I am a Human Resources professional (or, as I prefer to call it, a Strategic Business Partner) and have had the opportunity, on two occasions, to play an active role in the creation, design and leadership of business units and human resource functions.

I am currently re-negotiating a collective agreement for one of our business units. I am new to this negotiations table, as is the Manager locally. The unit has a history of command and control management and we want to make the significant change to a values based model, with a dissemination of responsibility and accountability, rewarding the employees for their results, not hours, as well as their sharing and use of knowledge.

To a degree, the union welcomes this philosophical change. However, the union is very reluctant to allow the collective agreement to evolve in a way that will facilitate our model.

I was wondering if anyone knows of any writings on modern unions or knows of any useful resources?

Any feedback you can provide will be welcomed!

-- Mark Lang (mlang@ab.tri.ca), October 17, 2001