Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Don’t Drive into the Ditch

Why—and how—to read your collective agreement

By Nathan Koslowsky, Representative

Workers and employers should both read the collective agreement they are party to. But it’s not enough to just read it. You need to read it carefully.

Think of your collective agreement like the rules of the road. Paying careful attention to the agreement will help you and your coworkers remain safely on the roadway and will help you know when your employer may be speeding or driving into the ditch.

Not everyone values or understands the rules of the road. For some, rules are made to be broken, others believe they are exempt from the rules, and still others prioritize some rules while ignoring the rest.

In my experience, employers and workers typically misread their collective agreement in a few ways. The thing both parties have in common is that they read their agreement selectively, with a bias toward finding what they want to find—at the expense of the real meaning of the text.

Selective reading is challenging because it masquerades as careful attention to the agreement. But it actually distorts the intent of the agreement in ways that can lead to disagreement and misunderstanding.

Or as author John Wyndham frames it, “Some quotations . . . are greatly improved by lack of context.” Or, as stated starkly by Steward Stafford, “Separate text from context and all that remains is a con.”

5 Ways to Avoid Misreading Your Collective Agreement

Context is key. The fancy word for quoting something out of context is “contextomy.” This happens when you remove a passage from its surrounding material to distort its intended meaning. An agreement must be read as a whole. Everything—from the preamble to the headings to the location of a particular clause—matters. Words should be read in the context of the sentence, section, and the entire agreement, and you cannot interpret an article in a way that goes against another article.
Keep it simple. Follow the plain meaning rule: words are given their ordinary meaning, technical or legal terms are given their technical or legal meaning, and specific usage of words is recognized between the parties.
Words have consistent meanings. You should assume that all the words used matter and have meaning. Where the same word is used twice, it is presumed to have the same meaning. Where two different words are used, they are intended to have different meanings.
Intentions matter. Assume that the parties have intended what they have written in the way they have written it. If two linguistically permissible interpretations exist, arbitrators look at the purpose of the particular provision, the reasonableness of each possible interpretation, and whether one of the possible interpretations would give rise to inconsistencies with the rest of the agreement.
Get a second opinion. You are part of a union, which means you don’t have to read the collective agreement on your own. You have a steward and representative who can help interpret and apply your agreement to the situations facing you and your coworkers. If you are in doubt or think the employer may be ignoring the agreed-upon rules of the road, talk to your steward or representative.

Source: Canadian Labour Arbitration

Don’t Drive into the Ditch

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