Management-Rights Clauses

In past management employment relationships, manager or employers were free to make changes to the rules as they wish as long as they were in good faith. These changes were only reserved by boundaries laid out in the collective agreement Management-rights clauses are found within collective agreements between employers and unions. The purpose of a management-rights clause is to allow the employer to maintain autonomy in as many aspects of their company as the union will agree to. For example, hiring, firing, and discipline employees are often included in the managers-right clause. For managers, this is a very important clause to maintain control, and preserve the ability to exercise their power without over stepping the union or the collective …show more content…
Ltd., and at the time the employer was making changes to the rules of employment. These changes resulted in the wrongful termination of Raoul. This matter was advanced to arbitration, where the employer was deemed unjust and the case was set as a precedence for making rule changes in employment agreements. The basic principles set out form this case are: “Employers have the right the issue a wide variety of rules, as a long as they are not in conflict with the collective agreement (as well as relevant legislation); rules must be reasonable and easily understood. They must be made known o employees and administered fairly and consistently; and an employer cannot rely solely on employer’s rules in meting out discipline. Rather, the employer must demonstrate that the discipline was for just and reasonable cause. ” Not only is the action important to union workers to protect them from unjust changes. This provision allows managers to apply the KVP test, which set guidelines are referred to, and ensure that the changes they make through their management rights clause are legal and binding. Therefore, managers are able to make the necessary business changes needed without going through the union, nor adhering to the collective …show more content…
This includes making moves such as hiring employees, assigning work, seting schedules, lay offs, recalls, and much more. By imcorporating various areas such as hiring and job designation to the managers-rights clause, the employer reserves the right to set qualfications and requirements for certain jobs that the union would elsewise be ale to fill with a less qualified worker. In regards to other areas, this part becomes very important when looking at the effects of layoffs and returns from lay offs. When an employer is forced into laying off employees for business reasons, the managers-right clauses allows for this with one exception. The exceptions remains that the employer can exercise managerial duties as long as they do not cross or violate the notions of the collective agreement. Such agreements incorporate language such as, “The Union and the Employees agree that the right to operate and manage the business and the affairs of the Company, the right to select and direct the working forces and the right to control and direct the use of its equipment, facilities and properties are vested exclusively in the Company.