How to prepare for collective bargaining negotiations

Preparing for Collective Bargaining Negotiations

Negotiating teams need to gather information on a variety of issues in order to prepare for negotiations and compile a list of bargaining goals. This may include the use of internal and external information sources. 

Internal sources may include: surveys of union members, grievances filed under the current collective agreement, and issues identified during previous rounds of negotiations.

External sources may include: collective agreements of other unions,  labour market information, and information on current economic conditions. 

This page provides additional information on how to locate external information sources using resources available to Brock University students.

Find Collective Agreements & News On Recent Negotiations

• Negotiating teams may wish to examine collective agreements from other locals of the same union, or for unions in similar industries.
• Consult the following sources to view current and historical collective agreements, as well as to read about current trends and highlights from recent negotiations.

Sources for Collective Agreements

• Collective Agreements e-Library Portal (Ontario Ministry of Labour)

  Includes public and private sector collective agreements in Ontario. Search options include: by employer, by union, by location, or by industry. You can also search across all collective agreements by keyword.

• Negotech Database (Government of Canada Labour Program)

  Contains the full text of current and historical collective agreements from across Canada. It is searchable by a variety of criteria (employer name, union name, jurisdiction, industry, occupation,etc.) as well as by topic (keywords or phrases) to help locate specific contract language.

• LabourSource This link opens in a new window

  The LabourSource Library database includes a collection of over 6,400 editorially written summaries of collective agreements.

Sources for News & Trends on Recent Negotiations

• Collective Bargaining Ontario: Interactive Analytics (Ontario Ministry of Labour)

  An interactive data hub with reports on:
  - Ontario Collective Bargaining Highlights
  - Ontario Collective Bargaining Expires

• Collective Bargaining Information (Government of Canada Labour Program)

  - Tracks key negotiations in Federal and Provincial Jurisdictions.
  - Provides current data on ratified settlements, wage settlements, and work stoppages

• Conference Board of Canada e-Library This link opens in a new window

  - Industrial Relations Outlook is an annual comprehensive overview of issues influencing labour relations in Canada for unions, management, and policy makers.
  - Compensation Planning Outlook reports annually on the results of a survey of 411 organizations and identifies human resource management and collective bargaining issues.

Find Canadian Labour Market Information

Labour market information covers a variety of topics including labour force trends, unemployment rates, and current wages by industry or occupation. A key source of this data in Canada is provided by the Government of Canada.

• LabourSource This link opens in a new window

  Includes recent Labour Market Data and Consumer Price Index Data.

US / International Data Sources

If you require labour market data for areas outside of Canada, please refer to the International Open Data Portals listed on the Economics Research Guide.

Research Current Economic Conditions

A number of organizations monitor and analyse current Canadian economic conditions including the Bank of Canada, the economic research units of major Canadian banks, and think tanks such as the Conference Board of Canada. Large unions(e.g., CUPE or Unifor) and trade / industry associations may also have economists on staff, however their analysis may only be available to their own membership.

The following link points to sources which are freely available to the general public, or available to Brock University students through Library subscriptions.

• Key Indicators (Statistics Canada)

  The latest major economics releases include CPI, GDP, and the Labour Force Survey.

How do you start to prepare for the bargaining process?

What are the 5 core steps of collective bargaining?

What is the negotiation process in collective bargaining?

What are the most important issues in collective bargaining negotiations?