Industrial relations Introduction
1. Importance of industrial relations
(a) For workers
For workers the nature of their work, standard of living, sense of
security, health and well being, non-workplace activities, sense
of personal worth and fulfillment, dignity, identity are all
influenced or determined by their treatment and experience of in
the workplace. The importance of spiritual and psychological
aspects of work has been addressed by commentators as diverse
as Maslow (the hierarchy of needs), Marx (alienation), Harold
Innis (A Plea for Time), Heather Menzies (Whose Brave New
World?) and the Roman Catholic Church (the subjective
dimension of work promoted in the 1985 Encyclical Laborem
Exercens of Pope John Paul II). Each raises concern about the
potentially harmful effects of employment environments on
workers and on society at large.
(b) For employers
Employers’ interests are affected by the skill, performance,
loyalty, and motivation of workers. These affect efficiency,
labour costs, profitability, survival, and growth of organizations.
The quality of goods and services provided by employers, and
their very survival depends on cooperation within the workplace. Health and safety of workers is relevant to employers as
well as workers. As with automobile insurance, provincial
Workers’ Compensation systems in Canada impose higher
premiums on employers and industries with higher claims
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experience. Employers with poorer safety records may find this
adversely affects costs and profitability.
The issues identified above may also affect employers’ standing
in the community or the market. For example, Nike’s employment practices abroad have affected adversely their reputation
among consumers in the USA and Canada. This in turn
adversely affected market share and profitability.
(c)For society at large
Industrial relations also affect broader society. If schoolteachers,
transit workers or healthcare workers strike, there is significant
impact on other individuals, businesses and organizations in
society. If the supplier of retail stores experiences a strike or a
lockout, this may have significant adverse effects on the retail
stores, their employees and customers. While strikes and
lockouts can have adverse effects on society at large, so can
poor industrial relations that cause low employee morale, high
employee turnover and absenteeism, shortages of qualified
workers, high incidence of workplace stress, injuries, etc.
Frequently, some of the costs of such things are externalized to
society as a whole. For example, high stress levels among
employees in an organization or industry may raise the cost of
public health care to taxpayers.
2. Conceptual Foundation
Industrial relations include:
(a)
relations and communication between labour and
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(b)
management;
the context in which labour and management interact.
“Labour” is people in employment relationships with employers
and lack substantive decision making power in the workplace.
Labour includes professional workers such as schoolteachers,
university faculty, and nurses, manual workers, office workers,
police officers, trades and craft workers, fast-food workers, lowlevel supervisors and the employees of unions. Labour includes
unionized and non-unionized workers. In a unionized organization, employees who are managers with the power to hire and
fire other employees are considered part of management not
“labour”.
3. Non-unionized workers
Such workers have individual contracts of employment. These
may be negotiated between the parties but usually terms and
conditions are specified by employers for candidates to accept or
reject. If disputes arise about whether the parties are performing
their obligations under the employment contract, they can be
taken to court. Usually but not always an employee or former
employee will be the party to initiate legal action. Employees
are distinct from independent contractors. The latter are in a
business not an employment relationship with others. As they
are not employees, independent contractors are not entitled to
unionize.
While non-union workers normally do not negotiate their
individual contracts of employment, such contracts normally
include as implied terms legal obligations placed on employers
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and employees by legislation. The parties to an employment
contract must normally comply with such legislation as the
Occupational Health and Safety Act, Workers’ Compensation
Act, Employment Standards Act, and Human Rights Act. For
example, if an employer dismisses an employee because the
latter refuses to perform dangerous work, the employer is in
breach of not only the Occupational Health and Safety Act but
the contract of employment. This would enable the ex-employee
to sue for pay in lieu of notice of termination of employment.
4. Labour unions (trade unions)
A labour union or trade union is an organization of employees
formed for the purpose of representing employees in relations
with their employer. Some unions are formed to represent
employees of a particular trade or profession, such as carpenters,
electricians, school teachers, or registered nurses. These are
typically referred to as craft unions or professional unions. So
Lethbridge School District #51 negotiates with a local union of
the Alberta Teachers’ Association with respect to school
teachers.
Non-teaching staff of the school district are represented by a
local union of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. This is
an “industrial union” rather than a “craft union” and represents a
variety of office and service employees employed by the school
board. Examples of industrial unions in Canada are the Canadian
Auto Workers (CAW), Canadian Union of Public Employees
(CUPE), Teamsters, United Steel Workers of America (USWA)
and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). Locals of
such unions typically have members in a variety of occupations.
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In Canada a union typically represents employee of an
employer in a particular location. For example, Canadian Auto
Workers (CAW) Local 99 represents all non-managerial
employees of Kawneer in Lethbridge. Members have a variety
of technical, manual, office etc. jobs. The CAW also has locals
representing auto workers, airline ticket clerks and baggage
handlers, brewery workers, auto dealerships, university service
workers etc.
Unions are sometimes differentiated between private sector
unions and public sector unions. Provincial government workers
in Alberta are represented by the Alberta Union of Provincial
Workers a typical public sector union. However, the differences
are sometimes blurred as public institutions continue to be
privatized. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW)
formed one of the first public sector unions in Canada in the
1960s but Canada Post is no longer a department of government,
rather a Crown Corporation. CUPW remains the representative
of postal workers.
5. Labour movement.
The labour movement includes provincial and federal
“federations of labour”. Such federations are not labour unions
but are organizations of trade unions. The Canadian Labour
Congress (CLC) is the largest labour federation in Canada. Its
membership includes national labour federations such as the
National Union of Provincial Government Employees
(NUPGE), provincial labour federations such as the Ontario
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Federation of Labour, international unions such as the United
Mineworkers of America, and provincial unions such as Prince
Edward Island Union of Public Sector Employees. The CLC
lobbies the federal government on issues affecting workers,
including international issues. It assists in union organizing and
provides education resources.
Provincial federations lobby provincial governments on labour
issues – such as the Alberta Federation of Labour. District
Labour Councils such as the Lethbridge & District Labour
Council are federations of local unions and work at the local
level on issues relevant to workers.
Around 30% of non-agricultural workers in Canada are
unionized.
6. Management
Who is management? Management represents the “owners” of a
business. A business can be an unincorporated sole proprietorship, a partnership or a corporation (other forms exist). Employment law accords management rights to manage the business,
including ordering workers to act in a particular fashion. If a
worker refuses to obey an order of management he or she can be
disciplined or dismissed. Managerial authority can be limited by
individual workers through contracts of employment. For
example, a hockey player’s contract may have a no-trade clause
preventing the employer from trading the player. Employers’
authority can be limited by a collective agreement negotiated by
the employer and the union or imposed by an arbitrator. The
latter occurs almost exclusively in the public sector.
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In the case of the public sector managerial authority is
established by legislation. The Universities Act in Alberta
establishes the Board of Governors and General Faculties
Council as bodies with shared supreme power to set policy and
manage the institution. Legislation also assigns power to
officials such as the university president, vice-president and
deans. Such power includes power to set terms and conditions of
employment subject to terms of employment contracts
negotiated with individual employees or with unions
representing employees.
There are also legislated restrictions on managerial power with
respect to conditions of work, especially in the areas of health
and safety, human rights and employment standards.
The nature of relations between labour and management
depends on their respective power as well as on rules imposed
by legislation. This matter will be considered later. See also
Godard Chapter 1.
7. Unions and communication
It is almost a cliché that good communication is essential for
healthy relationships. Many employers are bureaucratic public
sector or private sector organizations and one of the functions
and purposes of a trade union is to facilitate effective
communication between workers on the “shop floor” and
various levels of management or ownership of the organizations.
Unions and other labour organizations (for example the Alberta
Federation of Labour) also communicate workers opinions,
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needs, wants to governments on matters of law, social policy
etc. This is often described as the “workers’ voice” function of
unions. While individual workers can voice opinions to
employers, this can be risky or ineffective for the worker. Also,
as work is typically a group exercise, it may be more effective
for groups of workers rather than individual workers to voice
their opinions and concerns to management.
As the interest of workers and management are not always the
same, communication may also require negotiation. Successful
negotiation requires good communication and skill in listening
to and accommodating the needs of those with whom one is
negotiating. Trade unions fulfill such a role for a significant
number of workers in Canada.
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