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.