Employee Representation and Collective Agreements

Posted on Mar 17, 2025 in Tourism

Employee Participation in the Company

Employees can participate in the future of the company through representatives they elect. Employee representation can be achieved through unitary representation (staff delegates and the works council) or collective representation (unions).

In order to exercise their right of participation, employees of the same company or workplace have the right to meet in assembly, if conditions permit, and outside working hours.

Guarantees for Employee Representatives

  • Priority of stay in the company or workplace over other employees.
  • Protection against dismissal or punishment during their mandate and the following year, unless the reason for dismissal or sanction is based on an action related to their representation.
  • Each representative is granted a number of paid hours per month to perform their representation duties.

Unitary Representation

Employees of a company are entitled to be represented, regardless of their affiliation with a union, through staff representatives or a works council.

Staff Delegates

Staff delegates are elected when the company has fewer than 50 workers. Staff delegates represent the workers before the employer.

Works Council

A works council is elected if the company has more than 50 workers.

Competencies

The works council has competencies related to:

  • The economic situation of the company and the sector to which it belongs.
  • Employment evaluation.
  • The probable accounting of the company.
  • All sanctions considered to have serious faults with regard to contracts, including receiving a copy of the contracts and notification of any extension.

Collective Agreements

A collective agreement is an agreement freely entered into between representatives of workers and employers to regulate working conditions.

Scope of the Collective Agreement

  • Functional: It can be applied at a level less than the company, at the enterprise level, or at a level higher than the company.
  • Territorial: It may be local, provincial, or interprovincial.
  • Temporal: The negotiating parties shall specify the length of the agreements. Unless otherwise agreed, collective agreements will be extended from year to year.

Any collective agreement should include, as minimum content:

  • The parties agreeing to the collective agreement.
  • The personal, functional, territorial, and temporal scope.
  • The form, conditions, and notice period to denounce the agreement.

Parties Legitimate to Negotiate a Collective Agreement

In agreements at a level higher than the company:

  • Trade unions that have a minimum of 10% of works council members or staff delegates.
  • The most representative business associations at the state level.

Strikes

Collective agreements may be individual, between a worker and employer, or collective, between a group of workers and one or more companies. A strike is a temporary cessation of services, agreed upon by a collective of workers from one or several companies, in connection with a labor conflict.

Illicit Strikes

Strikes that are initiated for political reasons, or intend to alter the agreement, are considered illicit.

Effects of a Strike

  • Workers do not receive pay during a strike.
  • The employer may not replace strikers.
  • Strike days should not be deducted from vacation time.

A strike should be announced five days in advance.