Canadian Industrial Relations: An Introductory Overview
| Pages | 3-6 |
| Published date | 01 February 1990 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425459010138791 |
| Date | 01 February 1990 |
| Author | Paul Blyton,John Goodman |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
CANADIAN INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS: AN INTRODUCTORY OVERVIEW 3
A
n outline of the main social, political and
economic dimensions in which the Canadian
industrial relations system operates.
Canadian
Industrial
Relations:
An
Introductory
Overview
Paul Blyton and John Goodman
In the comparative study of industrial relations, developments
in Canada have claimed far less attention than those taking
place in the nearby United States. One reason for this has
been an apparently widespread assumption that Canadian
industrial relations broadly mirror those of the US. It is
indeed true that the US Wagner Act was one of the original
models for industrial relations legislation in Canada; also that
US-based "international" unions for a long period dominated
the Canadian trade union movement. Yet in many important
respects, contemporary industrial relations in Canada are
substantially different from those prevailing in the US. The
present collection of articles identifies not only the
distinctiveness of Canadian industrial relations, but also the
potential value of comparing and contrasting developments
there with those occurring in the UK. It is through such
comparisons that greater insight can be gained into the
causes and consequences of particular industrial relations
developments, and more generally into the extent to which
particular trends are widespread or localised. The purpose
of this introduction is to outline some of the main social,
political and economic dimensions in which the Canadian
industrial relations system is located, and summarise briefly
some of the main aspects of that system.
The Canadian Context
Canada has a population of 25.6 million (1986 figures) who
live in a country of 3.85 million square miles (the UK in
contrast has a population of 56.5 million living in an area
of 94,000 square miles
—
one-fortieth the size of Canada).
Much of Canada is very sparsely populated: 85 per cent
of
its
population and most of
its
economic activity are located
within a hundred mile belt that skirts the US border.
Politics
Canada is a federation of ten self-governing provinces, which
enjoy a high degree of autonomy. While the federal
government assumes authority over issues of national
interest, provincial governments have wide-ranging powers
over
local
affairs including education and health (as we discuss
below, much of the industrial relations legislation is provincial
rather than national-based). Like the UK, Canada has been
governed in recent years by a Conservative government,
first elected in 1984 after two decades of
Liberal
rule.
Under
Prime Minister Mulroney, the Government in Canada has
also been pursuing policies of deregulating key sectors of
the economy (for example, oil prices), coupling this with
a reduction
in
the growth of
public
sector
spending.
Mulroney
has also been a staunch advocate of the Free Trade
Agreement recently drawn up with the United States, which
is Canada's principal external market (three-quarters of
Canada's exports go to the US).
The
Economy
Canada's economy is geared predominantly to natural
resource exploitation on the one hand, and service sector
activities, on the other. Though important, the manufacturing
sector in Canada has never represented the country's
economic backbone, unlike many other industrialised
countries such as the US, Japan, Germany and the UK.
The factory production which does take place employs
around one-fifth of the Canadian workforce, and is based
primarily in Southern Ontario and Southern Quebec. The
service sector industries (which accounted for 68 per cent
of Canada's Gross Domestic Product in 1985) are also
concentrated in these regions.
The Labour force
Though only half the size of the UK labour force, there
are nevertheless a number of similarities between the two
countries. Levels of participation in the labour market (i.e.
the proportion of the population of working age who are
in or seeking employment) are virtually identical in the
two
countries[1].
The proportion of women in the Canadian
labour force has markedly increased in the past two
decades, and the female participation rate is now Slightly
higher than in the UK (63.5 per cent in 1986 compared
to 61.1 per cent in the UK for that year). Overall,
The Editors would like to thank their colleagues in the Canadian Business
and Economic Studies Group and the Canadian High Commission for
their encouragement to hold the seminars which have formed the basis
of the present collection.
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