I’m catching up on things after returning from ASAC 2012, but while I was away, the BC Labour Relations Board delivered its ruling in the case I wrote about here and here. involving BC teachers’ withdrawal of their volunteer work. The LRB ruling determined that volunteer work is exactly that, but that some kinds of work, mostly involving curriculum-related matters, is not voluntary, and that withdrawal of those services constitutes strike action. If the LRB issues a more detailed decision including its reasons, I’ll follow up on that, but I will say at this point that this seems like a thoughtful and reasonable decision.
labor
About Time: Men Speak Out for Workplace Equality
Catalyst, a research organization that has been around for more than 50 years and whose work focuses on “expanding opportunities for women and business”, has recently launched MARC, or Men Advocating Real Change – an online community encouraging men to support equality in the workplace. MARC has eight male bloggers, a discussion forum, and literature and resources for men “committed to making real change”.
It says something about how “workplace equality” gets interpreted that most media covering this initiative, as far as I can tell, did so in the context of women’s workplace issues. (more…)
Organizational Citizenship and the BC Teachers’ Dispute
The BC Labour Relations Board case about whether teachers withdrawing their volunteer work constitutes strike action got me thinking about organizational citizenship – a concept that doesn’t get much attention outside academic research, but which explains a lot about the impact of behaviour on workplaces. (more…)
Back to Work Legislation: If Cost is a Reason, Prove It
Today, the Canadian federal government introduced back-to-work legislation to end the strike at Canadian Pacific Railways. As my colleague David Doorey has so eloquently described over at his blog, this fourth piece of federal back-to-work legislation represents a very disturbing pattern of intervention. Critics from both union and management positions have said that these acts hamper the effectiveness of collective bargaining, not only in the immediate situations, but also in long-term bargaining relationships, where the parties will either be unwilling or unable to reach agreement on their own.
I’ll also point out that the government has done an extremely poor job of justifying the economic rationale for stepping in to end these disputes. (more…)
Help Save the Kitsilano Coast Guard Base
My father is a tugboat captain, as was my grandfather, and I grew up with a great deal of respect for maritime safety. I also understood how important it is for help to arrive quickly if you get into trouble on the water. So I was astounded, to put it mildly, when Canada’s federal government announced the closing of the Kitsilano coast guard station in Vancouver in September. (more…)
Is It Work if You Don’t Get Paid for It?
The British Columbia Labour Relations Board is struggling this week to answer a deceptively simple question: what is work?
That question is part of the ongoing bargaining dispute between the BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) and BC’s provincial government (represented in this situation by the BC Public School Employers Association (BCPSEA)). (more…)
The Union That Doesn’t Call Itself A Union: The UFCW and “Ask Target for Fairness”
Unions are having a hard time in Canada right now. Union density (the percentage of the workforce represented by a union) has stayed relatively constant in Canada over the past few years, but union membership numbers have shrunk dramatically in some parts of the workforce, because of job reductions in highly unionized parts of the private sector (e.g. manufacturing). And although anti-union attitudes in the United States have always been strong, it isn’t unreasonable to think that anti-union sentiment in Canada is stronger now than it has been, shown by such anti-union actions as the proposed revisions to labour legislation in Saskatchewan, and the over-eagerness of the federal government to intervene in labour disputes when a strike might be involved. (more…)
Strikes and Lockouts Are Bad. And Your Point Is….?
It’s no secret by now that the governing Conservative party in Canada has, well, a conservative attitude toward unions. It’s been shown through the quick legislative intervention in the Air Canada pilots’ dispute this spring – following similar interventions involving Air Canada’s flight attendants and Canada Post. These were all justified as necessary to offset the potential damage of extended work stoppages to the Canadian economy. But the government’s reasoning was, shall we say, light on the specific details of the extent of this (alleged) damage, and why legislation was needed to prevent it. So, not surprisingly, these back-to-work laws have been characterized as just a convenient way to disrespect the bargaining rights of the parties in these disputes.
Clamping down on strike and lockout activity is a high-profile indication of the Conservative government’s feelings about unions. But there are other, more subtle, things going on too. (more…)
No, Really, Are You Happy?: How the Media Misreports Workplace Research
A couple of days ago, while driving around, I heard a news item on a couple of local radio stations saying that fewer than half of all workers are satisfied with their jobs, but were unwilling to look for something else. This caught my ear because something I learned really quickly when I started doing job satisfaction research is that it’s very difficult to measure job satisfaction accurately, and it’s even more difficult to make broad generalizations about it. (more…)
284 Days and Counting: How Public Pressure Influences Labour Disputes
The British Columbia teachers’ bargaining dispute with the government is the most high-profile labour dispute in the province right now. And one question that keeps coming up in discussions of the situation is: can public pressure make a difference in how this dispute gets settled? (more…)
All About Work 