Multicraft Bargaining
The treatment of interrelationships among various craft trades in construction presents one of the most complex issues in the collective bargaining process. Past experience on project agreements has dealt with such issues successfully in that collective bargaining agreements are signed by a group of craft trade unions and a contractor for the duration of a project. Project agreements may reference other agreements on particular points, such as wage rates and fringe benefits, but may set their own working conditions and procedures for settling disputes including a commitment of no-strike and no-lockout. This type of agreement may serve as a starting point for multicraft bargaining on a regional, non-project basis.
Improvement of Bargaining Performance
Although both sides of the bargaining table are to some degree responsible for the success or failure of negotiation, contractors have often been responsible for the poor performance of collective bargaining in construction in recent years because local contractors' associations are generally less well organized and less professionally staffed than the unions with which they deal. Legislation providing for contractors' association accreditation as an exclusive bargaining agent has now been provided in several provinces in Canada. It provides a government board that could hold hearings and establish an appropriate bargaining unit by geographic region or sector of the industry, on a single-trade or multi-trade basis.