March 2007

Spotlight: The IR Scene is All Shook Up

Restructuringis the most pressing IR issue of 2007 says Queen's MIR program facultymember Rob Hickey, topping the agenda for labour and management alike.In the following Q & A, Hickey discusses economic restructuring,related changes to work processes and employment relationships, andwhat he'd most like to see happen in IR this year ...more

This Issue:

• Queen's IRC Hits the Road: Join us for upcoming programs in Toronto, Saskatoon and Regina ...more
• Meeting of the Minds: Explore what HR leaders most need to know at Queen's School of Business conference ...more
• Free Download: Strategic HRM paper with Ottawa Citizen VP-HR Debbie Bennett ..more
• Spotlight: Restructuring is the big IR issue of 2007 says Queen's MIR faculty member Rob Hickey ...more

Upcoming Programs:

• Apr. 15-Apr. 20, 2007, Kingston - Negotiation Skills
• Apr. 23-Apr. 26, 2007, Kingston - Change Management
• Apr.29-May 4, 2007, Kingston - Industrial Relations
• May 1-May 3, 2007, Kingston - Business Strategy
• May 7-May 11, 2007, Kingston - Dispute Resolution
• May 28-June 1, 2007, Kingston - Labour Arbitration

Queen's IRC Hits the Road

Don'tget us wrong: we adore welcoming the world to our programs here in theLimestone City. But we also know, based on your feedback, that someparticipants cannot make the hike to Kingston. For those people, wehave decided to start bringing our programs to some otherneighbourhoods around the country. Here are the sessions we haveconfirmed to date:

OD Foundations - Regina, April 02-05
Change Management - Toronto, May 8-11
Organizational Design - Regina, May 15-17
Negotiation Skills - Regina, June 4-7
Change Management - Saskatoon, June 12-15
Partnership Development - Regina, Sept. 17-19
Building Smart Teams - Regina, Oct. 16-19
Change Management - Regina, Nov. 27-30

HR Meeting of the Minds: Queen's Conference in Kingston

Ourcolleagues at the Queen's School of Business Monieson Centre and Centrefor Business Venturing are holding a one-day HR conference this May 14.The theme is "Your Human Resources: What You Know; What You ShouldKnow." The event will take place 8.30 am to 4.30 pm at the DonaldGordon Conference Centre on the Queen's campus in Kingston.

JoinHR experts and Canadian companies as they share their best practices.Participants include winners of the 2006 "Best Small and Medium-sizedEmployers in Canada" survey. As well, attendees will be invited toshare their biggest HR concern electronically with other participants,then take part in a fact-finding analysis and prioritization of theseissues in an open forum. An expert panel will review the findings ofthis interactive brainstorming session.

For information call toll free 1-877-955-1800.

Free Download: Ottawa Citizen HR-VP on Strategic HRM

Click here to download this just-released paper in which HR VP Debbie Bennett shares her HRM insights.

Spotlight: IR Scene is All Shook Up

RobHickey, a faculty member in the Queen’s Master’s of IndustrialRelations program, says restructuring is the big issue of 2007 for bothlabour and management. Below, Rob - who worked as an organizer for theTeamsters for a decade in the United States, and earned his MA and PhDfrom Cornell University’s School of Industrial Relations and LaborRelations Studies - discusses IR issues, and what he’d most like to seehappen in IR in the year ahead.

What are the most crucial labour-management issues for 2007?

Keyissues facing labour and management over the next year continue torevolve around the process of economic restructuring. The recentannouncements of layoffs by Chrysler, preceded by Ford, the rippleeffect that the Big Three auto sector has on parts suppliers - thattype of restructuring is certainly impacting the field of IR and labourunions, the Canadian Autoworkers in particular.

Thisalso plays into other forms of restructuring at the level of theworkplace. Take the current CN strike: one dimension is a wage dispute,but the other is restructuring of work processes, or the drive forflexibility on the part of management.

Icontinue to see the issue of restructuring, both on the broader,industrial level and on the micro, workplace level as being the keychallenge facing management and labour in the coming year.

What are the top priorities for management?

Management’spriorities are consistent with the term ‘flexibility’, and it createsclear tensions with unions over questions of job security, and economicsecurity in general.

Ithink flexibility relates to both numeric and functional flexibility;functional flexibility as seen in the CN dispute and numericflexibility based on the employers’ ability to outsource, contract out,to rationalize and downsize their workforce. We saw this at Chrysler,among the Big Three, and at a host of companies including Eastman Kodakand Nortel.

Yousee companies trying to adapt their operations to the changing globaleconomic environment, and that includes in some cases shiftingproduction from North America to Mexico, or low-cost offshore locationsin the Far East. Or it includes what I call “insourcing” – bringingnon-employee contractors into a local workplace. So the work may stillbe done locally, but no longer by core employees of a particularemployer. These forms of flexibility continue to be attractive toemployers as part of overall cost containment or cost reductionstrategy.

It’snot simply a question of adapting to current economic pressures: it’salso about restructuring the work process, and creating differentstructures in the employment relationship.

What are the top priorities for labour?

Pressuresfrom economic restructuring are increasing the profile of economic andsocial security concerns. So job security and also broader socialsecurity remain a serious focus of labour’s agenda. I include socialsecurity because while the loss of manufacturing jobs is one element,it also contributes to concerns about a crisis in the provision ofpublic services and the quality of the health care system - which theCanadian labour movement is deeply concerned about.

Wageswill of course not disappear from labour’s concerns, and that willcontinue to ebb and flow. Statscan has tracked contractual wageincreases at slightly above the rate of inflation, and I don’t see thatchanging significantly in the near term. Labour unions do not want tosee their members’ purchasing power decline.

Relatedto the first point on economic restructuring, we see rapid changestaking place in ownership structures through mergers and acquisitions.Take Novelis here in Kingston - an India-based firm, Hindalco, justmade one of largest buyout offers in the industry’s history to purchasethis aluminium manufacturing company. This type of global capitalrestructuring creates concern for unions but also opportunities thatmay bring much needed capital investment to operations that havehistorically been efficient, productive, and profitable, but lack moneyto recapitalize.

Sorestructuring in this case is not just about job protection and layoffconcerns, but also about investment flows, capital improvements, andcommitment to innovative technology to local operations.

To read the full Spotlight article, go to:http://www.industrialrelationscentre.com/labour-relations/articles/ir-scene-is-all-shook-up.htm

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