My union is in negotiations with management, and both sides are behaving foolishly. We are in a legal strike position as of September First. I want to avoid this if at all possible. I can't afford a prolonged strike, which is what this will be.
Management has brought in an American lawyer who has no experience in Canadian Labour law to handle the negotiations on their behalf. (As a side note, this once happened at Puff's old place of work as well. That lawyer wanted the Canadians to drop their August civic holiday and change Canada Day to July 4th. Not kidding.) There are a series of dates for meetings coming up. The union requested more negotiation dates, but were turned down by management as their chief negotiator was "unavailable."
It is common- indeed, universal- that negotiations begin with each side presenting a series of unacceptable demands to the other, and over the course of negotiations the more outlandish demands are dropped and a more acceptable conclusion is reached. At first I thought the news from the negotiations was simply that, the initial posturing. But now it seems like something else is going on. Management seems to be deliberately trying to provoke a strike, and the union leadership is ready to just play right into it. Please pray that someone grows a brain, or that calmer heads may prevail before this reaches a crisis.
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