Saturday, August 28, 2021

Getting It Right

When push comes to shove, CLAC will take the fight to the next level to ensure you’re protected

By Geoff Dueck Thiessen, Regional Director

CLAC believes that most members prefer that their union builds positive workplace culture and takes the smart approach to problems. But that doesn’t mean those same people also don’t want their union to fight for them.

Building positive workplace culture depends on three key activities:

Solve problems and conflicts at the lowest possible level. Only escalate up the ladder when necessary.
Do lots of listening.
Keep a respectful tone. Remember, everyone wants to have a good day and enjoy their job. Everyone.

Taking the smart approach also depends on three key activities:

Only pick fights you have a chance of winning. Do the research.
Keep in mind the end result. You’re trying to make things better, not worse. Don’t win the battle only to lose the war.
Try to anticipate the unanticipated outcomes.

This might all sound good, but you still want someone to fight for you—even when it doesn’t seem to fit into the lists above.

What I’ve noticed during the pandemic is that members need to feel supported, listened to, and understood. When that happens, members were able to dig a little deeper to endure the challenges of pandemic life a little better. Sometimes, we pushed management to provide that support and listening. Other times, we tried to provide it.

Some key times we needed to fight a bit harder, even though doing so met with unexpected consequences on workplace culture. The outcome didn’t always include the kind of win we really wanted.

In July, Local 306 took a strike vote for members working at Hanover School Division (HSD). HSD negotiated a fair wage increase with their teachers, but refused to negotiate a similar agreement with custodians and educational assistants.

The reason? The Manitoba government was telling them not to.

We knew this was one of those times that the fight needed to happen. There was just no way we could sit back and worry about if the strike would be sure to succeed, or if there might be negative consequences on workplace culture.

Of course, we care a lot about those things. So we did our research and we planned the strike in such a way that it would minimize negative strain on workplace culture. But most importantly, we got ready for a fight.

In the end, we avoided strike action with a last-minute settlement, and we’re sure that taking a tough stand was a key part of making progress.

Members need to know that CLAC does and will fight for you. Sometimes, you won’t know how much research we’ve done, or what kind of information we have that prevents us from taking the fight to the next level. But when push comes to shove and the fight needs to happen, we have your back!

Getting It Right

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