The board, in its annual outlook on industrial relations, said more than half of the employers it surveyed expect a co-operative climate in bargaining.

“Labour peace will reign in the overwhelming majority of negotiations in Canada this year,” the report said, suggesting that recent strikes at OC Transpo in Ottawa and York University in Toronto are exceptions to the broader trend.

This is truly exciting to hear. The only way companies and unions are going to move through this troubled economy is by collaborative collective bargaining. Unlike the articles suggestion of 2.9% increases in the private sector my experience is that contracts are rolling over status quo with little or no changes. Tough to be sure but if the company isn’t making money then there’s no money to give for increases.

Resolve Labour Relations Solutions is founded on interest bargaining efforts. We help companies build proactive, collaborative relationships with their employees’ unions.

The end of the story could be that the employees voted 35 to 1 against joining the union. Pretty decisive. However, like the TV ads say “but wait, there’s more!”.

Just before the vote the main organizer was fired:

A few days into the union drive, Barnim, who had been working at the hotel for five years with a strong employment record, was fired, according to labour board filings.

Unite Here contends Barnim was “blatantly” let go because of her leading role in attempts to unionize workers.

John Nitsopolous, the hotel’s general manager, alleges Barnim was caught going though personal pay stubs discarded in a wastebasket in his office, which led to her termination.

Now, it may very well be that the employee was fired for a valid reason. However during an organizing campaign this is an invitation to pay much money to lawyers all around to argue the validity of the firing. The union is wisely trying to get a second chance:

The union claims hotel management used intimidation and fear tactics to dissuade employees from unionizing.

…

The union will be seeking automatic certification — or the right to represent workers without a vote — at the Holiday Inn, Dagg said.

My point is not whether the union or management is wrong or right or whether the vote speaks for the employees or the union should be automatically certified. My point is that this is now a mess for the employer with billboards and a website giving them bad PR. Could this have been avoided? Perhaps.

Addressing a union organizing campaign before there even is one is the best way to avoid a union. Treating employees fairly and equally makes for satisfied employees and futile union organizing campaigns.

Lets look at some of the comments:

“Unions are looking for new revenue streams. Our workforce must look very attractive to them,” Medulun said. “Unions are like any other business. Business has to turn a profit. Profits are generated through the collection of union dues.”

Sure, that’s true but union’s don’t say to employees “pay me so I can make a profit”.

Casino management would prefer to deal with its employees directly than to negotiate through a union said Niagara Casinos spokesman Greg Medulun.

No doubt that’s true. Could it be that the union orgazing drive has come about specifically BECAUSE the management has been dealing “directly”?

Now, here’s the BEST line ever:

“Generally speaking, it’s something we’ve been anticipating for some time,” Medulun said.

What can I say?

• Company has employees
• company deals directly with employees
• employees feel they need union representation
• company wants to remain union free
• union has enough signed cards to have a vote

So, instead of addressing the situation and making the union irrelevant to the employees, the company just sat there and watched it all happening. They’ll get the union they deserve.

I help employers to assess their companies relationship with their employees. The time to build a solid, union free relationship is BEFORE the organizing campaign starts. I’ll bet that no union would disagree with this.

Both unions and employers have lost power, Mr. Benimadhu said. “Companies have lost customers, sales and the ability to get credit from the banks. That’s not a powerful position to be in.”

The truth is that if the companies are having problems then, by default, labour is having problems. The company must exist for the workers to have a job.

The average wage increases in unionized environments seems to be slowing down and in some cases stopping. There have been wage concessions but a more pro-active choice is to hold the status quo and ride out the storm.

“I’m anticipating a very difficult year of bargaining,” said Ken Lewenza, president of the Canadian Auto Workers. “Employers will try to extract as much as they can from workers during this time of a recession. So it’s going to be a challenging time for the labour movement.”

Perhaps its not the employers trying to extract from the workers but rather the employers realistically trying to save the jobs of the workers.

UNIONIZED WORKERS at the Lakelse Ave. Shoppers Drug Mart have overwhelmingly accepted a first contract their negotiators recommended they reject. 

It seems that after 10 months of labour negotiations the union was able to achieve “Wage parity with union members at other Shoppers Drug Mart stores represented by UFCW Local 1518″. Wow…

Two points come to mind:

1. What the heck took the union 10 months to negotiate something the company was likely to offer at the outset of collective bargaining?

2. Could the company have avoided a union by proactively offering conditions similar to its other unionized stores. There is no greater way to avoid a union in your business than to make a union irrelevant to your employees.

The company says:

“All options are being pursued to maximize the value of our assets,” he said. “That means we’re looking at all options from an outright sale of the assets to perhaps moving the production facility.”

The union says:

“Just when you think the employer has done just about everything they can, they continue to just poke away at people…”

Could this have been helped by effective collective bargaining? Perhaps. Unfortunately both sides seem to be negotiating in media sound bites and not earnestly trying to reach a win-win union contract.

The real losers are the 85 unemployed people.

Take for example the pending certification of the Smithfield Packing Company plant in North Carolina. This little snippet nicely sums up the situation for me:

The two sides had spent 16 years, ever since the plant opened in 1992, wrangling over whether and how plant workers would decide on whether they wanted a union.

Through 16 years and 2 failed certification attempts the union finally prevailed in organizing employees. I can only assume that the executives at Smithfield failed to get the message that their employees had issues. It has oft been said that “you get the union you deserve” and I think it applies here. When faced with a union organizing drive, its far more productive to have your labour relations consultant work to analyze WHY your employees want to organize than to aggrivate the situation.

After 16 years and likely large legal bills, Smithfield no doubt found this out the hard way.

One of the best quotes I’ve seen lately comes from Toronto employment lawyer Stewart Saxe who said in this article:

 ”these are unique times. The real issue is about preserving a job, not worrying about getting a 2% wage increase.”

This should be framed and put on the bargaining table at all small to medium employers hoping to have positive labour negotiations.

Interestingly, the Elmira Independant came down on the side of unionization.

While this decision may cause farmers concern, it is long overdue.

This is particularly true for migrant farm workers, who come to Canada each year for seasonal labour — doing the jobs that Canadians do not want to do.

When they come to Canada on a temporary visa, they are restricted to working on the farm indicated on their documents — which means that any migrant worker who is facing harsh, unreasonable working conditions is essentially stuck in the job until they return home.

While many migrant workers are treated fairly and equitably by their employers, there are many who are not.

Witness the case that led to this historic decision.

Xin Yuan Liu, one of three former mushroom plant workers who joined forces with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union to challenge the law, found working conditions at his plant so harsh that he sought to form a union — at which point his working life was made a “misery,” according to published reports.

Note to farmers: union avoidance is easy! Treat your workers with respect. Treat then as YOU would like to be treated. If you don’t have a union in your workplace and you give your workers an excuse to organize they will. Keeing union free begins BEFORE a union organizing campaign. Any fighting you do after that point – while it may be temporarily successful – will be like closing the gate after the cow has escaped.