Labour Disruption Contingency Planning Outsource or In-House · If you decide to outsource the...
Transcript of Labour Disruption Contingency Planning Outsource or In-House · If you decide to outsource the...
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2015
Malcolm Smeaton
Whitehorse Group Inc.
Labour Disruption Contingency Planning Outsource or In-House
© 2015 WHITEHORSE GROUP INC 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LABOUR DISPUTE CONTINGENCY PLANNING 3
LEARN FROM HISTORY 5
SUM OF ITS PARTS 6
OPERATIONS 6
SECURITY 7
LEGAL 7
COMMUNICATIONS 8
TALLY UP 8
OPEN FOR BUSINESS BUT NOT BUSINESS AS USUAL 9
SECURING YOUR BUSINESS 10
LEGAL WARRIORS 12
GET THIS WRONG AND YOU LOSE 13
IMPORTANT BUT DIFFICULT 15
MEASURE TWICE CUT ONCE 15
SUMMARY POINTS 16
PLAIN LANGUAGE GETS YOU WHAT YOU NEED 17
SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL 18
ABOUT WHITEHORSE GROUP 20
CONTACT US 21
© 2015 WHITEHORSE GROUP INC 3
LABOUR DISPUTE CONTINGENCY
PLANNING
With today’s relentless focus on cost control, many unionized
organizations do not have staff with the requisite skills and
experience to carry out the entire labour dispute contingency
planning project when they anticipate the expiration of a
collective agreement.
Large organizations, including governments, may have
dedicated staff responsible for this planning and similar
planning for critical events. But having a dedicated contingency
planning team on staff for a project which only arises when a
collective agreement expires, every two to four years, is a
luxury which the vast majority of organizations do not enjoy.
Reassigning staff from other projects is always a possibility but
what happens to their regular assignments and you may not get
the experience required.
Can the entire contingency planning project or parts of the
project be effectively outsourced? Does it matter which parts of
the project you outsource and how should you approach the
outsourcing decision?
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Firstly, understand there is always a
cost to poor planning, especially for
a labour dispute. The primary
impact of poor planning will be at
the collective bargaining table.
Unless company negotiators have a generous mandate or
union negotiators have reason not to push for significant gains,
the perception or reality of lax planning for a strike can be
costly. In order to avoid a strike for which the company is not
prepared, or to end a strike quickly, negotiators may have to
increase their offer to the union. This leads to higher
product/service costs and unhappy customers.
Additionally, if there is a perception that the organization was
not well prepared and as a result is managing the impact of the
strike poorly; customers, suppliers, clients, investors, voters
and the general public will form negative views of the
organization.
This can lead to a loss of market share and a negative impact
on the organization’s brand. In public sector situations, voters
may view political leaders as inept or lacking accountability for
public funds. Watch for a drop in share prices or support for the
political party.
During a poorly executed strike response, the organization’s
managers and non-bargaining staff may feel the senior
management team are not the “clever” leaders they previously
thought. Morale will take a hit. Managers will work long hours
during a strike, trying to archive a positive outcome for the
organization, if they know the organization was poorly
prepared, demoralization sets in.
Striking employees will also know if there
is chaos within the company during a
strike. They may believe they did the
right thing by striking, but they don’t want
to be on strike for an unnecessarily long
time. If your management of the strike
response is good, employees will
pressure their union to get back to the
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bargaining table and make a deal. If the management of the
strike by the employer is poor, striking employees will be
susceptible to their union’s “one more day and they’ll give in”
argument.
LEARN FROM HISTORY
Before you rush into your
planning and prior to making
key decisions, look at any
past experiences you have
had as an employer with a
strike or lockout. Dig out
those after strike reviews and
go through them for lessons
learned. If you have not had
a strike, try to find a colleague within your industry who may be
prepared to discuss their experience in planning and managing
through a strike. If, of course, you retain an advisor to help you
formulate plans, you will select someone with extensive
experience.
Review your past approaches to resourcing the labour dispute
contingency planning project. It may have been up to five years
since the project was last undertaken. People move on, retire,
change jobs or win a lottery. The organization may have
downsized, expanded and simply may not have the resources
available for this critical project. If you handled contingency
planning in-house previously, is it still a viable option? Or is
outsourcing the project a better way to go?
I will admit a bias up front. If there is any way you can keep the
operational piece of your labour dispute contingency planning
project in-house, do so. I realize this may not be practical for
every organization, but I believe it will more likely lead to a
better result.
An in-house team will get better cooperation and support from
managers than an unknown outside team. The in-house team
will be more efficient and effective in determining which
services can be delivered during a labour disruption. There will
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be less likelihood of future negative impacts on union
management relations if in-house staff are responsible for the
project. And finally, with an in-house project team, the
immediate cost outlay will be much less than outsourcing the
entire project.
SUM OF ITS PARTS
If contingency planning resources, with actual strike and/or
lockout experience, are not available in-house to deliver the
operations planning project, then a strategic outsourcing may
be your only alternative.
We can identify several broad components or sub projects of
any dispute contingency planning project. You may be able to
resource some of the project’s sub projects but not all.
OPERATIONS
Most important is the sub-project which looks at how your
business operations will be impacted by a strike or lockout. Is
the specific bargaining unit of employees threatening strike
essential to continued operations of all your production or the
provision of services to customers? Are there alternative ways
to continue production or services? Developing a plan that
meets your operational needs during a strike is the most
important part of the project and the other sub-projects will be
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significantly impacted by the planning decisions you make in
this area.
SECURITY
The next sub-project is your security
planning for the labour dispute.
Protecting your people and your
assets is important and is a critical
due diligence sub-project of your
broader contingency plan.
Even if you have security threat
assessments from previous events,
they will have to be updated. The
security plan will be driven by a
number of factors.
Existing security resources, numbers of facilities, past security
incidents during strikes, whether you decide to continue
production or services, use of replacement workers etc. Each of
these factors and others will be determined in the planning
project for business operations.
LEGAL
Legal will play be important
role in your overall planning
project. Most companies
access legal advice through
their commercial law firm, in-
house commercial counsel or
labour relations staff with law
degrees.
In a strike or lockout situation, you should seek legal advice
from a labour law firm. You don’t have to use the most
expensive firm out there. There are many smaller midsize firms
which have plenty of “injunction or Labour Board related”
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experience and will provide you good service at a fair price.
Don’t be shy about negotiating with a law firm, especially
around standby fees. Be prepared to discuss your bargaining
goals, plans for continuing operations during the strike and
whether replacement workers are part of your planning.
COMMUNICATIONS
And last but certainly not least
important is Communications
planning for the strike. If you have
in-house services, determine
whether they have the experience
to handle communications for a
strike or lockout situation. If they
don’t, you may have to find
resources outside the organization
that can provide your in-house
communications people with
advice.
There is always a lot happening
communications wise during a
strike, internally, externally, media and of course today we can’t
forget social media. Make sure all these communications
challenges will be covered. Be prepared to tell your story to the
media, the union will be certainly telling their story. You do not
want to win the strike but lose the communications battle.
TALLY UP
Now tally up your existing in-house services
and determine who is available to work on
each sub-project and who will lead the
overall project. It is not likely you can
assign employees from a different union to work on contingency
planning for a strike by another union. Your project leader
should be someone managers will accept as a smart choice for
the project. This is not a project to give junior staff an
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opportunity to “grow”. Also, putting the person leading your
bargaining team in charge of the project is not usually a good
choice. They will be entirely focused on getting a deal with the
union and will not have the time. Line up your available
resources and decide whether you can adequately staff each
sub-project from within.
OPEN FOR BUSINESS BUT NOT
BUSINESS AS USUAL
Resourcing the operations planning project is your most
important challenge. Deciding whether all or some of your
operation/services continue during a strike is somewhat of a
chicken and egg question. If senior management decides
operations will
continue during a
strike, you will need
to make it happen.
If senior
management says
market conditions,
inventories etc. are
such that the
organization can
reduce or halt production, then you have a more straightforward
challenge ahead. While your organization is unique in many
ways, contingency planners with solid strike management skills
will develop plans which meet your needs.
If you decide to outsource the operations planning project look
for a firm with strong labour relations and contingency planning
expertise. Give them clear instructions that you want them to
help you avoid a strike vs. simply accepting that a strike is
inevitable. Experienced contingency planners know many ways
to discourage anyone thinking that a strike will be quick and
effective. Once the operations strike plan is in good shape, then
you can look to the other sub-plans.
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SECURING YOUR BUSINESS
Next examine at how you will
specifically manage the strike in
the field and at the picket line
level. Training managers to
handle as much of the interaction
on the picket line is my preferred
approach. Employees on picket
lines will usually be respectful of
managers that they know and who know them.
You will have to bring in security guards if you do not already
have robust security in place. Many security guard companies
have access to guards who have worked in industrial strike
settings, mining and manufacturing usually. Not as many guard
companies have guards who are experienced in the public
sector strikes.
Also be aware that few security guard companies have
experienced labour dispute guards available at the drop of a
hat. Almost all guard companies will have to borrow/subcontract
guards from other companies.
If your organization is large, you may have to negotiate a
guarding agreement with one guard company who will
subcontract to other guard companies. This is a normal
business practise in the guarding industry. Security guards can
be your greatest cost and if the strike is long, costs can become
very high.
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Violence on picket lines in Canada is rare. Most unions know
they will lose public support and the backing of employees who
do not support violent activities. Security guards will serve as a
deterrent to petty crime, graffiti and make employees working
during the strike feel safer. Guards can also be trained to keep
notes and prepare reports which can be relied on in Court.
Consequently, focusing on training managers, excluded staff
and available HR staff to manage picket line relations is an
excellent way to reduce security guard costs.
Determining how many
guards you need at a
specific site should not be
left solely to the guard
company.
Use a strike/picket line
specific threat
assessment (TRA)
yourself for each picket line site and present the list of required
guards to the guard company for review. If you do ask the
guard company to determine the number of guards, ask them to
provide the site specific rationale for their recommendations.
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You may also require a number of licensed investigators to
monitor picket lines. Again use a TRA and your past experience
to determine the needed resources. Close protection services
may be required on an exceptional basis.
Outsourcing the services provided by security guards and
licensed investigators is an effective way to obtain these
services. Examine closely any request from the guard company
for “non-refundable” standby fees, to be paid before a strike is
certain.
It is acceptable practise in the industry, that once a “no board
report” is issued by the Minister of Labour and you ask the
guard company to start assembling their security guard team,
there are costs involved and it is fair to provide a reasonable
non-refundable retainer. Of course any services including
attendance at meetings or pre-strike planning activities you ask
the guard company to provide will be at the contracted rates.
LEGAL WARRIORS
Obtaining experienced legal advice related to a labour dispute
is not a difficult challenge even though most employers do not
employ labour lawyers on staff. Going to a labour law firm is the
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best approach. Look for a firm that is willing to work to get your
business. Ask three or four firms to come and speak with your
selection team.
Again, do not be shy about discussing hourly rates. The
abundance of lawyers makes selecting a law firm largely a
buyer’s market. While not a “deal breaker” issue, a firm that has
worked with the union counsel for your employees’ union is
somewhat of an asset. Develop a list of interview questions to
ask the firm representative when they arrive to pitch for your
business.
Clearly, you should not have to pay for legal research on
standard strike related issues. Also clarify with the firm that you
do not wish to pay for the training new lawyers who may
accompany senior lawyers, who are just getting their first
exposure to strikes and lockouts. If you are a large company,
you may decide to retain several firms on a geographic basis to
cut down travel costs and gain the benefit of a local firm who
knows the local judiciary.
The broad legal strategy is something you can provide the firm
you retain. Resolving every dispute which arises during a strike
by a full blown hearing in Court is expensive. Legal counsel
who know the labour law re strikes should be able to resolve
most issues with union counsel or the union staff
representative. Establish a clear delegation of authority for legal
services during the strike. Law firms will prefer to deal with a
single client representative. It doesn’t have to be your
commercial staff lawyer.
GET THIS WRONG AND YOU LOSE
Next we have communications.
Like labour law, most companies
no longer have large
communication departments.
Someone internally coordinates
advertising, public relations may
be outsourced, social media
may be in-house, internal
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communications may be done at a department level e.g. HR
stuff by Human Resources, operations stuff by the Operations
department. Few organizations have someone on staff who
does crisis communications and especially not the daily crises
which a strike brings.
If you have internal communication resources you may be able
to provide some training which allows them to align their
existing skills and knowledge to a strike situation. If you do not
have internal resources available, then outsourcing this aspect
of the project may be your only alternative. Having effectively
survived a strike from an operational perspective, you do not
want to lose from a communications perspective. Customers
leaving, community disappointed, mangers frustrated, returning
employees embittered, negative social media and shareholders
dumping your stock, can all be avoided with excellent
communications planning for a strike.
If you decide to outsource the communication sub project, strike
communications experience is essential. Insure the person
leading the communications team has strike communications
experience his/herself. Check references.
This is an area when you probably want the communication firm
to provide you with a strategy piece once they have done an
analysis of your needs. Watch carefully to see if they
have a clear strategy to deal with communications
with staff still working during the strike.
Too often these staff are forgotten in communications
planning and end up getting all their info about what is
happening during the strike from the union’s website.
Please avoid this at all costs. Having a person from
the communications firm in your strike response
center would be an ideal strategy.
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IMPORTANT BUT DIFFICULT
Having explored each of the sub projects of the
larger Labour Dispute Contingency Planning project
you are now better equipped to decide what your
approach will be. A variety of options are available:
We summarize them in the chart below.
Labour Dispute Contingency
planning project components
Relative importance to successful overall
plan
1 is very important
Difficulty to outsource
successfully
1 is very difficult
Operational planning 1 1
Security 4 4
Legal 3 3
Communications 2 2
Making the decision on whether and what to outsource is
complicated. A variety of factors can be considered.
Recent strike experience within your organization, will
this be the first strike?
Does the bargaining unit reach into key positions within
the organization?
The size, geography and remoteness of your facilities.
Time available, if you are challenged for time, you may
need experienced dedicated resources.
Capacity, if you simply do not have the resources for a
particular sub project, the outsourcing is the only
alternative.
MEASURE TWICE CUT ONCE
Your procurement department will advise whether
you can offer a request for proposals (RFP) which
covers all components of the broader project
including operational planning, security, legal and
communications. Proponents should be permitted to
bid on all or some of the broad project. Getting
strong service providers should be your aim, not just
expediency.
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I recommend that you probably should handle the legal and
communication sub projects individually. Law firms will not likely
bid on communications work and communication firms will not
bid on legal work. This approach better reflects the reality of
those services.
Operational planning for a strike is clearly a type of business
continuity planning. Business continuity planners are familiar
with working with other planning activities to meet the
organization needs to maintain a certain level of business
activity during a critical event such as a strike by employees.
Consequently, finding a firm that can assist your existing
department managers to fulfill the directions of senior
management is the next best strategy to doing operational
planning in-house.
SUMMARY POINTS
In summary, one option for an outsourcing strategy for Labour
Dispute Contingency planning may look like this.
If you must outsource your operational planning for a
strike, previous experience in strike management is an
absolute must. Specifically check the project leader’s
references. Ask to see sample documents, manuals and
other training materials. Insure the project leader has
managed every one of the main project’s sub projects:
operations/service delivery planning, security, legal and
strike communications.
Have a site specific TRA carried out which will provide
the rationale for numbers of security guards on day,
night and weekend shifts during the strike. Require
potential security providers to provide you a detailed
description of the training their guards will receive prior
to being assigned to strike duty, especially training for
non-confrontational response to incidents on picket
lines.
Determine in advance the broad legal strategy you want
your labour law firm to follow. Ask the firm to explain
how they will manage their relationship with union
counsel. Look for a firm that has a track record of
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success in pursuing injunctions but also a firm that is
able to quickly establish a resolution process with the
union that is timely and effective.
Getting communications right during a strike is
paramount. You really can win the strike financially but
lose it from a communications perspective. Find a firm
which has strike experience or one which demonstrates
that their broad experience in managing crisis
communications will meet your needs. The firm should
recommend media training for your strike response
spokesperson and should offer you a comprehensive
social media strategy.
PLAIN LANGUAGE GETS YOU WHAT
YOU NEED
Now you are ready to sit down with your procurement advisor.
Use plain language. Preparing bid packages is a lot of work, so
be specific about what you want. Don’t ask for “labour relations
services during a strike”, ask for the specific services you want.
When you request security guard services, ask the guard
companies to explain how they will arrive at their
recommendation for numbers of guards. Ask Communications
firms for specific examples of media training programs and
employee communications material. When you sit down with
law firm sales representatives, ask them to provide you a few
examples of strike related Court decisions they were party to.
It may require a little preliminary research among colleagues
and online, but your RFP should be by invitation only. If you put
it out as a wide open public bid, you may get someone
requesting the RFP on behalf of the union. You can be sure
most large unions are signed up members of every tending
service. That membership is one way they can keep track of
whether their union members’ work is going out for tender.
If you offer the RFP by invitation only then you will know exactly
who may bid. When doing your research for potential RFP
invitees, you will find firms that offer services in risk
management, human resources, project management, security,
law firms, private investigation and labour relations. Check out
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the background of the firm’s owners, partners and consultants
on their websites. Look for individuals that have contingency
planning in their resumes or bios. Your procurement advisor will
advise you how many firms will constitute an acceptable field
under your procurement rules. A confidentiality agreement
should be required of all potential proponents.
SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL
RFP selection panels work best when they are small. Who
should be on the panel besides a procurement person?
Consider choosing from the following:
An operations senior manager
Senior labour relations staff
Business continuity staff
Communications
Facilities manager
Security manager
A member of your last strike response team
Of course you have to follow your procurement rules when you
make the decision on which proponents to select, but hopefully
you do not have to select based on lowest quoted price.
Experience and quality should have a reasonable value. In
second stage interviews, ask proponents to bring with them the
2-3 consultants that will be actually working on your project.
In summary, look carefully
within your organization to
determine whether you at
least have the people
available who have the skills
and experience to carry out
the operational planning sub
project of your overall labour
dispute contingency planning project.
Strikes are negative incidents, but do what you can to maintain
positive messages to both your employees and their union.
Learn from your previous experiences with strikes, employing
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exactly the same tactics as you did during the last strike will get
you pretty much the same results.
Early and professional contingency planning may convince the
union that a strike may not achieve significant gains.
Important Legal notice: This document is copyright protected. Individual employers may reproduce the document for their own internal use, subject to the following condition. The copyright owner, Whitehorse Group Inc. will grant permission for this document to be reproduced in part or in whole without charge if the user gives notice to [email protected] of their intention to reproduce the document prior to the reproduction of the document. Commercial use or reproduction of the document for publication or any other purpose must be negotiated with the copyright owner.
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About Whitehorse Group Inc.
Whitehorse Group provides advice to clients on variety of Business Continuity, Employee Relations
and Security matters. Planning for events such as labour disputes require knowledge and experience in all
our areas of expertise. While not an emergency event in the ordinary sense of the word, it is an event that
will be disruptive to your normal operations.
Malcolm Smeaton ABCP CPP, President and Principal Consultant has many years
of experience in preparing for labour disputes. His background includes fifteen
years as Director of Contingency Planning for a large government, during which he
headed up planning for Royal visits, the G8/G20 meetings, World Youth Day,
province wide demonstrations and several major labour disputes. He also
established major programs in Business Continuity, Security and Emergency
Management.
Services provided by Whitehorse Group:
Labour Dispute Contingency Planning: Labour dispute contingency planning requires a solid
understanding of the impact disputes can have on both operations and collective bargaining. We can deliver labour dispute contingency planning that will protect the organization’s future. Our services include: operational/service delivery planning, training, legal coordination, security and communications.
Security: Every organization should carry out a complete security assessment prior to engaging security
personnel or installing security systems. Whitehorse group consultants can provide comprehensive
security assessments that will give your organization the expert advice it needs to establish a security
program that protects the organization, its employees and customers.
Employee Relations: Our professionals can provide the expert employee relations advice that
managers need into order to maintain high levels of productivity from its workforce. When we assist with
an employee relation issue our goal is to maintain your workplace with high morale and loyal employees
that appreciate their relationship with your organization. Our expertise extends to both unionized and non-
union workplaces in both the public and private sectors
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