labour relations

A Missed Opportunity in the British Columbia Teachers’ Labour Dispute

As the Canadian readers of this blog know, British Columbia’s elementary and secondary school teachers are currently engaged in a series of rotating strikes, because of the lack of progress in negotiations for a new collective agreement. The British Columbia government has responded by declaring a partial lockout, in which teachers will have restricted access to school property. The government also instituted a 10% pay cut for teachers, claiming that the teachers are not carrying out all of their job duties. (The government and the BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) spent an entire day in a hearing at the BC Labour Relations Board, arguing over the legality of the government’s actions; the LRB eventually dismissed the BCTF’s complaint, ruling that the government’s actions were within the parameters of the agreed-upon essential services guidelines.)

I’ve done (more…)

Getting It Right About Canadian Unions’ Rights

The Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) is a Calgary-based organization that bills itself as “Freedom’s defense team”. Although the CCF claims it is “non-partisan” and “politically neutral”, the legal cases it undertakes have a common theme of anti-government-regulation  – cases involving challenges to the Canadian health care system, challenges to government food safety regulations, and challenges to aboriginal self-government.

With that questionable record of “neutrality”, I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised by a column written by Karen Selick, the CCF’s litigation director, which strongly criticized Canadian unions for allegedly having a “battery of privileges that should have no place in a free society“.  Well, expressing a strong opinion is one thing. Using selective and misleading information to support that opinion is another thing altogether.

The context of Selick’s anti-union diatribe is (more…)

“What Not to Buy” Update

I’m very happy to report that the nearly year-long strike at Labatt Breweries in St. John’s, NL, which I wrote about a few weeks ago, has ended.

The company and the union returned to collective bargaining with the aid of a conciliation officer, and the resulting collective agreement (more…)

More on Public Sector Sick Days “Abuse”

A few months ago I wrote about the Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s completely unsupported allegations of rampant sick day “abuse” by British Columbia’s public sector workers. Sadly, similar accusations have also been flying around (more…)

What Not to Buy

At a time of year when people are doing a LOT of buying, there’s a lot of messages about the “right” things to buy: sustainably manufactured, minimally packaged, locally made or sourced, fair-trade, and so on. But there’s another “right” way to buy that’s often overlooked – and that’s buying from companies that aren’t involved in lengthy labour disputes with their unionized employees.

Allow me to bring to your attention (more…)

When the Left Isn’t Right

Anyone who’s spent any time studying or participating in progressive organizations knows that, ironically, sometimes these organizations treat their own employees worse than the organizations they campaign against (as so brilliantly pointed out by this cartoon).

I thought about this paradox when I heard about the campaign asking five hosts of MSNBC television shows to (more…)

Changing the Story: A Visit with the Las Vegas Culinary Workers Union

I recently returned from presenting a paper at the 8th Annual Colloquium of Current Scholarship on Employment and Labor Law, a conference that was started by a group of American law professors, and hosted this year by the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Although I am not a lawyer or a law professor, and although there are some pretty significant differences between American and Canadian labor and employment law, this particular conference is always extremely rewarding. The program is very inclusive – people present research at all stages of development, from potential ideas to already published books and articles – so I always learn a lot and meet really interesting people.

There was some excellent research presented at the conference itself, but what I want to talk about in this post is an event that for me, as a Canadian, was (more…)

Unions, Feminism, and the Fortress Mentality

When a movement for social change is struggling, what’s the best strategic response? Is it to protect and nurture what’s been achieved? Or is it to attempt to become even bigger, and risk undermining the progress that’s already been made?

A few weeks ago, former union organizer Rich Yeselson  wrote a provocative article titled Fortress Unionism. In the article, (more…)

Unfortunate Labour Relations Quote of the Week

There’s a lot of good work that has been accomplished at the table so far. That needs to conclude this week.

That’s British Columbia Education Minister Peter Fassbender’s instructions to the  bargainers working toward a new collective agreement for the province’s public school teachers. Why does he want them to stop doing “good work”? So that they can be directed to start discussing the idea of a 10-year-long collective agreement – something that neither side wants.

Incidentally, and ironically, this same week  BC Premier Christy Clark was quoted as saying, on her decision to reverse pay increases to senior political staff:

Leadership means listening to people.

 

Listening only happens in some situations, apparently.

BC Government Mandates Bargaining for 10-Year Teacher Agreement

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how the idea of a 10-year-long collective agreement for British Columbia public school teachers had raised its ugly head yet again in the context of the BC provincial election campaign.

The BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) and the provincial government’s representatives are currently negotiating their next collective agreement, to replace the agreement now in effect which expires in June. It was a very hopeful sign for this round of negotiations that the two parties, who in the past have been very adversarial, voluntarily and jointly agreed to some revisions in their bargaining structure and process. (The revisions are described in this briefing note from the BC Public School Employers’ Association [BCPSEA].) However, according to this story in the Globe and Mail, the newly re-elected Liberal government has just issued letters to both parties “rescind[ing] a previous bargaining mandate [for the government’s negotiators] and highlight[ing] the 10-year proposal as a point of negotiation”. Here is a copy of the letter sent to the BCPSEA.

The idea of a 10-year collective agreement was first introduced (more…)