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This article discusses Unfair Advantage: Workers' Freedom of Association in the United States under International Human Rights Standards and Your Voice at Work: Global Report under the Follow-up to the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. During the past decade a strong international consensus has emerged that holds that a set of core labor rights should be regarded as fundamental human rights. The appearance of these 2 reports indicates that the situation is rapidly changing.

What Workers Say: Employee Voice in the Anglo-American Workplace, edited by Richard B. Freeman, Peter Boxall and Peter Haynes, is reviewed.

Labour and Employment Law: Cases, Materials and Commentary, 8th edition, compiled by the Labour Law Casebook Group, is reviewed.

The book, "International and comparative employment relations: Globalization and the Developed Market Economies," edited by Greg J. Bambier, Russell D. Lansbury, and Nick Wailes, is reviewed.

[The author] reports on his research into the failure of Canadian governments to protect and promote the collective bargaining rights of both unionized and non-unionized workers in this country. Far from honouring their solemn commitments to the UN’s International Labour Organization, our governments have blatantly and repeatedly violated them. Their many strike-breaking actions and arbitrarily imposed contract settlements have been condemned by the ILO, which has cited Canada as one of the world’s worst violators of basic labour rights. In exposing the appalling anti-labour record of our federal and provincial governments, Adams includes his exchange of correspondence with Canada’s labour ministries on their dismal labour-law policies. --Publisher's summary Contents: Why collective bargaining is a human right -- Industrial democracy achieved in Europe, thwarted in Canada -- Exclusive-agent certification, quagmire on the road to industrial democracy? -- Alternatives to exclusive-agent certification -- Why unions rely on certification -- How Canadian practice legitimizes employer opposition in collective bargaining -- Constitutional, non-statutory collective representation: the SASSEA and McMaster examples -- Recent developments and their implications for labour policy -- What our governments ought to be doing -- What our governments are actually doing --The union response -- The NUPGE/UFCW campaign. Includes bibliographical references (pages 147-152);

Commentary on Brian Langille's paper, "Can We Rely on the ILO?”

This article is a critical review of "Constitutional Labour Rights in Canada: Farm Workers and the Fraser Case," by Fay Faraday, Judy Fudge and Eric Tucker.

In recognizing a constitutional right to strike in its Saskatchewan Federation of Labour decision, the Supreme Court of Canada reaffirmed that workers in Canada are entitled to freedom of association rights that are at least equivalent to those provided by international human rights instruments. This paper considers the implications of this principle for employees in the private sector, where unionization rates have been in continual decline for sev- eral decades, by focusing on the potential of "minority" unionism for realizing Canada's international law obligations. The author notes that the ILO's super- visory committees have approved three options as being consistent with ILO principles on freedom of association: minority worker associations, each of which has full rights to represent its own members; unions which, though not representing a majority of the workers in the bargaining unit, are recognized as being the "most representative," and as such have the right to conclude a col- lective agreement applicable to all the workers; and unions certified under the North American Wagner Act model, through a majoritarian procedure. Thus, while ILO member-states are permitted to adopt legislation based on majoritar- ian exclusivity, such legislation cannot have the effect of depriving non-majority unions of the right to bargain collectively on behalf of their members, in those workplaces where no exclusive agent has been certified. With a view to ensuring that labour law and practice in Canada conform to international standards, the author proposes that every Canadian jurisdiction revise its legislation to provide for certification of the "most representative" minority union in a work- place, while retaining the existing procedures for certification of an exclusive bargaining agent. Under this proposal, the most representative union (or coali- tion of unions) in a bargaining unit would have all the rights and duties of an exclusive agent, but not an exclusive right of representation. In this way, the author contends, Canada could live up to its international law commitment to "promote" collective bargaining.

The article reviews the book, "Firms as Political Entities -- Saving Democracy through Economic Bicameralism," by Isabelle Ferreras.

The central focus of this article is the effort by Canadian unions to organize Wal-Mart. Organizing the world's largest corporation is considered to be critical because the company's business "template" calls for wages and benefits considerably inferior to those of unionized workers. To date, although a few bargaining units have been certified, Wal-Mart has managed to thwart all attempts to negotiate collective agreements. However, because the United Food and Commercial Workers have certified units in a few provinces with first contract arbitration, the achievement, eventually, of a collective agreement appears to be likely.

The 1990s in Canada will probably go down as the most stressful decade for public-sector industrial relations since the inception, 25 years earlier, of collective bargaining in the public service. Government debt and defecits became the rationale for downsizing, outsourcing, privatization, layoffs, buyouts, and early retirement packages at both the federal and provincial levels. When workers' bargaining units did not bend to government demands at the negotating table, and when leaders did not blink at the threat of restrictive legislation, then governments of both the right and the left at times found it convenient to legislate rule changes to suit their fiscal or ideological purposes. The contributors to Public-Sector Labour Relations examine in depth the events of recent years in the public service of six jurisdictions―Nova Scotia, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia, and the federal government. Trends in the other five Canadian provinces are also considered. Only in BC has there been an essentially co-operative labour relations environment, although even in this province, public service employment has dropped considerably. Overall, from 1991 to 1997, provincial civil service employment fell by 15 per cent, while the federal employment reduction was 14 per cent. (From the employment peak in 1993-4, the overall provincial reduction was over 22 per cent.) Although collective bargaining is still alive, a major conclusion of this study is that collective bargaining in the Canadian public sector is not well. The cases reported here demonstrate that governments have adopted the attitude and policy that they may engage in bargaining or suspend it whenever they find that course of action to be convenient. Viewed from a broader international context, as discussed in the concluding chapter, the casual suspension of bargaining by Canadian governments cannot be justified by the norms and agreements that Canada has shared with the international community. -- Publisher's description. Contents: Public-sector labour relations in an era of restraint and restructuring: an overview / Gene Swimmer -- Provincial government restructuring in Nova Scotia: the freezing and thawing of labour relations / Terry H. Wagar -- From softball to hardball: the transition in labour-management relations in the Ontario public service / Joseph B. Rose -- Fiscal restraint, legislated concessions, and labour relations in the Manitoba civil service, 1988-1997 / Paul Phillips and Carolina Stecher -- The logic of union quiescence: the Alberta case / Yonatan Reshef -- Labour relations in the BC public service: blowing in the political wind / Mark Thompson -- Restructuring federal public-sector human resources / Gene Swimmer and Sandra Bach -- Public-employee relations: Canadian developments in perspective / Roy J. Adams.