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  • Traditionally, management had the right to hire, fire and schedule hours of work, unless constrained by collective agreements or contracts. When exercising these rights, management has a duty to act in a fair manner. There is concern, however, that some management practices might have a disparate effect on the health and performance of disabled employees. Human rights legislation in Canada prohibits both overt discrimination and unintended systemic discrimination arising from employment practices which may seem neutral in application but which have a disparate effect on a protected group of employees. Four specific points of law illustrate the balancing act involved in adjudicating adverse effect discrimination allegations of disabled employees: 1. actuarial risk versus individual assessment, 2. shifting onus of proof from employer to employee, 3. importation of human rights principles into arbitration, and 4. discipline and discharge of employees. Special attention is placed on diabetic shiftworkers as an example of adverse effect discrimination.

  • The diverse conceptual perspectives and practical experiences with non-union employee representation (NER) in the USA and Canada are reviewed. We first propose a six-dimensional descriptive schema to categorise observed NER practices. Dimensions of diversity include (i) form; (ii) function; (iii) subjects; (iv) representational modes; (v) extent of power; (vi) degree of permanence. We then turn to the NER controversy, which is a tangled skein consisting of many different threads of values and prescriptions. To unbundle the controversy, we develop four ‘faces’ of NER—(i) evolutionary voice; (ii) unity of interest; (iii) union avoidance; and (iv) complementary voice—so that future research can more consciously test the validity of competing perspectives with hard data. Generalising about NER is problematic because of these many dimensions of diversity, and because NER is viewed through different ideological and conceptual lenses. We conclude that NER’s future trajectory is uncertain due to conflicting trends but in the short run is most likely to remain a modest-sized phenomenon.

Last update from database: 9/29/24, 4:10 AM (UTC)