Full bibliography

The title of CIRA's 50th anniversary conference -- From Theory and Research to Policy and Practice in Work and Employment -- has a nostalgic ring to it. You will recall, perhaps, that large numbers of people, who used to be known as "workers", were "employed" in something called "industry". Significant numbers of these workers joined organizations called "unions" that established collective "relations" with employers. Implausible as it now seems, governments were once so concerned about "industrial relations" (IR) that they sponsored a great deal of IR research and even conducted their own. The Task Force on Labour Relations, appointed in 1966, enlisted virtually every industrial relations and labour law scholar in the country; compiled shelves-full of ambitious studies; and made scores of recommendations, a surprising number of which ended up being adopted by one or another Canadian jurisdiction. --From author's keynote address