That would be a “contract of adhesion”, where one party has all the power and the other party can’t negotiate the terms. Such contracts are subject to a different level of scrutiny and the terms may not be enforceable if they are outrageous and/or unexpected.
I don’t doubt that a contract is a contract. “Take it or leave it” is infinitely preferable to an employer (and especially to a volunteer board) compared to having to sit for weeks negotiating the minutae of which dead relative qualifies for bereavement leave and how many weeks ahead the work schedule has to be posted, how much vacation employees get, etc. Calling both examples contracts is rather disingenuous.
In Canada, separation pay is mandated - although it’s pretty small for lower-end workers (2 to 5 weeks’ pay), it only becomes significant for more skilled jobs and longer term employees.
However, even in Canada, lawmakers have not seen fit to protect workers’ pay obligations from being bumped to the back of the queue during bankruptcies, etc. Thus Sears Canada while closing down can pay its executives “retention bonuses” to stay on and get paid regular pay, while front-line workers get the minimum separation pay and lose any pension and retirement benefits that Sears has failed to keep paid up.
Wait, are you saying that before the union vote, nobody knew how much vacation the employees got? Maybe it’s a good thing the board left, if that’s the way they were running things.
It doesn’t mean that no one knew how much vacation time the employees had. It means that without a union the board is free to decide vacation , pay , benefits, holidays on their own without any negotiation. And they are free to change those things going forward , again without negotiation. For example, my husband’s employer is perfectly free to tell him that starting in 2018 he will get 8 paid holidays instead of the 10 he currently gets. The employer has no obligation to negotiate with the non-union employees, so once he decides to cut the holidays, it’s a done deal. Not so for the union employees. He can’t cut their holidays until a new contract is negotiated. And in order to get them to agree to give up the holidays, he will have to agree to something the union wants. Maybe he cuts the holidays (and achieves his goal of staying open two additional days) but increases everyones vacation days ( which achieves the unions goal of having the same amount of time off). Maybe it works out some other way - but he can’t just impose the change.
Nothing prevents an employer from conducting that sort of negotiation in the absence of a union , but they are not required to and many won’t.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk