The prevalence of labour disruptions in the Canadian education sector requires a comprehensive analysis of the adverse implications of strikes for stakeholders and Canadian society in general. Education is a kind of public good that generates positive externalities and strikes in Canadian universities and colleges engender negative externalities…

On October 16, 2017, over 12,000 faculty, librarians, and counsellors in 24 independent postsecondary colleges in Ontario, Canada went on strike for the fourth time since they organized in 1971 as members of the Civil Service Association of Ontario and won their first collective agreement the next year. Begun as an apolitical, self-consciously…

In many school districts, business managers--not superintendents--are the ones who deal with labor relations, negotiating or participating on the negotiations team. Business managers who oversee the human resources department may find themselves dealing with labor relations on a regular basis. In this article, the author discusses four labor…

When teachers at Thomas Gardner Elementary School voted in fall 2003 to join Boston's network of "pilot" schools, they had no inkling of the political firestorm that lay ahead. A few months after they moved to become part of the city's nationally watched experiment with small, autonomous public schools, the president of the Boston Teachers Union…

Addresses issue of viability of the American Library Association (ALA) as a quasi-union. Discussion covers concerns raised over whether ALA should become collective bargaining agent for librarians, experiences of three professional organizations that became quasi-unions, and impact of ALA's decision not to accept role on its professional stature.…

A Single Team Bargaining (STB) approach was used to reduce the complications in labor/management relations resulting from the merger of the British Columbia Institute of Technology and the Pacific Vocational Institute. Traditionally, collective bargaining is a conflict-oriented process, in which the parties represent different constituents, are…

Three alternative techniques of impasse resolution available to education management--mediation, fact-finding, and arbitration--are discussed in this paper. The basic goal of mediation, the first technique used to settle disputes in bargaining, is to come to an agreement. While mediation has its limitations, it can result in the resolution of…

Discusses types of grievances in American industrial relations, their costs, and ways of resolving them. Accompanying tables indicate the frequency of different categories of grievances and resolutions. (Author/WD)

Some generalizations from experiences at Eastern Michigan University of the grievance process include: the importance of recordkeeping, training personnel to handle grievances, and solving problems internally rather than taking them to arbitration. (MLW)

Describes one small Illinois school district's experience with collective bargaining. Emphasizes the superintendent's role. (PKP)

Centralized collective bargaining has increased teachers' salaries and provided better working conditions and benefits in Quebec. But it has also spawned a number of troublesome consequences that promote conflict. (Author)

The California State Mediation and Conciliation Service, a state agency, has conducted approximately 150 mediations per year in public schools. Describes the use of grievance mediation in resolving disputes between California public school systems and their unions. (MLF)

Some of the critical choice points in the development of collective bargaining in public institutions of higher education are traced. The single most important aspect of the bargaining process that determines the nature of collective bargaining is enabling legislation. Changes that have appeared to influence the probability of unionization concern…

The Ashtabula County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities in Ohio has developed an alternative to arbitration. The local conciliation committee, composed of representatives of both management and labor, plus a nonvoting, objective adviser, is a third level in the grievance procedure. Benefits include resolution of conflicts…

The status of faculty unionization in American colleges in 1988 is reviewed in this newsletter. Information is given on the following: agents elected; activities of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), National Education Association (NEA), and American Association of University Professors (AAUP); "no-agent" elections; decertifications;…