By

' DAVID
# ARCHER
4 President,
™ Ontario

Federation
of Labor

tive bargaining into our
€conomic system has dras-

." believe this is not only right
a Proper but necessary if our
Modern industrial society is to

#Temain truly democratic.

any agement must continu-
¥ Y be reminded that property
“Tights should not give you
f SUthority over people. Since
‘Property is a “thing”, the own-
ership of “things” should not

be a foundation for authority
©ver people.

55
ie managements have not
é aes Tecognized this change in
| Bees and still operate
y Within time-worn economic and
| Political concepts evolved at
Aa Stage of our economic
Ay lopment when the factory
Was family-owned and operated.

‘| Fane this concept, manage-
1 See a that they hold their
: ement rights by vi f
Jownership, e y virtue o

arbi tunately, most Canadian
Scourt Ors and every Canadian
eee administrative tribunal
he oe on what has come to
esi Frees as a “managements

means eae theory. Thisk. .
stricted at any rights not re-
Mite a BY contract or prohi-
nant Y law belong to manage-

| pee this theory a company
SS re a staunch unionist
fees Management did not
Bae Bae of his eyes. If this
i brobibs discrimination is not
ae ited specifically by a union
Daw ae there is nothing in
pinsing Protect the aggrieved
Rion yee. The only discrimina-
Eee Prohibited by law is on
“He we of race, creed or color.
vias fired and there is
i it ing the union can do about
Without breaking the law and
8aging in illegal activity.

J en;
Bein he Organizing stage of a
Dino pra paign where there is
Mig poet by agreement one
Baits, the complete mercy of
com sement. This problem is
ate by the fact that in
_ 10 One is denied the right
Strike, slowdown or take any

2.
neh effective action to redress
€ situation. . . .

an where there is an agree-
Sy the problem is not solved.
Te are many questions not

/m

rot blished here are excerpts
BArc an article written by David
| . €r for the Canadian Labor
‘gress publication, Labor.

covered by agreement, some dif-
ficulties are not even thought of
at the time the agreement is
signed. The Labor Act states
that final determination (arbi-
tration) can only be made
“where a difference arises be-
tween the parties on the inter-
pretation, application or admin-
istration of the agreement.”

Most agreements spell out
managements’ rights by a man-
agements’ rights clause. Matters
such as speedup, introduction of
new methods of manufacturing,
and the introduction of automa-
ted machinery, among others,
are usually outside the scope of
the agreement and the manage-
ment’s rights in these areas are
not restricted by law. So a union
finds itself in the position of
watching its bargaining unit
weakened or destroyed without

any effective remedy, since the |

right to strike has been taken
away by the statute.

Even the Taft-Hartley Act in
the United States does not go
this far. And, in every other
western democratic state in
such circumstances, workers are
allowed to withhold their labor
until a mutually-satisfactory
settlement is arrived at.

One or two Ontario arbitra-
tors have tried to modify this
theory, but with little success.
Professor Bora Laskin and Judge
Fuller have shown some under-
standing of the unions’ problems
but most other arbitrators, par-
ticularly judges, have been com-
pletely hostile to any modifica-
tion of management’s exclusive
and unilateral right to manage

Management
Rights

its workforce in any way it
desires without interference by
the union.... ;

Companies argue that they
can pay whatever they wish to
whom they please, claiming the
union-negotiated wage scale is
merely a minimum or base. So
long as they do not go below
this minimum they are not in
violation of the agreement. It is
one of their residual rights to
pay more, without the union’s
permission, even if the recipients
of the extra pay just happen to
be the least enthusiastic union-
ists in the shop.

This view is upheld by most
Canadian arbitrators. In the
U.S. the Supreme Court, the
National Labor Relations Board
and individual arbitrators have
taken a much more realistic view
of this situation. And in the U.S.
unions can strike during an
agreement on issues not cover-
ed by the agreement.

Professor Bora Laskin, in the
Peterborough Lock Case, put
the case very well. He stated:

“In this board’s view, it is very
superficial generalization to con-
tend that a collective bargaining
agreement must be read as limit-
ing an employer’s pre-collective
bargaining prerogatives only to
the extent expressly stipulated.

“Such a generalization ignores
completely the climate of em-
ployer-employee relations under
acollective agreement. The
change from individual to col-
lective bargaining is a change of
kind and not merely a difference
in degree.

“The introduction of a collec-

GOVERNMENT STATISTICS

Windsor depressed city?
Still has highest wages

HE ONTARIO Economic Re-
view, a government publi-

cation, says that Windsor
enjoyed the highest wages in
the province as of July of last
year.

This probably comes as &
surprise to those who have
thought of Windsor as a some-
what depressed city since the
removal of a good part of Ford
auto production to Oakville.

But that city’s average indus-
trial wage in July was $102.25
a week. In manufacturing alone,
it was $118.17, an increase of
$12 over July 1963. Overtime
in auto manufacturing could

have had a lot to do with the
high wage.

Pulling up the rear among
Ontario cities were Ottawa and
Kitchener, with average indus-

: trial wages of $80.91 and $80.72
a week respectively.

St. Catharines came second
to Windsor with a weekly aver-
age of $101.34. This is also an
auto city, chiefly General Mo-
tors. Wages in Brantford were
$83.19 and in London $84.39.

Manufacturing wages in St.
Catharines averaged $108.53 a
week, Kitchener $81.73, Brant-
ford $85.58 and London $89.84.

tive bargaining regime involves
the acceptance by the parties of
assumptions which are entirely
alien to an era of individual bar-
gaining. Hence, any attempt to
measure rights and duties in
employer-employee relations by
reference to pre-collective bar-
gaining standards is an attempt
to re-enter a world which has
ceased to exist.

“Just as the period of indivi-
dual bargaining had its own
‘common law’ worked out empi-
rically over many years, so does
a collective bargaining regime
have a common law to be in-
voked to give consistency and
meaning to the collective agree-
ment on which it is based.”

The more orthodox legal view
has been expressed by Judge
Thomas in the Studebaker-
Packard case. He stated:

An arbitration board: “is
strictly limited to interpreting
the written contract. The com-
pany has the right to manage
its business to the best of its
ability in every respect, except
to the extent that its rights are
cut down by voluntary abroga-
tion of some of these rights
through contract with the union.

“The Reservations (not res-
trictions) to Management clause
which appears in most agree-
ments is nothing but a gratuit-
ous acknowledgement by the
union of this fundamental right.
If the board is unable to find
anything in the contract between
the parties which takes away..
from the company’s right to
conduct its own business, then

_ it cannot be concerned with the

quality of action taken by the
company, nor whether it results
in a loss of jobs for employees
of the company, nor whether
the action which produced such
results was exercised inside the
four walls of the plant.”

Because the attitude of almost
all Ontario arbitrators is the
same as Judge Thomas, we must
make these demands on the
government:

1) That all matters relating
to employee-employer relation-
ship during the terms of a col-
lective agreement are arbitrable.
Thus the Laskin view of arbitra-
tion would prevail.

2) And/or. the “no strike”
legislation be repealed and the
union be allowed to use its
economic power to redress un-
fair treatment of the people it
represents.

If we are to suffer severe
penalties for protesting manage-
ment’s unfair and discriminatory

January 29,

decisions and no satisfactory
method of final settlement of
those differences is open to us,
then we are duty-bound as trade
unionists to demand, for our
own protection and survival, the:
repeal of the “no strike” clause
in the Ontario Labor Relations
Act.
@

The same situation holds true
with regard to automation and
other changes in working pro-
cedures. Government is demand-
ing labor-management consulta-
tion before widespread and far-
reaching changes are made in
industry. What good is consul-
tation if we are precluded fram
using our economic strength’ at
the consultation table?

Here is a situation that cfie;
aloud for redress. The federal
government, through Labor
Minister Allan MacEachen) has
suggested that it is aware of the
problem and is looking for a
remedy.

It is much more important
that the remedy be ‘incorporated
into provincial legislation. This
is where it may be much more
difficult to receive a sympathetic
understanding of our problem.
It is worth the effort, however,
if we are to return industrial
democracy to union-management
relations.

To study poverty

in rural Alberta

The federal Agricultural Re-
habilitation Development Ad-
ministration has announced a
plan to study poverty in rural
Alberta. Under ARDA guidance,
19,000 inhabitants of a 12,000
square mile area west of Ed-
monton will spend the next 12

months analyzing their econo-
mic problems.

The “Edson” district, span-
ning towns, villages and farm-
land from Evansburg west to
the British Columbia ~ border,
south to Lodge Pole and north
to Whitecourt, was chosen joint-
ly by the provincial and federal
governments because the annual
agricultural income average in
the area is $1,200.

1965—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5