Daphne G. Taras

The Transition from Formal Nonunion Representation to Unionization: A Contemporary Case:

The authors examine three phases in the unionization process among Imperial Oil Limited employees in Canada who, in 1993, decided to withdraw from a long-standing nonunion employee representation plan: the conditions leading to the propensity to unionize; the transformation into a bargaining unit; and post-certification behaviors and practices. The unionization process in this case study differed from that suggested by literature based on unionization among workers without a previous history of collective representation. In the pre-campaign phase, workers experienced a significant loss of perceived power due to changes in company practices and managerial style. Elected worker delegates to the nonunion representation plan spearheaded the union campaign. The union organizing phase allowed the company multiple opportunities for redress without unionization. Subsequent union attachment was diminished by continuing loyalty to aspects of the old system.

Disability and the Performance Paradox: Can Social Capital Bridge the Divide?

This research captures the physical and social experience of disability by analysing the practical performance problems that arise when an ill or injured employee returns to work, and documenting how those problems are interpreted. The grounded theory approach suggests an alternative to the traditional biomedical or social perspectives on disability. Field research reveals four themes: attendance, disciplinary history, peer interaction and task function. Managerial and co-worker perceptions were significantly affected by interactions that occurred before any disability was known to exist. Historic patterns of social exchange strongly suggest that social capital theory explains problematic work performance.

Managerial Intentions and Wage Determination in the Canadian Petroleum Industry

Scant attention has been given to the impact of managerial objectives on wage policies. This study demonstrates that in the Canadian petroleum industry, which has minimal wage dispersion, managerial objectives—in particular, a tendency toward imitative behavior and a strategy of union avoidance—do affect wage determination. Despite the intense scrutiny of wage determination by scholars for decades, very little is known of managers’ intentions with regard to wage policies. The preponderance of wage studies are deductive in design and access secondary data sets. Only a handful of theoretical alternatives explain wage variability such as labor market characteristics, human capital effects, firm specific attributes, or union bargaining power. Amid the wealth of research is the barest flickering of interest in how managers themselves perceive the wage setting objectives of their companies. After thoroughly reviewing the literature on intra- and interindustry wage differentials, Groshen (1991a, p. 377) concluded that this was a serious oversight: “New sources of data must be developed to allow direct investigation of employer activities ....I nparticular, direct efforts to ascertain and interpret the intentions of employers as they set wages are essential.” This study of the determination of hourly workers’ wages in the Canadian petroleum industry reveals the link between managerial intentions and their impact on a specific human resource (HR) practice. The industry was chosen because its high wages, partial unionization, and highly devel

Alternative Forms of Employee Representation and Labour Policy

There are many alternative types of collective representation among workers in addition to unions and some of these might be useful platforms on which to build labour policy initiatives. Between 42 and 48 percent of Canadian workers have some form of collective representation (including the 32 percent who are unionized). Concrete examples are offered of the interplay among different labour market intermediaries (unions, non-union employee-management committees, professional and staff associations, and government agencies). These actors have developed innovative employment policies and practices that match the needs of the Canadian workforce. Future labour policy initiatives must incorporate new actors and new models in order to be relevant.

Who shall speak of the pain? frame violations and the making of public controversy 1

This paper focuses on the frame violations that were created as sense-makers viewed a Canadian war documentary, The Valour and the Horror. The film series aggressively challenged conventional wisdom, and resulted in a fierce battle played out publicly in a Senate Subcommittee investigation as parliamentarians, veterans, historians, journalists and film-makers clashed over whose version of the truth would prevail. We argue that controversy erupts due to frame violations, and that it unfolds in a predictable manner. The article analyses both the content of the documentary, and describes the unfolding controversy. We found that different types of frame violations resulted in different consequences, but that generally, broad revisions of conventional and deeply held frames resulted in attacks on the person who created the violations, while lesser violations elicited an attempt to tamper with the product.

Voice and involvement at work : introduction

Competitive pressure on companies to boost productivity and performance has intensifi ed in the last two or three decades due to a confl uence of events, such as global integration of markets, a more fi nance-driven business environment, and industry deregulation and privatization. The ripple effects spread across all functional areas of business, affect all stakeholders, and can have positive or negative social consequences. Certainly employees and the human resource function are a case in point. Companies may react to greater competitive pressure by taking the low road through labour commodifi cation, cost cutting, and worker disempowerment or the high road through investment in human capital, high-involvement work practices, and mutual-gain compensation.1. Voice and Involvement at Work: Introduction Paul Gollan, Bruce Kaufman, Daphne Taras, and Adrian Wilkinson Part I: Australia 2. NER at Suncorp Group: the Suncorp Group Employee Council Paul Gollan and Cathy Ying Xu 3. NER in a Leading Australian Medical Manufacturer Paul Gollan and Senia Kalfa 4. The Difficult Challenge Faced by Hybrid Employee Voice in the Australian University Sector Alison Barnes and Craig MacMillan Part II: Britain 5. Legislating for NER? NER and the ICE Regulations at Manufacture Co. Jimmy Donaghey, Niall Cullinane, and Tony Dundon 6. Employee Voice at a Dot Com: The Rise and Demise of the Employee Forum at WebBank Stewart Johnstone and Adrian Wilkinson 7. Partnership at Eurotunnel: Challenges for NER and Union Representation Paul Gollan and Senia Kalfa Part III: Canada 8. A Century of Employee Representation at Imperial Oil Daphne Taras 9. Non-Union Employee Representation in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police: Resistance and Revitalization Sara Slinn 10. From Nonunion Consultation to Bargaining in the Canadian Federal Public Service: Expanding the Bounds of Employee Representation through the NJC Richard Chaykowski Part IV: United States 11. Employee Involvement and Voice at Delta Air Lines: The Leading Edge of American Practice Bruce Kaufman 12. The Intersection of NER and ADR: A Conceptual Analysis and Federal Express Case David Lewin 13. What Do NLRB Cases Reveal About Non-Union Employee Representation Groups? A Typology from Post-Electromation Cases Michael LeRoyThis chapter examines the employee involvement and voice (EIV) system at a UK-based Internet bank, referred to by the pseudonym “WebBank,” which was established in 1997 and ceased trading in 2011. The company quickly grew from a small city-centre startup operation to employing more than 2,500 in a large purpose-built operations centre at its peak. The context provides an interesting opportunity to explore the evolution and development of EIV in a greenfi eld context over its entire lifecycle. Given the importance of context and management choice in shaping EIV systems (Wilkinson et al. 2013), this represents an opportunity to explore a relatively unusual model of non-union EIV in Britain, during a period when the newly elected Labour government appeared to have warmer attitudes to trade unions after almost two decades of Conservative governments of leaving them out in the cold.This chapter examines the case of Cochlear, a medical manufacturer in Sydney, Australia, and its non-union voice arrangements. It draws on interviews conducted in 2009 and 2012 with management and employees to argue the following points. First, representative non-union employee representation (NER) arrangements can be used in periods of organisational change in a problem-solving capacity (Butler 2009) and as means to address short-term communication needs. However, when the change at hand is embedded in the organisation and the circumstances that gave rise to representative NER dissipate, the centrality and role of a collective non-union representation body wanes. In other words, we concur with much literature that fi nds that NER arrangements diminish in importance in the long term. Second, direct-voice arrangements can substitute for collective NER and in fact be more effective in capturing employee concerns over production and/or other matters. Third, embedding employee voice mechanisms within a broader human resources (HR) framework is crucial and preferred to a “narrow, one-dimensional employee participation initiatives” (Wilkinson et al. 2010: 9). In other words, the existence of voice mechanisms per se is not enough; what is needed is a high-involvement strategy that emphasises competitive advantage through people (Kaufman and Taras 2010).