The lockout of NHL players by the league's owners led to
much more reporting about labour negotiations than we would
normally see in the media. While the parties have finally made
a deal, it's still worth considering what lessons we can
learn from this negotiation that might be applied to less glamorous
ones.
Lesson 1: If the employer is demanding monetary
rollbacks, expect a long work stoppage. Any
experienced labour negotiator knows that one of the toughest things
to achieve is a major rollback of salaries or benefits. Nobody
wants to earn less than before. And unions hate to deliver
less to their members. So, if management needs to achieve
rollbacks, they need to expect that a long work stoppage is highly
likely. Here, the NHL owners reportedly sought huge rollbacks,
including a reduction of the players' share of revenue from 56%
to 50%, new salary caps, reduced pension liabilities and
more. Both parties likely knew it was going to take a long
time to resolve
