Strikes and lock-outs seem to be growing in frequency and rancour
As CLV Reports was going to press, two major municipal strikes were continuing: the long-running Windsor stoppage and the newer Toronto one. National Steel Car workers rejected the company’s final offer and stayed on strike. Locked-out Kellogg’s employees also voted down an offer and remained off the job. Bargaining at Bombardier de Havilland had gone into overtime.
Since headline writers chastised General Motors for not holding a gun to the head of the Canadian Auto Workers during their first concession negotiations in April, it has appeared as though the trade union movement was on the run. Employees at National Steel Car certainly remember what happened at TrentonWorks and are suspicious of the company’s motives in building a new plant in Alabama despite the drop in demand for their products. The company refuses to bargain closure language but demands further roll-backs. In London, Kellogg’s is also demanding concessions, though the company has not been faced with the same economic pressures as most other manufacturers have.
If employers are going to use the recession as a pretense to radically restructure collective agreements, they are going to have to expect some resistance. We have just seen two examples of unions and management facing their responsibilities and swallowing bitter pills: GM-Chrysler and Air Canada. It does not follow that unions will roll over and play dead for every demand that is made of them. Locals’ web sites are full of stories of companies coming to the table with multiple pages of concessions affecting almost every provision of the contract.
Private-sector militancy has seemed to be muted over the past year or so: many early renewals and few strikes. But the wind may be changing.
And, on the other hand, the Canadian Union of Public Employees may have created a monster. With so many employees either out of a job or fearing they will be, the refusal of public sector unions to accept concessions is prompting the familiar “They should be happy they have jobs!” response. And the political capital flowing into the camp of those who would gut union contracts is growing.
To expect to be able to protect all existing gains and even bargain improvements in this climate may not be realistic. The City of Toronto’s ability to pay may not have been damaged as much as GM’s or Air Canada’s (my taxes just went up four per cent), but the optics of the union “fat cats” sitting on their perks are poor.
Labour relations may be approaching a crisis engendered by alternatively relying too much on the recession or disregarding it altogether in negotiations.
