 Collective Agreement: a written document outlining the terms and conditions of employment in

a unionized workplace.

Collective bargaining: the process by which management and labor negotiate the terms and conditions
of employment in a unionized workplace.

Conversion Mechanisms: the processes used to convert internal and external inputs into outputs of the
industrial relations system. Examples:

 Collective bargaining: parties negotiate a collective agreement

 Grievances: employer writes a written complaint that the collective agreement has not been
followed.
 Day-to-day relations/activities
 Joint committees: joint labour-management committees that discuss and examine concern,
healthy and safety.
 Strikes and lockouts: work stoppages, used to bring closure to the negotiation process and
produce a collective agreement.
 Various third-party intervention:
o Interest arbitration: third party process when parties cannot reach a collective
agreement on their own. Used by usually actors who are unable to legally strike
(police, ambulance, firefighters, etc)
o Mediation: third party attempts to facilitate a resolution between labour and
management.
o Grievance arbitration: employers and labour cannot resolve a grievance,
arbitrator makes decision.
o Conciliation: assesses proposals of both the employer and labour and will send
the reports to the appropriate federal or provincial minister of labour prior to a
strike/lockout taking place.

Feedback loop: the mechanism by which outputs of the industrial relations system flow back to the
external environment
-the agreement becomes a new element of the environment and will effect next round of
negotiations
-the decision has an impact on economic environment
-the effects of the bargaining agreements has other impacts in the future
ex: increase in pension fund, next negotiations cannot have a decrease (will not decrease in salary)
-Metro employees, goes on strike, clientele will find food elsewhere, clientele will not come back
immediately because the clientele will have adapted new habits and customer with other stores.

Industrial relations: The study of employment relationships and issues, often in unionized workplaces.

Labor relations: The study of employment relationships and issues between groups of employees
(usually in unions and management; also known as union–management relations
Senority: The length of time a person has been a member of the union

Strike: An action by workers in which they cease to perform duties and do not report to work; a work
stoppage invoked by a union

 Neoclassical economics view: a view of industrial relations grounded in economics that sees
unions as an artificial barrier to the free market. (competitive markets) (into slavery, no unions,
demand and supply will be natural)
Pluralist and institutional view: a view of industrial relations stressing the importance of
institutions and multiple actors (including labor) in the employment relationship. (every is
happy)
Political economy: a view of industrial relations grounded in socialism and Marxism (overthrow
management and allow employees to have more control of their workplace) that stresses the
role of inherent conflict between labour and management.

 A fundamental assumption in industrial relations is the conflict of interest. P.209 Explain:

Labor unions and government policies such as minimum wage laws are seen as socially
beneficial because they can moderate the unequal bargaining power between employees and
employers.
Conflict of interest:
 The gain of one is necessarily the loss of the other.
 Ex: the more money I pay, the less I have to give.
power: promotion of seniority; lose power to choose other things

 Taylor:
 creation of personnel services. Concise tests-hiring, evaluation-promotion of workers or
firing, organization of work.
 Taylor's theories of scientific management tried to identify the most efficient ways to
organize work. In addition, the growth of shop committees and centralized control over
discharge and discipline helped improve worker morale. At least partly through these
efforts, labor productivity rose 37% between 1919 and 1926, convincing top
management that the personnel function made an important contribution to the firm's
efficiency (Slichter, 1929). These personnel departments also developed a new role that
was a harbinger of things to come; they developed and administered the system of
welfare capitalism that handled the pressure from growing labor unrest. The labor
movement gained strength during the war.
 Beginning with the works of Frederick Taylor around the turn of the century, the focus
of managing people in organizations was on developing precise analytical schemes to
select and reward an individual. This focus was typically for the purpose of motivating,
controlling, and improving the productivity of entry-level employees. During the 1920s,
work on these analytical schemes expanded to encompass issues of appraising and
training individuals, essentially for the same purpose.
  Optimize efficiency by rewarding performance of the individual typically to motivate,
control and improve productivity of the employees.
 State:
 Impact on organizations - legislations
 Public policies on employment
 Evolution of firm: 1934-> Wagner Act -> major change manages employee: MGMT
negotiate with union
 New legislation->brought about a collective agreement. Before was individual, now its
collective
 Wagner Act - Legislation: right for employees to unionize
 Environmental Subsystems:
 Economic subsystem
o Product market
o Labour market
o Money market
o Technology
 Political subsystem: government can decide (post Canada needs to deliver the bills)
o Legislative action
o Executive action
 Legal subsystem: prescribe or limit certain kinds of action
o Statutory law (salaries, the job itself, performance)
o Common law (applies to everyone)
o Administrative (collective or legislative) law
 Social subsystem (socio-cultural) ex: religion, culture
o Goals and values as influence on actors in IR system
o Social structures
o Public-opinion pressure
 Ecological context (ex: winter)
o Physical surroundings
o Natural resources
o Climate
 Dunlop’s version of Ideology: a set of ideas and beliefs held by the actors that legitimizes the
role of each and that serves to bind the system together.
Shared ideology:
i. Normal that all actors want the firm to make profit.
ii. Employer gives orders and employee executes.
 Examples of conversion mechanisms:
 Collective bargaining: parties negotiate a collective agreement
 Grievances: employee writes a written complaint that the collective agreement has not been
followed.
 Day-to-day relations/activities
 Joint committees: joint labour-management committees that discuss and examine concern,
healthy and safety.
 Strikes and lockouts: work stoppages, used to bring closure to the negotiation process and
produce a collective agreement.
 Various third-party intervention:
o Interest arbitration: third party process when parties cannot reach a collective
agreement on their own. Used by usually actors who are unable to legally strike
(police, ambulance, firefighters, etc)
o Mediation: third party attempts to facilitate a resolution between labour and
management. Government sends mediator.
o Grievance arbitration: employers and labour cannot resolve a grievance,
arbitrator makes decision. Agreement is already signed, then look over the
union agreement, they will go over it.
o Conciliation: assesses proposals of both the employer and labour and will send
the reports to the appropriate federal or provincial minister of labour prior to a
strike/lockout taking place.
 A) labour (ATU), management (metrobus) , government (government appointed mediator),
customers (everyday people-putting pressure)
b) Economics subsystem: not a high competitive market because people need to use public
transportation, those that do not have enough money to own a car.
Social subsystem:
c) 1. Strike – no outcome
2. Mediator
3. Negotiations (collective bargaining)

 Alton Craig: established a relationship between Dunlop’s components.

 Alton Craig has defined industrial relations as « that complex of private and public
activities, operating in an environment, which is concerned with the allocation of
rewards to employees for these services. » This definition is comprehensive and in line
with the one developped here.
1. A federal political system - where the regions are responsible for legislation on labor relations -
will encourage a decentralized collective bargaining process.
2. The proportion of clauses with a COLA will increase in inflation periods.
3. When introducing technological changes that result in the decrease of the number of workers,
employers tend to use attrition to reduce the labor force.
4. The probability of a strike increases in a firm where day-to-day relations between managers and
employees are conflictual.
5. In an inflationary period, unions will try to get higher wages and better COLA clauses.
6. In an inflationary period, the proportion of collective agreements that have COLA clauses will
increase.
7. When workers are informed of their firing because of the introduction of a new technology,
they do not believe it; they start looking for a new job only when the first workers are fired.
8. At a national level, if an increase in salaries is not compensated by an increase in productivity,
prices will increase.
9. The longer the period of time between the moment the workers submit an application for
certification to a labour board and the moment the certification is granted, the more efficient an
employer will be in his opposition to the unionization of workers.

 Arbitration: a quasi-judicial process whereby a neutral third party makes a final and binding
determination on all outstanding issues in dispute.
Certification: recognition of a union by a labour board after completion of the procedures under
the labour act.
Duty of fair representation: a legal obligation on the union’s part to represent all employees
equally and in a non-discriminatory manner
Exclusivity principle: the idea that a union is granted the sole right to represent all employees in
the defined bargaining unit.
Good faith bargaining: an obligation on union and management to make a serious attempt to
reach a settlement
Union Labour practice: an alleged violation of the labour relations act.

 Snider Case: a landmark court case in 1925 that determined that labour matters fell under the
purview of the provinces the British North America Act.
Toronto Electric Power Commissioners vs. Snider et al.
 Labor legislations=jurisdictions, only federation that labor legislations are regional
 5% of Canadian employees are guided by the federal legislations
o 1. Via rail, air Canada, cbc. Employees that go past provincial borders (inter-
provincial)
o 2. Federal durocracy
o 3. Telecom (CRTC)
 Wagner Act: named after the bill’s sponsor, Senator Robert F. Wagner of new York and more
formally known as the National Labor Relations Act of the united States.
 Protected the right to organize unions for the purpose of collective bargaining and the
right to strike
 Reduce conflict
 Aid in rebuilding of the American economy
 Legitimizing industrial revolution
14.
2. The impact on Canadian Labour Legislation is that all employees will be paid under their
provincial legislation.
-The distinctive Canadian system of shared jurisdiction was given legal authority. The federal
government was given responsibility over such interprovincial industries as communication and
transportation, while the provinces were given responsibility for all other areas of commerce.

3. The labor board typically applies several criteria to decide which employees are eligible to
be included in the bargaining unit: management employees, community of interests (same
interests, pilots and sturess have diff interests), wishes of employees, employer structure.

4. 4.1) Sign membership card + $2 fee

4.2) When 35% sign, the process can start; but only when 50% of the employees sign (in
ballots)
4.3) Send letter to the labour relations board with the facts
Labour board answer within 48 hours to the employer with obligations
4.4) 1) What cannot change the work conditions, cannot decide alone on work condition
(unilaterally) without bargaining
2) Employer must publish the list of employees that are salary workers
4.5) Certification agent (part of the ministry) will come from labour board
Will talk to employees to find out if they were pressured to signing membership card
*Look at the list established by the employer to see if it corresponds to the list given by the
employees
Once there’s correlation of the lists’ and 50% are favorable to unionized, the certification is
given
If 50% is not given the power remains to the employer where he attributes conditions as he
wishes (salaries, overtime, schedule, vacation, etc.)
Scenarios:
a) If there is agreement at 35%, the certification agent organises a vote (never happens)
b) If there’s disagreement between employer/employee who is salary worker and 35%
have vote for, the case goes in front of the labour commissioner (never happens)
c) If disagreement and less than 50% of employees sign membership, goes in front of the
labour commissioner
d) If disagreement with 50%, certification is granted
********* 50% is based on the employer’s list
4.6) Labour Commissioner: will make decisions
Are the non-salary employees eligible to be unionized (he will ask, does X employee have the
power to make a disciplinary decision?)

5. Unfair labor practice: example: failing to pay an individual worker overtime pay for hours
worked in excess of forty hours in a week might be a violation of the Fair Labor Standards
Act.
Duty of fair representation: example: union that fails to support a grievance by an employee
because she is in a faction of the union that is in opposition to the current union leadership.
9. The more employment law, the more strength for unions in Canada. Opposite for US. The
labor laws are becoming more important –union decline. But in Canada, the supreme court
of canada strengthened collective rights.
15. It would differ for Quebec because
2. Must pay 2$ in union dues within the 12 months preceding application
4. The percentages are different, it is 35% and 50%.

16. P. 99-100
1. Deregulation: a policy designed to create more competition in an industry by allowing prices to be
determined by market forces
-privatization: the transfer or contracting out of services to the private sector
-indirectly through policies that promote free trade in goods and services (e.g the NAFTA: a free trade
agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico that was signed in 1944 and included a labor
side agreement, the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation)

2. and 4.

Product Market
- In a competitive market
↑wages→↑costs→↑prices→↓sales→↓union power
-in a monopolistic market
↑wages→↑costs→↑prices→ but NO↓sales→↑union power

Substitution effect(replace labor by capital: machines, new technology)

-if easy to substitute capital for labour→↓union power
Labor Intensity
-more labor intensive→↓union power
-because ↑ wages→↑production costs→↑opposition of management
Market for Substitutes
-if substitutes for labour are more available and thus, less expensive→ the greater the impact on
employment→↓union power

3. P.82 The number of workers is a function of such elements as population growth, immigration,
retirement choices, work-family decisions, career patterns, leisure choices and labor mobility.

5. Monopsony: occurs when a firm is the sole market buyer of a good, service or labour.
Ex: hydroQuebec, private hospitals,SAQ

6. Positive effects of craft unions: in terms of higher graduation rates for women involved in joint union-
management apprentice programs
-apprentice training and hiring halls

Negative effects: jurisdiction disputes and restrictive work rules

7. The evidence says that it has increased. There is stability in union support.

10. Contingent Workers:

  Part-time: number of hours worked at the main job is less than 30 hours a week.
 Contingent (temporary):
o 1. Those who have traditionally worked on a temporary or casual basis
o 2. A smaller but growing group of professional and technical contingent workers who
desire the freedom and flexibility provided by contingent work
 Flextime: permits employees to start earlier or later as long as the required number of hours are
worked per week. Advantage: travel outside of morning or afternoon rush hours and may be
better to juggle family commitments.
 Compressed work weeks: involves reallocating the work time by condensing the total hours in
the traditional work week into fewer days. Ex: 4 days a week, 40 hours, long days but you get a
day off.
 Teleworking: working at home, satellite work centre, non-traditional workplace, either full time
or part time, and using telecommunications and electronic processing of information.

10.Work-life Balance: achieve a balance between workplace obligations and personal responsibilities.
Occurs when the cumulative demands of work and non-work roles are incompatible in some respect so
that participation in one role is made more difficult by participation in the other. It has three
components :
-1. Role overload
-2. Work to family interference (long hours limit time at home)
-3. Family interferes with work ( family demands prevent attendance at work)
May upset balance (Work-Life Conflict):
1. Economic:
Service Economy
Deregulation
Labour shortages
Contingent Workers
Outsourcing
2. Social:
Daycare needs
Increased workloads
Flexibility
Absenteeism, benefit costs
Multitasking
3. Demographic:
Dual-earner and single-parent families
Aging work force

17.
2. Union decrease is a consequence of :
-globalization and the greater pressures on firms to be competitive
-more individual protection under employment laws
-changes in the nature of work, with employees exercising greater control over scheduling (telework,
self-employment)
-improved human resources practices geared toward individual needs

Canada: Union density rates have increased because the addition of employment laws have made
unions stronger.

United states: Union density rates have decreased because the addition of employment laws have
allowed the workers to lose their spirit in the unions due to strength they have received in the
employment laws.

4. -1. Role overload

-2. Work to family interference (long hours limit time at home)
-3. Family interferes with work ( family demands prevent attendance at work)
May upset balance (Work-Life Conflict):
1. Economic:
Service Economy
Deregulation
Labour shortages
Contingent Workers
Outsourcing
2. Social:
Daycare needs
Increased workloads
Flexibility
Absenteeism, benefit costs
Multitasking
3. Demographic:
Dual-earner and single-parent families
Aging work force