Collective Agreements in Canada Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Collective Agreements in Canada - Essay Example The following in these agreements shall be compared and contrasted: management rights; union security; seniority; contracting out, and finally grievance procedures. A management rights clause is an agreement between employers and unions about how much autonomy the employer has in running the daily operations of a business and the decisions that the employer makes should not violate the collective agreements that have been made nor should they violate provincial and federal laws. In the case of both agreements as shown especially by the Treasury Board Secretariat (Article 4,Section 4.01), it is stated that the functions, rights, powers and authority which the employers have not specifically edited, delegated or modified in the agreements are recognized by the respective unions as being retained by the employers. Both of these agreements are in line with the main conditions of the management rights clause because they clearly specify what the jurisdictions of the employers and the unio ns are in relation to the employees and they set out guidelines on how to handle them without any interference with the day-to-day functions of the respective organizations. The union security section entails that employees are required to pay monies to maintain the union, and gives the union the exclusive right to bargain with the employers. This is as seen in the Treasury Board of Canada’s (Article 7, Section 7.01) agreement with the General Workers Union, which declares that the employer should be aware that the union as the only negotiator and mediator for all workers. Moreover, it states that it has the right to appoint stewards whose jurisdiction he, jointly with the union, shall determine having regard to the plan of the organization, the disbursement of employees at the work place and the administrative structure implied in the grievance procedure. The agreement between the Valard Company and the Union of Skilled Workers (Section 2) on the other hand states that all e mployees falling under the scope of the agreement will apply for membership in the union and will maintain their membership within the union as a condition of employment. Furthermore, it is the responsibility of the employer to co–operate with the union in all matters except for policing membership status. Both of these agreements require that the jurisdiction under which they fall have to be members of their respective union as a condition of employment. It can further be seen that the employees have no choice in the matter and that if they were not registered members of the unions, then they would lose their entitlement to employment, because the unions cannot provide the services that are required of them without the funding from its registered members. Security of employment is one of the foremost issues that occur between employers and employees and unions have attempted to deal with this problem by adding within the stipulations of collective agreements requirements for seniority whereby the employer is to promote, lay-off and re-employ his employees by considering the length of previous service. Although the two agreements that we are discussing in this paper have no seniority clauses, it is