Strikes and the Law

This paper adopts a critical sociological approach to analyze how labor law shaped a 23-day strike at a western Canadian university in the fall of 1995. A chronology of the strike is provided, followed by a brief analysis of how both economic and sociological models contribute to understanding the rationale of the strike. The implications of specific labor laws for this rationale are discussed, with an extension of the critical legal studies tradition by an establishment of how legal biases against unions shape strike activity.