The secret to good labour relations

The two authors of this article spent years sitting across from one another at the bargaining table. One of us, Tracey Jandrisits, represented the University of Guelph administration. The other, Herb Kunze, represented the faculty association. We negotiated collective agreements, debated governance issues, worked through difficult personnel matters and, at times, advocated passionately for very different outcomes. 

From the outside, it looked exactly as expected: two experienced people representing different interests, each accountable to different constituencies, sitting on opposite sides of the room. 

Looking back, however, that is no longer how either of us remembers it. 

We were never really on opposite sides. Despite our different responsibilities, we were both trying to do what we genuinely believed was right for the university. 

Canadian universities are facing some very difficult choices. Financial pressures, questions about program and institutional sustainability, changing expectations around faculty roles and workload, challenging rounds of collective bargaining, and tensions around governance are forcing institutions to deal with issues where there will be real and sometimes significant disagreement. 

At the same time, the relationships needed to work through these issues are under increasing strain. When difficult questions become framed primarily as administration versus faculty, management versus unions, or financial realities versus academic values, it becomes much harder to have the conversations institutions need to have. 

Our experience has shown us that disagreement is inevitable. The question is whether we can disagree, sometimes vigorously, without allowing those disagreements to undermine the relationships we need to find workable and lasting solutions. 

Appreciating differences helps lead to agreement 

Over the years that we worked together, a deep and subtle shift occurred: we stopped judging one another primarily by the positions we took and, instead, began judging one another by the values that informed those positions.  

What changed over time was not our willingness to advocate for our respective positions, but our understanding of why those positions differed. We came to appreciate that our disagreements were rooted less in our values than in the responsibilities our respective roles required us to fulfil. This appreciation often helped us find shared agreement, even on potentially contentious matters, while still satisfying the needs of our roles. 

The foundation of our relationship was talking openly — with hesitancy at first — and listening deeply, leading to responses that helped the tentativeness slowly fade away. The sincerity of those conversations was felt by both of us, and shared values resonated. We chose to accept the risk inherent to this approach. 

Personal communication is key to building trust 

Labour relationships develop further through other choices that are rarely dramatic. They are built by assuming good faith before assuming bad intentions; by asking questions before drawing conclusions; by picking up the telephone instead of relying exclusively on email; by explaining difficult communications before they arrive unexpectedly; and by raising concerns directly rather than allowing frustration to accumulate. Each decision seems almost insignificant, but together they create the conditions in which candour and trust can flourish. 

Looking back, we now realize those small choices mattered just as much as any provision we eventually negotiated into a collective agreement. Before particularly difficult communications were released, one of us would often call the other, not to negotiate the message or seek agreement, but simply to explain why it had to be said. Those conversations rarely changed the outcome. What they changed was the relationship. They reduced surprise, reinforced trust and reminded us that disagreement never requires disrespect. 

There were also moments when one of us had to take a public position that the other knew would be difficult to hear. Faculty associations answer to their members. Administrators answer to governing boards, governments, senior leaders and many others. Understanding those responsibilities did not eliminate disagreement, but it prevented disagreement from becoming personal. That distinction proved invaluable. 

Disagreement doesn’t preclude compromise 

One of the most important lessons both of us learned was that understanding another person’s perspective is not the same as agreeing with it. Over time we came to appreciate the pressures acting on the other person: pressures that are often invisible from across the table. Once we understood those competing responsibilities, our conversations shifted. Instead of asking, “How do I convince the other person that my position is correct?” we increasingly found ourselves asking, “Given the realities each of us faces, what solution has the greatest chance of working?” Instead of focusing solely on the differences in our views or positions and possibly digging in heels, we also considered the other person’s goals and pressures; this led to us finding some common grounds and values, and openly exploring possible paths to a workable shared agreement. 

That shift encouraged curiosity rather than certainty, listening rather than rehearsing, and problem solving rather than point scoring. It also reduced something that can easily dominate difficult negotiations: performance. Every negotiation has audiences beyond the room, and public positions are sometimes unavoidable. Yet the conversations that proved most valuable were almost never the performative ones. They were the candid conversations that happened before positions hardened, when uncertainty could be acknowledged and each of us could explain not only what we needed, but why we needed it. Those conversations did not eliminate conflict. They converted conflict into something more productive. 

Build trust before a crisis occurs 

We have also come to believe that trust is rarely built during a crisis. It is revealed there. By the time genuinely difficult issues emerge, years of more ordinary interactions have already established whether people believe one another’s intentions, whether honesty is safe and whether disagreement will strengthen or weaken the relationship. Trust is not created in those moments; it is called upon. 

Canadian universities are confronting financial uncertainty, demographic change, rapidly evolving technologies and changing expectations about the nature of academic work. Those pressures are unlikely to diminish. University administrations and faculty associations will continue to expend much energy on governance structures, bargaining strategies, legal advice and institutional policies, and they should. Strong institutions depend on all those things. 

But they also depend on something that cannot be negotiated into a collective agreement or captured in a governance framework: relationships built on shared values and mutual respect, strengthened through candour and sustained over time. 

We are not on opposite sides 

Healthy labour relations are not defined by the absence of disagreement. They are defined by relationships that are resilient enough to withstand disagreement without allowing it to become distrust. 

In retrospect, we may not remember the specific language that ultimately appeared in the collective agreements we negotiated together. What has stayed with us is something far more enduring. We learned that it is possible to disagree deeply without questioning one another’s integrity; to advocate vigorously without making disagreement personal; to find common ground in shared values and love of the institution, while holding different or even opposite positions; and to leave the institution stronger than we found it. 

In the end, that may be the most important lesson either of us learned. We were never really on opposite sides. We were simply entrusted with different responsibilities for the same university.