Suchergebnisse

Statutory collective bargaining has been the linchpin of Canadian industrial relations since World War I. It yielded benefits to large segments of workers, although its reach and impact were always exaggerated. As the economic entente which underpinned the scheme is unravelling, workers fight desperately to hang onto a system which, in retrospect, looks even better than it did before. But the narrow, male-centred, economic premises of collective bargaining make statutory collective bargaining reform a poor vehicle with which to offset employer attacks on the working classes. An agenda which seeks to link the economic and the political, men and women, must be developed. This can be done, in part, by exploiting some of the claims (contrast realities) of the existing industrial relations system. But, more is needed; some suggestions are offered.

The proponents of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms are fighting a mighty battle to show that, despite what are disappointing results from their perspective, judicial review can, and will be used to advance the causes of the disadvantaged and democracy. This forces them to make a series of incoherent and implausible arguments to rationalize what, to them, seem to be inconsistent and capricious decisions. Yet, if the Charter is put in its true political economic context, the courts look better. They turn out to be focussed and rational in their attempts to attain the objectives which that context demands. But, those objectives are not the protection of the underclasses or the perfection of democracy. The historical function of the judiciary has been to protect the status quo. The Charter was not meant to alter this. Armed with it, Canadian courts are better equipped than ever to protect the dominant classes.

Order-in-Council PC 1003, which was implemented by Mackenzie King's Liberal government in 1944, signalled the adoption of a Wagner-style collective bargaining scheme as the key element in Canadian labour relations policy. Despite various refinements and amendments to collective bargaining legislation across Canada, PC 1003 has provided the basic statutory framework for labour relations for the past fifty years. In their paper, Fudge and Glasbeek evaluate the legacy of PC 1003. They recognize that it represented a fundamental and positive change in Canadian labour relations policy; the government compelled employers to recognize and to bargain with duly elected representatives and/or trade unions. But they argue that, despite the progress represented by this step, PC 1003 was not intended to alter the balance of power radically, that is, to ensure trade unions better agreements and/or to guarantee strong constraints on managerial prerogatives. By locating PC 1003 in the broader political and economic context of World War II and the immediate post-war reconstruction period, Fudge and Glasbeek identify the inherent structural limitations in the scheme. They chronicle how labour relations board policies regarding bargaining unit determination and certification entrenched a fragmented bargaining structure, reinforced the sex segregation of the labour market and promoted a specific form of responsible trade unionism. The logic of the assumption that collective bargaining was to reflect an atomized, privately organized market system made PC 1003 particularly inapposite to the public sector, they maintain. Fudge and Glasbeek argue that this helps to explain why it has been relatively easy for governments to roll back public sector collective bargaining rights. They also consider why the Canadian labour movement has reacted to increased labour market competition in the 1980s and 1990s by calling for reforms to the PC 1003 model which will enhance union bargaining rights, rather than endorsing a wholesale revision of the legislative framework. They suggest that unions have tended to identify their success both in increasing their membership and in bargaining improved terms and conditions of employment from 1944 to the mid-1970s with the legislative framework. This ignores the extent to which favourable economic conditions (protective trade barriers and managed competition) were a pre-condition for effective trade union organization and collective bargaining. Fudge and Glasbeek conclude that recent changes in the Canadian labour market, which include the proliferation of small firms, the expansion of precarious employment and increased competition, draw attention to the fundamental problem with the union movement's strategy of maintaining or upgrading the PC 1003 model.

Based on a two-year project launched by the Journal. Its goal was to engage students, faculty, and all members of the wider Osgoode and professional communities in an ongoing discussion about the nature and limits of law, seen through the lens of civil disobedient conduct in a legal polity that had developed mature democratic and civil liberty enhancing institutions. To this end, a variety of panels, seminars, and lectures were organized, beginning in the Fall of 2001. They were interpellated into the law school's curriculum. A culminating event was a conference in the Fall of 2002, to which a select number of scholars, professionals, and activists were invited. The contributions in this collection were generated from this project's activities.

Les contributions à cette collection proviennent des activités d'un projet de deux ans. Son but consistait à inviter les étudiants, la faculté, tous les membres de la communauté d'Osgoode et de la communauté juridique dans leur ensemble, à s'associer à un débat permanent sur la nature et les limites du droit, vues à travers le prisme de la conduite de désobéissance civile dans une politie juridique qui avait de longue date développé des institutions démocratiques et propagé les libertés civiques. À cette fin, divers panels, séminaires et conférences ont été organisés dès l'automne 2001. Ils sont évoqués dans le curriculum de la faculté de droit. L'événement culminant fut une conférence à l'automne 2002, à laquelle un certain nombre d'érudits, d'hommes de loi et de militants ont été conviés.

The paper will proceed as follows. It tells the Westray story in two parts, first, the decision to set up the mine and, second, the operation of the mine. These events illuminate the salience of the broader political economic context to an understanding of what happened. Further, the story gives the lie to the assumptions which underpin health and safety regulation. Next, the paper details the implications of the political economy and the prevailing ideology for the enforcement of health and safety regulation. The paper then critically examines a component of, or prop for, the consensus theory which postulates that workers and capitalists share, in some roughly comparable way, the risks of production. In part this is done by examining the proposition that the corporate form is a neutral, facilitating device.

"For nearly fifty years, Professor Harry Glasbeek has been at the forefront of legal scholars and public intellectuals challenging assumptions and understandings about the injustices embedded in the economic, social, political and legal orders of Western capitalist democracies. His writings and teachings have influenced generations of law students, academics and activists."--

Moderated by Elaine Coburn, Harry Glasbeek, Meg Holden, Charles Mills and Frank Cunningham presented a symposium on Frank's book Ideas in Context May 29, 2021 for the Society of Socialist Studies. Now shared here in written form, the symposium includes what may have been the last contribution of Charles Mills, a friend of half of a century to Frank, known for his generosity of spirit and his trenchant theorizing of racial justice (Mills 1997).

Moderated by Elaine Coburn, Harry Glasbeek, Meg Holden, Charles Mills and Frank Cunningham presented a symposium on Frank's bookIdeas in Context May 29, 2021 for the Society of Socialist Studies. Now shared here in written form, the symposium includes what may have been the last contribution of Charles Mills, a friend of half of a century to Frank, known for his generosity of spirit and his trenchant theorizing of racial justice (Mills 1997).

Featuring essays on poverty, health care, incarceration, basic income, policing, Indigenous communities, and more, this anthology delivers a stinging rebuke of the pre-pandemic status quo and a stark exposé of the buried weaknesses in our social and political systems.