Unions provide essential protection during difficult times

By LegalMatters Staff • Recent events demonstrate the effectiveness and necessity of organized labour despite criticism from some, says Toronto employment lawyer Jeffrey M. Andrew.

He says several unions have found themselves in the media spotlight lately and have navigated through some difficult times while continuing to make strides for their members and earning the public’s respect.

“I think support for unions has been well reinforced in the past year,” says Andrew, co-managing partner with Cavalluzzo LLP.

Recent negotiations

He points to the protracted negotiations between Ontario’s teachers’ unions and the provincial government that ended quietly during the pandemic lockdown. 

Some legal commentators suggested the public’s trust in teachers and unions was eroded by rotating strikes, but Andrew disagrees.

“Quite the opposite. Strikes always cause some degree of disruption to employees, their unions, their employers and the public,” he tells LegalMatterCanada.ca. “But in Canada, they are not common events precisely because unions, their members and their employers usually try hard to reach compromises and avoid them.

“That did not happen this time because the government misjudged the commitment of teachers to resist larger class sizes and cost-cutting and the level of public support for that resistance,” Andrew adds. “Parents and the public at large get the importance of education for our children and got that larger class sizes and further cuts are bad public policy.”

He says his wife is a teacher and was on the picket line.

Criticism rare

“She was thrilled at the level of support they received – parents and other members of the public bringing coffee and thanks,” he says, “Criticism was a rare thing. Overwhelmingly the public was on the side of teachers and their unions.”

He says during the pandemic the “same public support was on display for unions representing nurses, health care, food service and other workers on the front line of this terrible crisis.”

Andrew notes that the protection organized labour provides to frontline workers is essential.

“Without a union, these workers are relatively powerless and have to hope that their employers will put safety over income. That is not necessarily a safe bet,” he says. “Unions bring their members together with a depth of expertise, organization, resources and connections with the broader community to advocate in their interests. That is their focus. My sense is that the unions have been unrelenting in this focus.”

Andrew shrugs off claims by some that unions negotiate through the media instead of at the bargaining table. 

‘Wants to succeed at bargaining table’

“These critiques have been made by people who spend an inordinate amount of time marketing themselves so it’s a bit rich,” he says. “In a dispute, a union spends most of its time at the bargaining table with the employer trying to get a reasonable deal and interacting with its members, not cultivating the media. The union wants to succeed at the bargaining table and that’s not done just talking to the media.”

• Dealing with the employment fallout from coronavirus shutdowns

However, Andrew says in any high-profile negotiation “it is essential to have a credible media strategy and neither unions nor employers ignore that.”

“In a free society, you want the public the understand your perspective which is legitimate,” he says. “Also, when public sector and large private sector workplaces have a labour dispute, public interest is high, and the media will inevitably be in regular contact about developments with both sides.”

Some commentators have taken unions to task for sending a message that consequences could follow if their demands are not met, a claim Andrew calls “nonsense.”

‘Constructive relationships’

“In my experience, most unions develop constructive relationships with the employers that they deal with which is focused on the sensible resolution of disputes. Threats are not usually a feature of these relationships,” he says. “Yes, intractable disputes arise on occasion and unions and employers can be blunt when it gets to that stage. But no successful labour relationship between a union and an employer results in one party dictating terms of capitulation to the other.”

Andrew also dismisses the notion that unionizing gig workers puts an unfair burden on them because, for the most part, they are part-time employees who cannot afford to pay union dues.

“Gig workers are workers like any others with the same rights to unionize and gain the value of union representation as any other worker,” he says. “Union dues are paid that is true – it is usually a modest fee collected from each individual in the membership which covers the costs of representation. Those employees who unionize know that and agree, willingly and sensibly so.”

Provide protection

Andrew says the dues provide protection to members.

“That is because when you are not unionized and have a dispute with management you are on your own against the employer and its lawyers, which poses many challenges,” he says. “You can retain a lawyer to represent you and pay the costs yourself which can be expensive and far exceed what dues would cost. When you are unionized you have experienced representation and the union pays any legal bills it incurs on your behalf.”

Andrew says while some naysayers suggest that employees should think twice when a union tries to organize, a union can provide job security.

“To the extent, the work is still being performed a union can negotiate rules to fairly regulate how vacancies, promotions, layoffs and recalls from layoff are handled,” he explains. “Non-union workers have no effective means to ensure these things.

“No union promises that the employer will continue to stay in business successfully. They have little control over that,” Andrew adds. “But as long as the employer remains in operation, the union will provide significant security to its members to ensure the implementation of fair rules to assure reasonable job security.”