The Trust Factor

Early in my career as a CLAC rep, I learned a lesson in trust that I’ve never forgotten.

I was attending one of my first negotiation sessions with a multifacility healthcare employer. My part was pretty low key. Observe, listen, learn—keep my mouth shut.

During the talks, I accidentally overheard a key piece of intelligence the other side was withholding that could have swayed the course of negotiations. With great excitement and relish, I reported my clandestine success to CLAC’s lead negotiator. I wondered whether it might elevate this young upstart to a momentary hero who’d saved the day.

I asked him what we should do with this nugget of industrial espionage. He paused, thought for a moment, and then said, “Let’s do nothing, just yet.”

Over the course of the talks, there were lots of disagreements, raised voices, and even some harsh words. But our negotiator didn’t say a word about what he’d learned. Instead, he trusted that the other side would do the right thing.

Trust is an essential building block, not only for our personal relationships, but also for social groups and communities. According to Dr. David Halpurn, CEO of Behavioural Insights Team, the level of social trust in a society is measurable and a strong indicator of a society’s health and economic prosperity.

Most Canadians tend to trust their neighbours and the people they meet on the street. But although Canadians’ trust in each other ranks high relative to other countries, that trust is in decline, according to data collected by the World Values Survey between 1981 and 2014. Declining trust can negatively affect crime rates and national prosperity.

If the “trust factor” can be used to predict the well-being of a country, as Dr. Halpurn suggests, the level of trust people experience in the workplace can likewise predict the success or failure of a business fairly well. When trust breaks down between coworkers, or between labour and management, the entire work community suffers. Employee turnover goes up, disputes and conflict increase, and morale suffers.

This breakdown of trust not only impacts the bottom line, but also the quality of relationships within the work community. If I believe that my boss doesn’t trust me, I will find it hard to believe that she values my contribution to the team. If I don’t trust my coworker, I will look suspiciously at his conduct.

Being in a unionized workplace can actually equip workers and managers with tools to build trust—when used properly. Collective bargaining, for example, results in a contract—a commitment by both managers and workers to deal with each other predictably and reasonably. Grievances and even arbitration provide a peaceful means to resolve disputes, while avoiding the trust-breaking that walkouts and strikes produce. Labour-management meetings provide a forum to plan, identify solutions to impending problems, and resolve petty complaints before they get blown out of proportion. Even discipline can be an exercise in building trust—provided the parties are fair, reasonable, and clear.

Of course, these tools can be used for ill too. When the relationship is strained and trust is in short supply, management and labour can use these and many other tools to punish each other. But, just as with our personal relationships, no one wants the kind of workplace that a lack of trust produces.

A shared desire to increase social trust demands a collaborative spirit. It demands that we live up to our promises, play fair, admit when we’re wrong, forgive each other, and act contrary to our self-interested inclination—even when our confidence in the other side is weak.

By not acting on the intelligence I had overheard, our negotiator exhibited trust that the other side would come clean. They did, and the work community was rewarded. My career as a spy may not have made a leap forward that day, but our members’ relationship with this employer certainly did.