Engagement Newletter No. 2: A Natural Entrance Point

​

My first newsletter on member engagement introduced two important considerations for union leaders who have concerns about levels of member participation. First, measuring engagement by attendance at meetings, as many leaders do, is a behavioral metric poorly suited for understanding a member’s relationship to her union. Rather, we should be examining attitudinal metrics that consider knowledge of, support for, and loyalty to the union, as well as the willingness to participate in different ways that build union-member relationships. The first newsletter also put leader-member relationships in a historic context and noted that the unions’ transactional business models expected little more from members than the paying of dues. I consider these two factors as foundational to understanding the leader-member relationship and necessary first steps for introducing organizational change to promote higher levels of member participation.

​

While introducing change of this kind has many moving parts, I want to jump forward to consider more fully a regularly occurring opportunity to develop member participation – the collective bargaining process. This is timely since in the autumn of each year many union leaders turn their attention to their collective bargaining responsibilities. In the big picture of engagement development, bargaining is a great place to start. After all, regardless of a member’s awareness of the role of his union, everyone has some sense of the bargaining process, creating opportunities for participation that is less abstract than other engagement strategies.

​

Before further considering how the preparation for bargaining can build engagement, we need to break the process into smaller components. First, let’s divide bargaining into two parts – the research process and determining member interests. Next, we need to adopt the practice of asking ourselves two questions: as an organizational leader do my decisions encourage member participation, or discourage it? These two questions and two bargaining considerations combine to create a formula for making the bargaining process a great place to start developing member participation.

​

Bargaining Process

​

Experienced leaders understand the bargaining process to have three stages – pre-bargaining preparation, at-the-table negotiations, and either a settlement ratification or strike mandate. Each stage presents an opportunity for member involvement, but for the purpose of nurturing member participation (our long-term interest) I want to focus only on the pre-bargaining process in this newsletter.

​

Most unions have customary practices when it comes to member participation in defining bargaining proposals. As social media became more accessible many unions invited their members to fill out surveys, voting in support of predefined issues. Some unions would post an invitation to members to send written proposals identifying issues to be introduced or amended. One of the obvious limitations to these methods is that members may lack understanding of the content of the collective agreement. As mentioned in my earlier newsletter, the dominance of the transactional business models that unions have followed for decades can mean that members have limited awareness of both the union’s function, and the terms of the collective agreement. Moreover, depending on the sophistication of a survey, some answers may be predictable and of limited value in assessing negotiation priorities – asking if someone wants a raise, or more vacation time doesn’t result in many surprises.

​

Throughout the pre-negotiation research phase, we need to build into our decision making our two questions – are we encouraging participation or discouraging it? Can I create options that generate greater opportunity for member participation? Can I ask different questions or look for ways to have members more involved? Be reflective and critical throughout the process.

In my practice I regularly use a more complex survey process which requires clients, or their union members, to determine priorities from within groups of bargaining subject options. By asking members to define priorities using a relative value-based approach, you achieve two important outcomes: first, the information derived from the process is richer and provides greater value to the negotiators; and second (consistent with our objectives of greater member participation), making the survey task more demanding for members requires them to invest more effort. Since members intuitively understand that their participation in a more comprehensive bargaining survey makes a positive contribution to a value-creating process, the reciprocal exchange of “effort for outcome” is satisfied. It is encouraging to experience comments from participants who, years later, recall how much they felt a part of the process through this simple strategy.

​

Bargaining Interests

​

The second piece of our analysis requires us to consider how we evaluate the members’ interests when we are preparing for negotiations. We can divide this into two broad categories – issues of a general/broad application (extrinsic interests) and issues that are more personal to members individually (intrinsic interests). Historically unions have done a good job satisfying the extrinsic interests of members – these are the bread-and-butter issues, such as salary, benefits, vacation time and so on. Workplaces were more demographically homogenous, and a focus on the bread-and-butter working conditions aligned with the historic transactional business model where the union satisfied common working conditions that were equally accessible to all members. But remember that, at its core, the transactional business model did not expect greater levels of member participation – members accessed the union only when necessary.

​

Today unions that are making efforts to build member engagement understand the opportunities that are available to expand beyond the bread-and-butter working conditions. These opportunities are even more pronounced in our increasingly diversified workplaces. If we understand that involving members and giving them a sense of making valued contributions to their union builds longer-term participation and engagement, then as leaders we should also ask ourselves whether we are posing the right questions to the right audiences.

​

What can this look like? As an example, most collective agreements set out the framework for maternity, parental, and adoption leave. They define durations and often provide for a “top up” of some kind to replicate salary – all very transactional. Several years ago, I worked with a client to survey women and men returning from maternity or parental leave to inquire into their personal experiences beyond what the collective agreement provided. The results were interesting and identified a number of issues, including ambiguous and inconsistent reintegration practices and feelings of abandonment while on leave. These observations were translated into collective agreement proposals moving forward. The point to reinforce, when considering union-member relationships and engagement building, is that asking these kinds of questions to smaller groups of members can bring important new information to the negotiators. Drilling down to better understand the needs of sub-groups of members can help to enhance the engagement of all.

​

Summary

​

There are many strategies for building member participation and engagement. The collective bargaining process is a great place to start – it’s what your members intuitively understand whether or not they have a fuller sense of what their union does for them on a daily basis. For union leaders the collective bargaining process allows for new and creative methods of involvement which satisfy the need for members to feel that their contributions are valued.

           

Many unions are preparing for collective bargaining, so I wanted to take advantage of this time of year to reinforce these opportunities. There are some subjects introduced in this newsletter that I will return to for further exploration – the power and importance of reciprocity in building relationships; the notion of intrinsic and extrinsic instrumentality; and the notion of “effort for outcome” that economists call experienced goods. They are all important factors in the long-term goal of building awareness, loyalty to and participation within the organization.

 

Dr. Bill Cole is the principal at COLE LABOUR with more than forty years of experience working with labour unions across North America. His research has included member engagement, union leadership and members as followers. He also has extensive experience in collective bargaining and dispute resolution in the public and private sectors. Check out his website at colelabour.ca 

​

If you would like to receive this newsletter in PDF format, directly via email, please let us know by registering below or by email at info@colelabour.ca

​

For more information about COLE LABOUR, visit our other website at www.colelabour.ca

 

​