• Ensuring management is equipped and just as competent as a professional union organizers
• Information required to safeguard a position of a union-free employer

Learn:

• How to raise consciousness/ keep managers vigilant and aware of the importance of union-free status
• How to ensure everyday decisions, practices, policies, and procedures don’t pave the way for a union drive
• How to initiate only effective, lawful and appropriate countermeasures in the face of an organizing drive or a vote

Agenda

Introduction: Know Your Adversary

• What unions are / What they Do / Why they Organize
• Recent statistics and trends in union organizing activity
• Why it’s important to avoid applications for certification

Why Employees Join Unions

• General vs. specific factors; source of dissatisfaction
• Themes in union organizing material
• How Unions get Bargaining Rights (Part I)
• Voluntary recognition and certification
• Groups of employees that unions can and cannot represent: grey areas
• Gathering support, membership evidence
• How much support is needed? What happens if the union doesn’t have it?
• Applications for certification: what they are, how they happen

How Unions Get Bargaining Rights (Part II)

• The employer’s response: what it is, why it is important to respond
• The secret ballot vote: when, where, how
• After the vote: tying up loose ends
• Bars to reapplying for certification

How Unions Organize

• Employee-initiated vs. union-initiated
• Open campaigns vs. secret campaigns
• Early-warning signals

Maintaining the Union-Free Workplace (Part I)

• Best practices as preventive measures: introduction
• Advance preparation for union application: education of supervisory/management staff, the Five Day Plan
• Responding to union organizing activity: Introduction: unfair labour practices vs. employer free speech; remedial powers of the Ontario Labour Relations Board

Maintaining the Union-Free Workplace (Part II)

• Responding to union organizing activity
• What you can and should do, and what you cannot do: specific examples
• Educating the workplace about unions: dispelling the image unions create for themselves
• How to talk about the negatives of unionization without stepping over the line
• Choosing the form of communication: what works best
• Role of the supervisor in communicating the message
• Quiz on what is legal and illegal
• Handling common problems

What You Can Do Now – Human Resources Best Practices

• Why best practices should be the goal
• Identifying areas of strength and vulnerability
• Defining the objectives and how to achieve them
• Fair and effective managers and supervisors
• Employees: getting the right people and managing them properly
• Fair and competitive wages and benefits
• Effective two-way communication between employees and management
• Job security
• Fairness, dignity, and respect for employees
• Full statutory compliance (and beyond)
• Team-building, commitment, satisfaction, and common goals
• Making a realistic and achievable action plan

Book an In-House or Remote Program

For further information on our training, please call your lawyer at the Firm. If you are not a current client, please contact: