An Overview of Canadian Labour Law
| Date | 01 February 1990 |
| Pages | 7-11 |
| Published date | 01 February 1990 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425459010003547 |
| Author | Kenneth Miller |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
AN OVERVIEW OF CANADIAN LABOUR LAW 7
A
n examination off the basic features of
Canada's labour laws.
An Overview
of Canadian
Labour Law
Kenneth Miller
Introduction
Before considering the present shape and form of
Canadian labour
law
a number of preliminary points have
to be made. First, Canada does not possess one single
set of rules and regulations which encapsulate the law on
labour
relations.
As Canada is a federal country there are
no less than eleven sets of labour law codes
—
one for
the Federal Government and
a
separate code for each of
the ten provinces. Moreover, unlike the United States
which also has a federal system of government but where
the central focus of labour law has been at federal level,
in Canada the majority of
workers
have their labour rights
regulated by the appropriate provincial
legislation[1].
This
feature means that there is no uniform system of Canadian
labour
law.
Further, although the core provisions of these
different laws tend to be similar there is still a degree of
diversity between the various labour codes. This makes
it difficult to provide a comprehensive picture of the
Canadian scene
[2].
Second, although like other former British territories,
Canada inherited the rules of the English common law
and
also,
at least initially, enacted legislation similar
to
that
of the British Parliament, the present picture as far as
labour law is concerned is totally different. English
common law principles still regulate some aspects of
Canadian labour
law,
such as the law of industrial conflict,
and there are still occasional Canadian provisions based
on British statutes
—
for example, the provisions of the
Canadian Criminal Code which make watching or besetting
an offence along similar lines to that of s.7 of the British
Conspiracy and Protection Act 1875. However, the vast
majority of Canadian labour legislation
has
little in common
with the British system. Rather, its nearest equivalent is
that of
the
United States. However, it must be recognised
that the Canadian system is not simply a pale imitation
of its near neighbour. As we shall see, Canada's labour
laws possess a number of unique and original features
which distinguish them from the US's National Labor
Relations Act.
Origins
It is worth exploring the origins of Canadian labour law
in a little more detail in order to help explain the
fundamentals of the system. As noted above, at one time
Canada possessed legislation similar to that enacted in
Great Britain. A good example of this in the labour field
was the federal Conciliation
Act
of
1900,
which was almost
a complete copy of the British Conciliation Act of 1896.
Whereas the British statute's emphasis on voluntary
conciliation set the tone for third party intervention
procedures which
still
operate
today,
the Canadian statute
was flawed because workers at that time lacked the
necessary bargaining power to make the system work
effectively. The pressing need for Canada was to create
a system which required an employer
by law
to recognise
and to bargain with trade unions. As Carrothers[3]
remarked, the experience of the two Conciliation Acts
"marks a divergence of the courses of action in the two
countries, one away from legalism in industrial relations,
the other towards a tightly operated statutory scheme".
The first signs of a more legalistic approach to labour
relations can be discerned in the federal parliament's ill-
fated Industrial Disputes Investigation Act 1907 which
provided for compulsory investigation and postponement
of the right to strike or to lock out during an industrial
dispute. However, although the postponement of the right
to strike remains a feature, the statute did nothing to
resolve the most pressing problem for Canadian labour
law
—
how to encourage the development and extension
of collective bargaining[4]. It was not until the period of
the Second World War that the present Canadian system
really started
to
take shape when the Federal Government,
in an attempt to make the wartime economy work more
effectively, issued
a
series of Orders-in-Council culminating
in the famous PC 1003 of 1944. This Order sought to
establish freedom of union organisation without employer
interference; freedom to bargain collectively and for unions
to acquire exclusive bargaining
rights;
and for the resolution
of conflicts during the course of the collective agreement
without resort to industrial action. These ideals, which
were also enacted
in
post-war
provincial
legislation, remain
the central planks of Canadian labour law.
Canadian Labour Law Defined
Canadian labour law has been defined as the system of
rules governing collective relations amongst management,
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