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Compelling evidence exists that centralized bargaining structures, including broader-based and sectoral bargaining (bbb), offer significant benefits to workers. Examining the role of bbb in major Canadian labour law reform initiatives between the late 1980s and 2019, this article explores why the labour movement, despite the potential advantages of bbb, has not collectively pursued bbb reforms. It concludes with an analysis of the failure to incorporate bbb proposals into labour legislation and an assessment of the key challenges to adopting significant bbb reforms in the future. Earlier research concluded that bbb proposals in the 1990s failed because of employer opposition and lack of understanding, including by labour. This study departs from earlier conclusions to find that neither of these factors has been prominent regarding bbb in recent decades. Instead, lack of support for bbb arises from some unions’ concerns about preserving existing representation rights, resistance to the prospect of mandatory councils of unions, and anticipation of jurisdictional conflicts. Lack of support for bbb from some peak labour organizations arises from a consensus approach to deciding which labour law reform issues to promote. An additional challenge to its adoption is the politicized nature of labour law reform, and the political cost of innovative and untried proposals deter governments from adopting bbb.
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During the pandemic employees in the US have engaged in a wave of strikes, protests, and other collective action over concerns about unsafe working conditions, and many of these involved non-unionized workers in the private sector. Similar employee protests were notably absent in Canada. This article examines the differences in labour legislation between the US and Canada, which may help to explain these diverging experiences, primarily: the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) section 7 protection for concerted activity, and the NLRA section 502 ability for a good faith strike due to abnormally dangerous conditions for work. This article outlines and compares the situation of, and consequences for, three categories of workers engaging in a strike over fears of workplace safety: unionized employees, non-unionized employees, and non-employees, such as independent contractors under the NLRA compared to under the Ontario Labour Relations Act (OLRA), as generally representative of Canadian labour legislation. In the final section, this article considers how a statutory provision similar to the NLRA protected concerted activity provision might be incorporated into Canadian labour legislation such as the OLRA. It also considers some more fundamental questions that such changes might prompt policymakers to reconsider, including: the focus of our statutory system on “organizing” collective action to the exclusion of “mobilizing” collective action, and questions about the potential role of minority unionism in our labour legislation system.
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- Journal Article (2)
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Between 2000 and 2024
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Between 2020 and 2024
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