Your search

This paper considers some of the implications of the Supreme Court of Canada's watershed judgment in Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, which recognized a constitutional right to strike under the Charter, for labour relations policy and practice in the broader public sector. The author notes that while the right to strike has been a key element of modern industrial relations policy, restrictions on that right have been deemed to be justified in respect of "essential " public services. Despite a marked decrease in strike activity in recent decades across all sectors of the economy, the author finds that strikes remain a significant feature of industrial relations in the broader public sector, particularly in the areas of health care, education and social services, where union density continues to be at high levels. In Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, the Supreme Court, though recognizing the fundamental importance of the right to strike to collective bargaining, did not preclude the possibility of restrictions on strikes in essential services if such restrictions were reasonably justified. In particular, the Court held, legislation that prohibited or limited strikes may survive Charter scrutiny if it provides for a "meaningful" alternative dispute resolution mechanism. The key question, then, is what sort of process will satisfy the requirements set out by the Court. In suggesting an answer to this question, the author reviews the study by Adell, Grant and Ponak on strikes in essential services, which concluded that the so-called "designation" model (which seeks to maintain the delivery of essential services during a strike or lockout) had more favourable industrial relations outcomes than either the "no-strike" model or the "unfettered strike" model. Nevertheless, the author points out, the practical implementation of the designation model could become more complex as a result of the decision in Saskatchewan Federation of Labour because of the larger number of issues to be decided and because of the requirement that the mechanism used to determine outcomes regarding essential services, classifications and employees be inclusive rather than unilateral.

The provincial broader public sector (BPS) in Ontario com- prises the full range of government services and Crown corporations, as well as health care and education. The BPS is vital to the Ontario economy as well as to the citizens who use its services; it accounts for about half of the province's gross domestic product. Each of its com- ponent parts depends on direct government funding or government transfers, or is at least regulated by the government. The 2008 global financial crisis and its impact on the management of Ontario's public services has brought industrial relations practices and outcomes in the BPS into sharp focus. In 2011, the Ontario government established the Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services, chaired by Don Drummond (the Drummond Commission),' with a view to enhancing the efficiency of BPS services.

John Godard's article, "New Dawn or Bad Moon Rising? Large Scale Government Administered Workplace Surveys and the Future of Canadian IR Research" (2001), is discussed. Godard has challenged researchers to consider the advantages and disadvantages of using data sets in industrial relations research. This comment agrees with Godard that the Workplace and Employment Survey (WES), as with other large scale government administered surveys, has a number of significant advantages, including: excellent response rates, comprehensiveness, the ability to link employees with their employers and to follow them over (limited) periods of time, and a tendency to use more standardized measures. These represent substantial advantages relative to other sources of micro-level data.

Building More Effective Labour-Management Relationships combines valuable insights into new approaches to relationship-building and collective bargaining with unique knowledge and concrete lessons garnered from some of the foremost industrial relations practitioners in Canada. Contributors include Warren "Smokey" Thomas (president, OPSEU), Buzz Hargrove (former president, CAW), Warren Edmondson (former ADM Labour, Government of Canada, and chair of the CLRB), George Smith (former VP at CP Rail and CBC/Radio Canada), David Logan, (ADM, Government of Ontario) Glenda Fisk (Queen's University), Richard Chaykowski (Queen's University), Robert Hickey (Queen's University). -- Publisher's description. Contents: Fostering Innovation and Cooperation in Employee Relations in the Ontario Public Service  / Warren "Smokey" Thomas -- An Introduction and Context Advancing Labour-Management Relationships and Cooperation / David Logan -- Systemic Pressures on Ontario Public Sector Industrial Relations / Richard P. Chaykowski, Robert S. Hickey --  Experiences in Collective Bargaining and the Labour-Management Relationship Remaking the Union-Management Relationship between the CBC and Canadian Media Guild: "We used to walk ... Now we talk" / Richard P. Chaykowski --  Reflections on Creating More Effective Labour Relations / George C.B. Smith Dan Oldfield -- Interest-Based, Cooperative Approaches to Negotiations and Labour Relations: What Works and What Does Not / Buzz Hargrove.

The "accommodation gap" refers to the shortfall between those accom- modations which persons with disabilities require in order to work, and those workplace accommodations which they actually receive. This paper argues that the accommodation gap raises important issues for policy-makers in Canada, given the growing participation of older workers in the labour market and the fact that the incidence of disability increases with age. Such issues include the loss of productivity, higher poverty rates, increased cost of social programs, and failure to achieve the goals of human rights legislation. Using the results of an extensive analysis of data obtained from Statistics Canada's 2006 Participation and Activity Limitation Survey, the authors inquire into three questions: (1) Is there a workplace accommodation gap in Canada, and if there is, how big is it and whom does it affect? (2) Is it associated with age or aging, and there- fore likely to be aggravated by the aging of the Canadian population? (3) Are its causes likely to elude complaint-driven enforcement of human rights law because they are systemic? In answering these questions, the studyfinds that a large number of Canadians (about 35%) do not receive accommodations they need to work productively, or at all. Furthermore, the results show that the older the worker and the more severe his or her disability, the greater the accommo- dation gap. The authors suggest that thisfinding supports the view that employ- ers' decisions on whether to provide accommodation are influenced by economic considerations, stereotypes about the link between age and disability, the fact that certain types of accommodation may conflict with workplace culture, and other factors. Finally, the paper contends that the enforcement mechanism cur- rently in place is probably inadequate to deal with the accommodation gap, in view of the systemic nature of many of its causes. The authors set out a number of alternative options which may be more effective in closing the accommodation gap, and propose that those options be considered as part of a comprehensive policy review.