Canadian Collective Bargaining and Dispute Settlement Policy: An Appraisal

Abstract

Canadian experience in governmental compulsion in labour relations has now extended over a period of half a century. The degree of compulsion has fluctuated in relation to changing circumstances. Periods of crisis have usually called forth intensified and extended government interference and restraint on one or both of the parties to the dispute. The termination or decline of tension has not, however, resulted necessarily in a reversion to the status quo ante. Indeed there has been a tendency for legislatures to attempt to profit by experience and redraft the law so as to avoid, if possible, the repetition of similar unhappy episodes of destructive or disruptive conflict. This has been an additive process and has produced a body of law governing the behaviour of labour and management which can quite properly be described as a Canadian labour relations code. Parallel with the development of law there has been a construction and elaboration of institutions of labour, industry, and government which function in the field of labour relations. The Canadian pattern, while exhibiting similarities with those found in other industrial countries, has certain important features which render it somewhat different. These special features have had a pervading effect on the character of the industrial relationship, and have drastically influenced collective bargaining as a dynamic process. There is evidence that the imposition of the labour relations code has failed in some degree to produce the expected results, even to the extent of defeating the achievement of the objectives it was developed to accomplish.

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