An entire book would not be adequate to describe the many strategies and principles in the negotiating process. I will limit myself to describing the most common principles I used during the numerous negotiations I conducted over the years.
Let me start by saying that negotiating is not a science but an art: the art of compromise. One can even say the art of life. We negotiate consciously or unconsciously all the time with ourselves, within our families, in the workplace. In fact, we negotiate almost everywhere we go and in everything we do. We decide what to eat and when to eat but we compromise over what we like and what is healthy. Without compromises a marriage would not last.
Labour negotiations are a class by themselves. In my experience, both sides should take the constructive approach and be guided by the principle that we must live with each other, just as in a marriage, and attempt to find accommodations which give something to both.
At the end of a negotiating process there should not be any clear winner or loser. The best result is when both sides are equally dissatisfied. One may think he gave too much, the other that he should have got more. Two negatives make a positive.
If one party gets a clear victory over the other, it will be only a matter of time before the losing party attempts to get even. It creates an atmosphere of mistrust and sets the stage for “getting even” or revenge.
This unreasonableness can happen on both sides. There are employers who could easily offer reasonable increases but will instead push the union to accept cuts for the sake of higher profits. Unions in a monopoly position—those in public service, for example—may squeeze the employer to get fat settlements with higher wages or higher benefits or both but it will only be a matter of time before redress is sought. This is a key issue in public service negotiations because after the settlement it is the taxpayers who ultimately pay and they, in turn, will push politicians for redress, even if it means drastic action. Look at what happened to Detroit, Michigan, around the year 2000. The entire city structure collapsed.
I never went for the jugular even if I was in a position to do so. I had two guiding principles: the short term and the long term. For the short term what was important was the minimum our members would accept and be satisfied with. For the long term, I always looked at the impact of the wage increases on future employment.
In the private sector, employers are in business for one simple reason: to make money. Many of them are truly ingenious in finding new ways to produce more for less. If the cost of labour becomes too high, sooner or later they will find ways to do more with fewer employees. The union’s responsibility to its members is to find a fair balance, something easier said than done.
Take, for instance, the residential concrete forming industry. There are many ways to construct a building superstructure: by concrete forming, steel structure, masonry, precast, and so on. A builder chooses the most economical technique, which, in Toronto, is the concrete forming superstructure. If this building system becomes uneconomical, thousands of construction workers in the Toronto area will find their work substituted by another system.
I also learned that two sets of negotiations are never the same, just as in a game of chess. There are always variables such as the economic conditions, the personalities, the inside politics, the taste left over for each party from prior negotiations, and the question of whether or not leadership is facing an election.
Visualization is an important tool. Before any set of negotiations, I would attempt to visualize the situation, almost in a military style. I would analyze the opposition’s position, their strengths, their weaknesses, their possible moves, and how I might break through their defences. I would use the same process for our own position, trying to visualize the negotiation from their perspective. Sometimes I would march up and down my basement to the sound of military music until the whole scheme became clear to me.
It is critically important to scrutinize everything realistically, neither overestimating nor underestimating either side’s position. I would always keep the high ground, not conceding anything, until I was fairly satisfied that the other side would meet me at the desired point.
Fair play, trust, and bargaining in good faith are the pillars of progress. If one is trusted to keep his word and if there is no perception of malice, the stage is set to obtain a fair settlement. Of course, these are not qualities easy to achieve because trust is built up over a long period of time and tested often along the way.
Flexibility in the negotiating process is a must. I usually had a master plan but it was used as a framework. Unexpected developments and roadblocks would make it necessary to modify both strategy and tactics, something you cannot do if you take a rigid approach from the outset. Sometimes, unfortunately, one has to lower expectations.
As I have mentioned a number of times in my story, off-the-record bargaining can be crucial to a peaceful settlement. It allows both parties to completely trust each other and to open up to each other.
It takes two to tango, the saying goes, yet as in dancing someone has to lead a negotiation and a good negotiator also has to be a good leader. He must have the intestinal fortitude to tell his people not what they like to hear but the reality of their situation, even if it may be unpleasant. He must sometimes be blunt, always truthful, and possess a good balance between the art of compromise, and leadership.
Over the years I gained a lot of experience from renewing collective agreements and here is what I learned. First and foremost, consult the members, give them an opportunity to voice their aspirations, usually at a special meeting. And when they do speak, you must listen.
I chose or elected the most militant and outspoken members for my negotiating committees, for the simple reason that if I was able to convince them, the rest of the membership would follow.
Most members have no idea of how the negotiating process works. They believe the union should ask for what they believe they are entitled to and that the employer should give it. That is not reality, of course. Only when members participate in the negotiating process do they realize the difficulties.
Having a militant committee is also useful for dealing with employers. Quite often employers believe union proposals are really union demands that do not reflect the attitudes of employees who they suppose to be happy. When confronted with a negotiating committee of militant working members, this perception changes.
The initial bargaining meetings are a ritual, almost like a Mexican hat dance. Both parties try to feel out and test each other. Each side tries to maintain the high ground. There are many speeches from both sides, sometimes almost sermons, to underscore the sanctity of each position or proposal, although in many cases they are mostly designed to impress their own side.
The real negotiations take place in another arena, the off-the-record one, either on the golf course, or over a lunch or a cup of coffee. It may sound easy but it is difficult.
An employer will never open up unless he has the complete trust of the person on the other side. This can only be achieved through a reputation of character built over a long period of time. Only if each party is truly assured that the conversation will remain off the record, completely confidential, will the discussion be truly open and honest.
Sometimes the real differences are so strong that even this process may not bring a satisfactory compromise. For me, however, it worked most of the time and thus avoided unnecessary strikes.
Speaking of which, not all strikes should be avoided. It becomes necessary, sometimes, to have a therapeutic strike. Members often believe any peaceful settlement could have been improved by using the strike weapon. If there are continuous fair settlements as the result of honest and skilful negotiations, it can create doubts in members’ minds and suspicions of sweetheart deals between management and union leadership.
In a few cases (fortunately, very few), I thought it was better to negotiate a settlement through a strike than reach the same settlement by smart negotiation. The members saw those settlements as “their victory” rather than as due to my skill as a negotiator.
Homework is critical. I took advantage at every opportunity I had to talk to individual members or small groups to learn their bottom lines. I did this in an indirect way to hide my true intentions. I would do the same with individual employers.
Planning is also critical. If a strike ever became a strong possibility, I would speed up or slow down the negotiating process to coincide with the most opportune time to strike.
I always ensured that I did not get too close to a settlement line unless I was reasonably sure it was there. It is easier to negotiate the first dollar than the last quarter.
The voting process for the ratification is also a critical element. Not only must it be done right but it must be seen to be done right. Before taking any vote, I would open the ballot boxes, show the members that they were empty, and assign the negotiating committee or other members to carry out the vote and count the ballots. I never got involved or assigned full-time union representatives to this process, eliminating any doubt that the vote was rigged.
Finally, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of common sense and fair compromise. One must always keep in mind that we have to live with the opposition. They are the ones providing the jobs.
Those were my guidelines. If one considers my thirty-two years of union activities, I daresay I have acquired considerable experience. My big takeaway is that if the members trust their leader, it is always easier for them to accept a settlement. Often I was told by members that they voted in favour “because you told us this is the best we can do and we trust you.”
I was fortunate in 1963 to attend the seven-week course sponsored by the Canadian Labour Congress’s Labour College in Montreal, and in 1974 the Trade Union Program at Harvard University. I think that I am the only Canadian trade unionist who attended both of those programs. Those courses helped me better service our membership and promote their cause. I feel sorry for newly elected or appointed union representatives who go from the work site or assembly line to a union administration position. They may be intelligent, well spoken, and even well educated but they have little or no knowledge of the union’s many administrative operations and these are important to members. While some big unions such as the United Steelworkers of America and UNIFOR have instituted good training programs for newly hired staff, most smaller unions and construction unions do not have anything like that available. New leaders learn through the school of hard knocks. There should be a better way to prepare them. I would urge institutions of higher learning to institute a semester or more of union administration courses, teaching labour law, basic accounting (including the importance of financial statements), various aspects of government programs such as Unemployment Insurance and Workers Compensation, pension fund structures, the grievance procedure, arbitration, basic negotiations, safety laws, and trust fund administration.
Economics is important. It is surprising how very few people have an understanding of monetary and fiscal policy, government budgets, government debts and deficits, and their effect on the economy. All these things ultimately drive jobs. The more informed and educated our union representatives, the greater asset they will be to a union and to society, because, to paraphrase a famous writer: no union is an island.
Perhaps most crucially, labour leaders of the future need to understand what happened before them. They need to appreciate the challenges overcome by previous generations of workers and the hard-won rights negotiated by their many dedicated predecessors in union leadership roles. They need to learn labour history for, as William Faulkner famously wrote in Requiem for a Nun, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”