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 work-place. 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 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 affected
adversely their reputation among consumers in the USA and Canada. This in turn
adversely affected market share and profitability. See also campaign against Coca
Cola.
(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,
1
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, illness, 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 management;
(b) 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 nonunionized 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 and employees by legislation. The parties to an employment
contract must normally comply with such legislation as the Occupational Health
2
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 in schools are not eligible to join the
teachers’ union.
Non-teaching staff of school district #51 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.
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
3
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
Public and General Employees (NUPGE), provincial labour federations such as the
Ontario Federation of Labour, international unions such as 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 such as overseas sweatshops. 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. Notably
agricultural workers in Alberta are not permitted to be represented by a trade
union.
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 notrade 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.
The power of management is also limited by employment laws t in the areas of
4
workplace health and safety, human rights, workers’ compensation for workplace
injuries, and minimum employment standards. Employment contracts or collective
agreements typically cannot override the rights and duties imposed by employment
legislation. Most employment legislation is provincial but employees and
employers in federally regulated industries (such as banks, telecommunications,
radio and television broadcasting, airlines, railways) come under federal
legislation. Employment insurance and Canada Pension Plan are also under federal
jurisdiction.
In the case of public sector organizations, 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.
The nature of relations between labour and management depends also on their
respective power as well as on rules imposed by legislation. This matter will be
considered later. See also Godard (2nd and 3rd editions) 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, 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.
Workers’ and management’s interests are not always the same, so communication
may also require negotiation. Successful negotiation requires communication and
skill in listening to and accommodating the needs of those with the other party.
Trade unions fulfill such a role for a significant number of workers in Canada.
5