there to help, even if they
are from the government. The other thing I find myself thinking about a little more,
probably because I’m at this end of my career as opposed to the beginning is that
working with human beings in this positive engagement was a heck of a lot more
interesting and fun and had more achievement and satisfaction than almost any other
form of work. What I discovered about it was this ability to do something in a human
endeavour, in a collective way that essentially involved a heck of a lot of creativity,
analysis and pressure, but at the end of the day, there’s nothing more euphoric than
getting the deal. When we interview to hire people to be mediators, for example, the
hardest thing to do in the selection process, is trying to identify those individuals that get
that high when they get the deal. This tells me what you’re really about. So what I would
say is that collective bargaining, for me, is an opportunity. It is people understanding
there is an opportunity to solve issues that need to be solved. It is also an opportunity to
deal with those kinds of economic pressures that challenge many of today’s workplaces.
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It’s that opportunity to deal with these issues in an adult way, in a way that so many
other people in the world are struggling to attain. Some people seem to think that trying
to aspire to something other than basic human rights or even basic employment rights is
somehow sinful or greedy, which seems to be an interesting dynamic that’s happening in
recent times. All I would say to that is to keep in mind that collective bargaining is an
opportunity.
Related to this is that one of the things that I have begun to notice is that the
issues have gotten a lot more complex, the ability to resolve them has gotten a lot more
complex and the number of issues that have to be resolved every day have gotten a lot
more complex. So the goal posts have gotten a hell of a lot wider in terms of the depth of
issues that have to be dealt with by union reps and by managers. Given all of this, one
needs time to prepare and the challenge for everyone is to find the time to do this.
Buzz Hargrove
Executive Director, CLMR
Respect for the process and for the other parties is an absolutely critical
component of collective bargaining. I have taken myself out of bargaining with different
individuals because there was a clash there, and I knew it. I knew if I hung in there, it
just wasn’t going to work. So I found all kinds of reasons to back away and let the
second or third chief negotiator take over. I never saw any defeat or any loss in that. The
big thing for me was that you’re there to get the deal and make the deal. And when I talk
to people about collective bargaining, there are a number of things that are absolutely
essential in bargaining, and one is know who you’re dealing with. From a union
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perspective, it’s know who’s on your side of the table and what motivates them, what
drives them, what are their issues, and how are you going to work with them. You can’t
wait until the last two or three days of bargaining to do that, you have to be on top of it,
talking to individuals and more importantly listening. As for the management team, I
have always met, one on one with the management team well in advance of bargaining.
In doing this I made sure that I had the confidence of the committee. That’s the other
thing about bargaining, you have to have integrity, and integrity means a committee will
trust you and my process was simple to the committee. People don’t join the union to
have a strike, they join the union for you to look after their problems, and when they join
the company, they join the company because they want to make a good standard of
living and they want respect for the work that they do. And if we all do that, it’ll be a
much better world, our world, of labour management relations would be a lot better.