Introduction
Managerial power to hire workers, fire workers, allocate them to various positions (subject to the collective agreement) and to supervise their work is rarely discussed in union settings. Should it be discussed? Is it relevant for determining the kind of lives people can and will lead?
Some of course may claim that unions do indeed discuss such issues systematically and regularly. One of the so-called Marxists on the MarxMail.world listserve, Marv Gandall, wrote the following:
Should I in any or all of these settings, have insistently pointed out the “limitations of collective bargaining”? It wasn’t necessary to do so. Trade unionists, particularly those who are active, are already aware on the basis of their own experience with the negotation and administration of contracts of the system’s inherent limitations. It was enough to simply refer to the language of specific clauses to illustrate the point.
I responded to his statement with the following:
This is made-up. Union reps often use the term “fair contracts” and similar phrases to justify their idealization of collective bargaining and collective agreements.
Where does Gandall show that unions do indeed systematically educate their members on the “limitations of collective bargaining?” Evidence, please–not Gandall’s assurance that this is so. If they do indeed educate their members about the limitations of collective bargaining, why is it that they so frequently use the term “fair contract.?”
And what does Gandall think Marxists should do about this phrase? Nothing? What is his position with respect to the frequent use of this phrase by unions? What has his response been with respect to this phrase–given his frequent reference to “material conditions” of workers?
Gandall’s response was–silence. And what do most so-called Marxists on the listserve do? Nothing. Only a few openly challenge his reformist and fraudulent views. (One such exception is S. Artesian, who writes a blog called Anti-Capital (see https://anticapital0.wordpress.com/anti-capital-1/).
Collective Agreement Between Real Estate Employers and Service Union United PAM
Here is another example of a management rights clause in a collective agreement.
From COLLECTIVE LABOUR AGREEMENT For the Facilities Services Sector
1 February 2017 – 31 January 2018, [Between] REAL ESTATE EMPLOYERS [And]
SERVICE UNION UNITED PAM, page 7:
Section 4 Supervision of work
The employer shall supervise and distribute work, and hire and discharge employees.
This short clause expresses the concentration of managerial power. In effect, employers via managerial power (sometimes called managerial prerogative) perform economic blackmail (whether there is a collective agreement or not). The implicit message is: If you do not like our rules, there is the door. You are “free” to leave. Of course, the freedom to leave goes both ways: the employer-employee relation is an impersonal relation, where not only the employee may leave or sever the relation but so too may the employer. This power of separation is much more devastating for workers since it is much more difficult to find another employer than it is for an employer to find other employees.
Why this persistence difference in power relations of employers and employees? Does such power difference involve a “fair contract,” a “fair collective agreement,” and other union rhetoric?
Conclusion
There is nothing fair about collective agreements which concentrate most decision-making power over our work lives in the hands of the representatives of employers called managers. Collective agreements limit such power–but they do not by any means challenge such power. Indeed, they do not challenge the dicatorship of employers (see for example Employers as Dictators, Part One). Nor do they challenge the use of human beings as things that are treated as means for other people’s ends.
The law, whether in Canada or Finland, certainly does not prevent the exploitation and oppression of workers; workers may be able to use the law to limit their exploitation and oppression–but not abolish them.
What do you think? Do collective bargaining and collective agreements express something fair? Do they enable workers to be treated as human beings and not as things? Do union members really discuss such issues to any great extent? Do so-called leftists or “progressives?” Why or why not?
The Abolitionary 