Articles
Grievances, arbitration, workplace rights, shift work, labour news, and the odd recommendation — one list, not six empty rooms.
Off the clock is not a free pass, and it is not an automatic firing. A post can be discipline when it hits the workplace. Just cause still has to be proved.
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The meeting is not the grievance. The paper is. The room is where you find out if the company will fix it, fight it, or stall — and where a lot of cases get given away.
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A wage increase is a number. Contract language is the right. Shall, may, and “where practicable” decide postings, overtime, discipline, and whether a grievance has anywhere to go.
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Sent home with no pay is a suspension, even if they never use the word. For unionized workers it is either discipline that needs just cause, or a hold the collective agreement has to allow.
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Seniority is not a universal rule. It is whatever your book says it controls — postings, layoff, recall, vacation, shifts, sometimes overtime. “I’ve been here longer” is not a veto.
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The clock starts before you feel ready. Time limits live in your collective agreement — five days, ten, fifteen — and late can kill a good case before anyone argues the facts.
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A concession is not “we did not get everything we asked for.” It is giving back something you already had — wages, language, or a two-tier that the next hire will live with.
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They call it a conversation. It can still become discipline. For unionized workers in Canada, the first move is the collective agreement — and a steward in the room.
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Ontario employers cannot always demand a doctor’s note. For union members it depends on the collective agreement, the ESA’s three sick days, and why they want the paper.
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Ford and GM members have already ratified. Stellantis is at the table. There is no public proof of a formal tariff concession demand — and workers did not start this trade war.
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Saturday shows up on the board and nobody called. Sometimes they can do that. Sometimes the agreement says they cannot. The ESA is not the whole answer.
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Barbecue and back-to-school, yes. Also Toronto printers in 1872, a crowd at Queen’s Park, and a law that took unions out of the criminal dock.
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Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. For unionized workers it depends on the collective agreement, how the overtime was assigned, and the law that applies to your workplace.
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You do not need to be a labour lawyer. You need to know where the grievance procedure, time limits, seniority, hours, overtime, discipline, and management rights live in your book.
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What is just cause? In a Canadian union workplace it is the test the employer has to meet before they can discipline or discharge you — facts, a real rule, and a penalty that fits.
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Twenty-plus years of 12s taught me this: nights will take your stomach, your sleep, and your memory. These three cheap things fight back. Stewards on nights, this is for you too.
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A worker facing discipline or discharge does not have to prove innocence first. The employer has to justify the penalty. Other grievances usually run the other way.
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Read the agreement. Know your steward. Respect the clock. Keep paper. Do not wait for a crisis to learn how the union works.
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It is the language that decides whether bargaining-unit work can leave the unit. The exact words matter more than how you feel about contractors.
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Eight steps. Interview the member, read the agreement, get the paper, build the timeline, ask for the employer’s records, then name the redress. Hope is not a method.
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It is the article that says the employer runs the place. It is not a licence to ignore the rest of the book — or the law.
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The answer is not yes or no. A lawful work direction is one thing. An unsafe one, or one that breaks the agreement, is another. Do not guess alone.
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Complaint, interviews, evidence, findings, then maybe discipline. You are not required to walk in alone. You are required not to lie.
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Often they can change duties, hours, or location — until the agreement, the classification, or the law says otherwise. Permission is not the test. The contract is.
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In Ontario it comes from the Human Rights Code, not from a generous boss. The employer must accommodate to the point of undue hardship — and that phrase does not mean “this is inconvenient.”
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Sometimes yes. Usually no. Progressive discipline is the norm — until the misconduct is serious enough that a warning would be theatre.
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A steward is not a lawyer, a counsellor, or the boss’s messenger. They are the first union person most members ever talk to — and the work is specific.
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Three questions from a 1976 B.C. decision still decide most Canadian discharge grievances. Cause for some discipline. Was this penalty too much. If so, what should be substituted.
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“The boss was unfair” loses. A dated paper trail, the right articles, and specific redress are what an arbitrator can work with.
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Arbitration is not a courtroom drama. It is where a grievance gets a final decision — on evidence, the collective agreement, and the facts of that workplace.
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Arbitrator Laura Trachuk struck down the TTC’s random drug and alcohol program. Safety-sensitive is not a blank cheque. Irving still sets the bar.
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The duty to accommodate does not come from a generous employer or a well-written clause. It comes from the Code — and undue hardship is not “this is inconvenient.”
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Ungrieved contracting out gets harder to stop. The issue is not whether every contractor is bad. It is whether the employer followed the rules that were negotiated.
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Nights are torture. I am not a fan. After more than twenty years of 12s, here are five tips that made shift work survivable — and the one I would still tell you: get off nights if you can.
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A grievance is not a complaint about a bad day. It is a formal claim that the employer broke the collective agreement — and it lives or dies on facts, articles, and time limits.
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