Les impacts des stratégies patronales antisyndicales sur l’organisation des travailleurs

Anti-union management strategies are an increasingly popular phenomenon in the corporate world (Bronfenbrenner, 2009b). Management ideology could explain this tendency which results in the bitterness from sharing power with union worker representatives (Dundon et al., 2006). Corporations like WalMart, Disney, or McDonalds openly take position against unionization, thus spreading ideology and keeping work environments union-free (Dundon et al., 2006). Corporate power undeniably exerts power over smaller businesses (Dundon et al., 2006), a fact which could explain why anti-union strategies are often relied upon, even when unions are formally recognized. But what about Canadian anti-union movements? Many think that Canadian employers have officially acknowledged unionization in comparison with Americans, a belief supported by the unique historical background in regard to the Canadian industrial relation system and tactical preferences (Thomason & Pozzebon, 1998), alongside laws protecting union rights like association and negotiation (Boivin, 2010; Thomason & Pozzebon, 1998). Scientific scholarship however gives testimony of determination from Canadian employers in recourse to oppositional strategies against unionizing (Bentham, 2002; Martinello & Yates, 2002; Riddell, 2001). According to Martinello et Yates (2002), six percent (6%) of Ontarian employers covered would never use avoidance or oppositional tactics against unions: ninety four percent (94%) of employers covered thus would have used anti-union tactics. Therefore managerial opposition to union movements must certainly be present in the Canadian landscape.   However, few Canadian and Quebecer studies contributed to the literature on this phenomenon. Generally speaking, management scholars —British and especially American— explicitly mention strategy types and their frequency; they follow methodologies only taking court decisions in the subject matter into account or drawing almost exclusively on surveys. Keeping this in mind, we sought to contribute to the literature on anti-union strategies; we constructed an analytic framework for identifying their effects on workers and unions. Our research methodology is distinctly orig inal: we conducted a qualitative case study of a multi-sectorial retail organization. More specifically, our model is useful in identifying anti-union strategies against workers and unions, either targeting individual or collective interests or union interests, as suggested by Slinn (2008b). Moreover, we sought to understand to what extent anti-union strategies diminish (chilling effect) or augment (rebound effect) propensity to unionization among workers, whether they are targeted or not by these strategies (ripple effect).  To meet our goals, the research process was conducted in three steps. In Phase 1 several hypotheses were derived after reviewing the scientific literature. Phase 2 consisted of a data collection of union representatives and workers’ perceptions with semi-structured interviews. We then went on in phase 3 to a transcription of these interviews, and we analyzed results. Logical pairing methodology (Yin, 2009) was used in order to compare observed phenomena (fieldwork data) with predicted phenomena (theoretical and empirical predictions).  After the last step, we concluded that fear campaigns were most frequent in response to unionizing threats with coercive tactics such as: closure of two organizational branches, propaganda speeches given to captive audience, an internal video, and so on. As a matter of fact, a prevailing sense of fear for collective interests (experienced by 86% of research participants) followed from recourse to anti-union tactics by management. Consequently, we observed that in effect anti-union tactics would have stopped the unionizing process in other organizational branches (64% of research participants said so), and so disrupted union campaigns in general. We also remark that many tactics were employed following the official recognition of unions while also threatening individual interests. Many side effects could be enumerated: increased worker discipline (72%), intimidations or threats (80%) and resignations caused by a bad organizational climate (50%).

Keyphrases: CSN, Unfair labor practices, substitution strategies, suppression strategies, effects on interests, unionization, case study, CSN