L’impact de la durée des conventions collectives sur les relations de travail locales et la participation à la vie syndicale

In 1994, the Quebec legislature amended section 65 of the Labor Code to remove the term of collective agreements in the private sector in Quebec. The aim of the legislator was to legalize the social contracts concluded between the employers' and the trade unions and to adapt to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Our research is a reflection more than twenty years later to understand the effects of the duration of the collective agreement on the relations between the employers' parties and the unions at the local level. More specifically, we are interested in the impact of the duration of the collective agreement on local labor relations and participation in union life. Our research is divided into 5 phases: the synthesis of the literature, our analysis model, the presentation of our results, the analysis of our results and our conclusion.   Various observations were made during our census of the literature. In terms of the duration of collective agreements, the trend is clearly to extend the duration since its removal (Mayer 1999, Ministry of Tavail 2000, Boutet 2004). This trend can be seen both in Quebec and since 2005 in the rest of Canada (Workplace Information Division, 2016). In terms of labor relations, there is a decrease in the unionization rate (Statistics Canada 2016), a decrease in conflicts (Labrosse, 2017), a new form of conflict resolution ((Measuring the effects of work stoppages and activities mediation-conciliation on the Quebec economy for the period 20092013) and the emergence of a new negotiation strategy (Fisher Ury 1994, Bourque and Thuderoz 2011). Finally, on the side of participation in union life, Gordon et al., (1980), Fulagar and Barling (1989), and Bamberger (1999) are the authors who have studied the determinants of participation in union life the most in Quebec. Bergeron and Paquet (1995) and Dupuis (2003). ) developed their definition of participation in union life as participating in union activities, including the union's administration (Bergeron and Paquet (1995) or excluding them (Dupuis, 2003).  Our research aims at verifying 2 research proposals: 1) that the extension of the duration of the collective agreements will positively influence the local labor relations 2) that the longer the collective agreements are, the more participation of the members to the trade union life will be negatively influenced. Our research is of a qualitative nature. To verify our proposals, we  v    conducted twelve semi-directed interviews with union consultants in the private sector of a large union organization in Quebec. Our interviews lasted between 60 and 90 minutes and took place between June and September 2013.  Our interviews allowed us to make various observations. First of all, it is always the representatives of organizations that apply for long-term collective agreements. This is in line with our expectations since employers' organizations (CPQ, AMQ) have made representations in order to extol the duration of collective agreements (Mayer 1999, Mashimo 2001, Boutet 2004). A long-term collective agreement would stabilize long-term labor relations and may even be required by banks to encourage investment in the organization. In terms of participation in union life, all union advisers agree that a long-term collective agreement will reduce participation in union meetings. In addition, it would make the recruitment of union officers more difficult, increase the frequency of communications to members and reduce the mobilization of members. Our research leads us to conclude that there is a negative link between the duration of the collective agreement and participation in union life.    At the level of local labor relations, a collective agreement of more than three years will court the relationship between the parties. The advisers will also highlight the lack of stability of the actors in relation to the work which will hinder the establishment of a relationship of trust between the parties. They refuse to make informal agreements. Conflicts and pressure tactics are also more difficult when the collective agreement is more than three years old, since organizations tend to use a strategy of letting go of what is going to aggravate existing conflicts and to ensure that during negotiations, the union will be harder on the organization. Our research has led us to conclude that there is a negative link between the duration of the collective agreement and local labor relations.

Keyphrases: bill 116, negociation, union participation, duration of collective agreement