A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO MAINTAINING THE UNION-FREE WORKPLACE
Benefits Of This Program:
  • 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:

Program Administrator
Tel: 416-862-1616 or 1-866-821-7306
[email protected]

contact
Phone: +1 416-875-2235
Fax: 416-363-7358
contact
Phone: +1 416-875-2235
Fax: 416-363-7358
Ryan J. Conlin
Ryan J. Conlin

Partner

Natalie G. Caballero
Natalie G. Caballero

Associate

Jeffrey D. A. Murray
Jeffrey D. A. Murray

Partner

Jeremy D. Schwartz
Jeremy D. Schwartz

Partner

Allison L. Taylor
Allison L. Taylor

Counsel

Landon P. Young
Landon P. Young

Managing Partner