quote:
Are sector-wide strikes illegal per se, or is it simply that the contracts expire at different times and thus when one local goes on strike the other locals in the same sector are still bound by their contracts?
Basically labour relations laws in both the U.S. and Canada are modelled on the U.S. Wagner Act of I believe 1938 with minor variations (such as the anti-scab law in Quebec).
The only time a union is legally allowed to strike is when a collective agreement has expired (and after a concilliation/mediation process has collapsed).
It was one of those historic compromises. Unions gained formal legal recognition, a formal "certification process", grievance/arbitration processes etc. In return, they had to give up the legal right to strike in all but the narrowest of circumstances.
If an employer violates a collective agreement, a union can't strike over it. That would be illegal in our system. Instead they've got to file a grievance and go through the arbitration process which often can take months or years.
Prior to the formal certification process, unions used to engage in "recognition strikes". They'd sign members up into the union, present themselves to the employer and if the employer wouldn't negotiate everyone would just walk off the job.
In the "old" system on the one hand the union was much closer to the members, but had no legal protection. In the current system there are some legal protections but alot of members start looking at their union the same way they look at an insurance company. They pay "premiums" so the union can "magically" protect them from the employer.
Members have become demobilized in this highly legalistic system.
In the U.S. where I understand labour relations law is all federal, the Republicans since Reagan have stacked the NLRB with Republican appointees.
In Canada, the tradition is a little different. The various provincial labour relations boards are supposed to be "tripartite" so that there are representatives of business, labour and government. So its a little harder for governments to "stack the deck" with anti-labour people who issue anti-labour judgements.
So in the U.S. you have the worst of both worlds in having an NLRB that doesn't protect the basic rights of unions and union members along with unions having given up their rights to strike outside of the expiry of a collective agreement.
Now getting back to your original question Mike, what some unions are attempting to do is to line up all of their collective agreements in certain sectors with common expiry dates. So that rather than having one little strike here and one little strike there, everyone is out on strike at the same time.
Of course this is much easier said than done. Just because a union wants a series of collective agreements all to expire at the same time doesn't mean that employers will agree to it. Employers aren't stupid. They know whats in their interests and will fight it tooth and nail. There are unions in Canada that have been trying to do stuff like this for a decade or more with limited success. Its even tougher in multi-union or multi-bargaining unit workplaces.
Then you get into very strange politics if one union or bargaining unit settles and another holds out for more.
That's another consequence of our North American labour relations system. Its setup to fragment the power of unions in dealing with employers.
Its much different in many European countries which have more centralized collective bargaining systems where you have one collective agreement that covers an entire industry or group of industries. They have a "general strike" it lasts no more than a week or two and then everything is settled. They don't have small isolated strikes that drag on for months and sometimes years.
Not to say Europe is perfect either. When you have a highly centralized system, that also creates bureaucratic problems too.
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posted 05 December 2004 05:45 PM
