Extending the duration of collective bargaining agreements in Quebec over the past twenty years: A new normality, stronger partnerships, or a display of employers’ power?

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2015

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Mélanie Laroche et al., « Extending the duration of collective bargaining agreements in Quebec over the past twenty years: A new normality, stronger partnerships, or a display of employers’ power? », La Revue de l'Ires, ID : 10670/1.234d83...


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What link is there between the duration of collective bargaining agreements and their content? This article focuses on the private sector in Quebec, where agreements have been growing longer since 1994, to explore the management and union points of view on this evolution in a decentralized system of industrial relations. An analysis of nearly 5,300 collective bargaining agreements offers a testing ground for three hypotheses put forward to explain this development: 1. It reflects a new normal arising from a desire on both sides to work with longer periods of stability to meet the challenges of globalization, 2. It comes along with new partnership-related negotiation topics that are negotiated locally, 3. It is a new lever of power used by employers to put pressure on employee working conditions. The results show that longer agreements have broadly become the new “norm”, but that the power dynamics that favor employers appear to explain why longer agreements are less favorable for employees and trade unions.

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