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Originally Posted by calgarygeologist
Great, thanks. Like I said, the only reporting on a conflict of interest I had seen was a couple CBC articles and they only mentioned her previous role with AC up until 2004. I did a quick search online for more info but it only brought up very loose allegations of conflict based on some arm waving.
Too often we see allegations of conflict of interest in potentially serious matters (such as the recent situation with David Johnston) and it isn't always easy to determine if it is actually the case of not.
If it was a situation where they had worked for AC twenty years ago and had no further close ties I fully believe that someone could be objective.
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I just want to mention, there's a little bit of a difference between conflict of interest and independence risks. There's similarities but they're a bit different.
Conflict of interest is more if you have a personal tie that conflicts with your professional duties (ie: romance/relational, financial, competitive and confidential).
Independence risks is something that compromises the ability to be objective and impartial (ie: self interest, self review, advocacy, familiarity, intimidation etc.).
These can exist, however, for conflict of interest, you need to have procedures in place to disclose and ensure it doesn't affect the ability to perform professional duties and for independence threats you essentially have to explain what safeguards are in place to address it so that it will not compromise the ability to be objective and impartial. Like having a stake with the group across the table, so you're negotiating against yourself which makes no logical sense.
The fact someone has internal knowledge/experience of the company they now sit across of in negotiations is not necessarily an issue. They may know more about the unique operations of the entity to bring forth a solution that works for both sides. For instance, you want someone with Airline experience/global operations experience negotiating vs maybe someone with local manufacturing experience to avoid someone basically talking about stuff they have no clue about.
The question isn't whether these links exist. It's whether it affects their ability to do their job correctly. If the assumption is that they once worked for AC, conflict of interest... that makes no sense. It would have to be like extremely close relationships with AC, owning AC stock etc. for it to be a conflict of interest. It's completely possible that their experience at AC sucked so badly, that they're trying to crucify AC as well. Either you can say that's clearing up the conflict, or it's an independence risk because if there's a good path forward for the union, the individual is still attempting to illogically nail AC to the wall and basically push them towards going defunct. That's an issue too which is why there's safeguards on the other side.
Again, links like this exist all the time and you cannot always find someone who will not have a potential conflict or independence concern due to how narrow the expertise is at times. Canada's expertise would differ from a different country's expertise just as union vs no union and different industries also change the skillset required. The question is whether these links are perceived to have the ability to affect the work to be done at an appropriate professional standard and if there's even the smallest possibility, what railings and safeguards are in place to ensure it doesn't happen.
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Originally Posted by iggy_oi
In fairness there is almost always a debate whenever mediators/arbitrators are appointed due to their histories of being either management side or labour side but when it’s a single mediator/arbitrator as opposed to a panel it’s still generally best to avoid having someone who has a history of working directly for either party.
Assuming they can or will be objective just because it’s plausible is a pretty risky assumption. I’m saying this as someone who has quite a bit of experience in dealing with labour mediators/arbitrators so take that for what it’s worth.
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Again, you need people who have knowledge/experience of these specific scenarios to do the job right. There are already strong rules of engagement for these types of things already because these types of worlds are relatively small. Conflict of interest and independence risk are things that the other side or one's own side would easily attack before it can affect either of them. Thus I'm certain it's already been brought forward and explained how it is addressed.
If neither side has done that, I don't get why some people are making a mountain out of a molehill out of these loose connections. The appropriate checks and balances are already in place and applied to avoid issues relating to any of these connections.