Questions for October 26

1. To what extent, if any, should law be used to control the form of bargaining, whether it be soft bargaining, hard bargaining, positional bargaining, or mutual gains bargaining?
   
   
   
2. Archibald Cox sets out four purposes served by the inclusion of a duty to bargain in good faith in the U.S. National Labour Relations Act. What are they? Do you think they continue to be the justification for such a provision? Are there any other justifications for having such a duty in labour relations statutes?

 

 

3. Does it make sense to expect that an employer will "look upon labor as an equal partner" as Cox suggests?

 

 

4. What can labour boards do to promote the goal of collective bargaining as a "rational process of persuasion"?

 

 

5. On the basis of the Westinghouse and Consolidated Bathurst decisions, can you articulate the rule used by the Ontario Board for determining when an employer is required to disclose plans to make major changes in its operations?

 

 

6. What is the difference between surface bargaining and hard bargaining?

 

 

7. To what extent should the Labour Relations Board be entitled to look at the content of a party's bargaining position in order to determine if "bad faith" bargaining is occurring?

 

 

8. Why did the Ontario Labour Relations Board find that the employer had violated the duty to bargain in good faith in United Steelworkers of America and Radio Shack? (Casebook, p. 390)

 

 

9. Should the Labour Relations Board be entitled to impose collective agreement provisions on a party who it finds has engaged in bad faith bargaining?

 

 

10. What are Langille and Macklem trying to say in the article beginning on p. 400 of the Casebook? Do you agree with them?

 

 

11. Review section 43 of the Ontario Labour Relations Act, dealing with first agreement arbitration. What criteria are used to determine if the Board will order a dispute to be arbitrated? Under Bill 40, now revoked, the Act provided that first agreement arbitration could be ordered on the request of a party if thirty days had elapsed since it had become lawful to strike or lockout, or if the parties had been unable to effect a first collective agreement. Is this a better approach than under the present provision? Should access to interest arbitration be available only in the case of first agreements?

 

 

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 Last Modified: October 19, 1998