"Courts ruled that to be a strike"? BORING.
Gotta spice that story up. "Company forces employees to work overtime or get fired".
Yeah, that's more like it. That'll pull in the ad revenue we need.
- Legal action against striking employees for all damages caused by the illegal strike (by grievance or lawsuit). You could be personally liable for added production costs, penalties owing to Owner or, even the loss of the contract with our client.
- Contempt of court proceedings for violation of the order entered by the court (the possibility of fines and even potentially jail)
- We also expect that the Owner will be very upset with striking employees. It is possible that the Owner would consider a site ban for those involved.
If you entered a contract with someone and they violated it, would you go after damages? Would you be upset if the court found them in contempt if they ignored the court order?
I'm all for unions entering collective agreements. But you agree, then you agree. You don't get to agree, then back out later on because you changed your mind. Well, you can, but you'll face consequences.
What the union wants is "to eat their cake and have it too".
If their employer decided to ignore some part of their collective agreement, then ignore a court order, would you side with the employer? Of course not, they violated the agreement.
That aside, I understand your position now. In response to the question of whether the company's three bullets were reasonable, you argued that "a deal is a deal."
In line with the bullets, here's what you think is true if you hold onto that argument. May I ask if you agree with the following characterizations? I did not embellish them compared to the memo, but maybe you'll break them down:
- An employee who fails to turn up for work should compensate the employer for liabilities such as production costs, penalties, and the employer's loss of contracts with clients.
- An employee who fails to turn up for work should be subject to fines and jailing, enforced by the government.
- The employer should be upset. I agree with you here.
I do not believe any of the above should be enforced by the government, contract or not. Further, it is common that contracts are _not_ enforceable when they contradict the law or are simply unconscionable. That is to say that it is not the case that "a deal is a deal" in all matters, and in this matter, I would side with the employee.
The board is saying "employees should stop their illegal strike, employees should stop any action encouraging others to strike illegally, the union should post this decision, and if employees and "Once filed, the Directives will be enforceable as an Order of the Court. Violation of a court order can result in civil or criminal penalties including contempt of court."
So yes, this decision is legally binding as a court order and if the employees decide to ignore a court order (just as if an employer did the same), the court has the ability to institute civil and criminal penalties.
I mean, it's no different than if you and I write up a contract to buy a car. If I decide to break the contract, you take me to court and I ignore the court when they say "give the money back", yeah, I could go to jail or face fines, etc.
None of this should be a surprise. If unions (and their members) want to be able to legally enforce contracts against their employer, well, those same contracts are legally enforceable against them, up to, and including, civil and criminal penalties.
...which seems reasonable, except I don't agree there's such a thing as an illegal strike. In a free country, any worker is entitled to withdraw their labour. They may face the consequence that their employer withdraws compensation. If they're in a strong union, and the union has endorsed withdrawal of labour, then they have some protection from the employer withdrawing compensation.
> I mean, it's no different than if you and I write up a contract to buy a car.
That's a bit like saying that because my union signed a contract to buy a car, then I'm personally bound by the terms of the contract. It ain't so.
You're confusing the unions collective-bargaining agreement with the employer, with the employee's employment contract. In most free countries, you cannot be ordered by a court to return to work if you withdraw your labour. The worker has not contracted that he will work overtime against his will, simply because that's in the union's agreement with the employer.
I'm not familiar with the terms of the employment contracts, but that doesn't seem to be what this pivots on.
You may not believe in an illegal strike, but the courts do.
Your response reads as confusion about my characterization in the first sentence, and then it spends four paragraphs in complete agreement with it. I don’t believe we’re stating different things, although we differ on the belief that the employee action should result in jail time. Further, I think that the threat of jail time for such action, promulgated by your employer and backed by a court, is absolutely newsworthy.
I believe the courts have the right to jail people held in contempt. You don't?
We’re stuck on this point because you’re afraid to state it as such. There’s nothing else you can offer this conversation.
The union agreed to some bargain with the employer. That's not a contract with individual employees. No third-party can bind me to a contract without my explicit consent.
Unions employ lawyers; most scaffolding erectors don't have lawyers.
> What the union wants is "to eat their cake and have it too".
This has hardly anything to do with the union; the industrial action in this case is wildcat action, without the sanction of the union. The impression I've formed is that this action is by a bunch of workers that have lost confidence in their union reps.
But yes, I'm not a media reporter, I'd probably suck at it.
By the way, if someone have a link to the court decision, it should be interesting to read. It was not linked in the article.
It's "the union and business agreed to a labor plan that can require overtime in specific conditions written into the labor contract. Rogue employees are violating that contract rather than renegotiating it under the terms of their union agreement".
This is a nothing story. Workers violated their union employment contract, and a court said "yep, they're violating their union labor contract".