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This paper analyzes the effect of the particular stage of wage settlement on the negotiated wage increase, using micro data on Canadian labor contracts between 1966 and 1975. The sample data base was divided into direct first-stage bargaining, mediation-conciliation, and work stoppage/arbitration, and structural wage equations were estimated for each set of data. The results indicate that as negotiations move from direct bargaining to work stoppage, labor market conditions, measured by a vacancy rate, become less important as an explanatory variable and price catch-up becomes more important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the outset of the Thatcher/Reagan era, the employment and labor law systems across six Anglo- American countries could be divided into three pairings: the Wagner Act model of the United States and Canada; the Voluntarist system of collective bargaining and strong unions in the United Kingdom and Ireland; and the highly centralized, legalistic Award systems of Australia and New Zealand. The authors argue that there has been growing convergence in two major areas: First, of labor law toward a private ordering of employment relations in which terms and conditions of work and employment are primarily determined at the level of the enterprise; and second, of individual employment rights, toward a basket of minimum standards that can then be improved upon by the parties. The greatest similarity is found in Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. Ireland retains a greater degree of public ordering, while the United States diverges in favoring the interests of employers over those of employees and organized labor. The authors explore reasons for the convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Models a union and firm choosing between long labor contracts, in which wages are predetermined, and short contracts, in which wages are flexible. Union's and firm's preferences for short and long contracts, respectively; Model predicting that workers are prepared to enter long contracts if they are compensated with a higher real wage; Testing of the prediction using a sample of Canadian collective agreements.

Discusses the effect of labor contracts to a firm's cost function in Canada. Precommitment device to gain a strategic advantage against other firms; Impact of firms competing in prices; Impact o firms competing in quantities.

Examines the view that wage rigidity in long-term labor contracts matters for the behavior of employment. Search for systematic employment patterns in the first year of long-term contracts; Evidence that in many industries employment over-adjusts to shocks that occur during the contract; Examination of wage dynamics.

This paper reports an analysis of the effect of changes in legislated minimum wages on negotiated wage increases, using micro data on Canadian labor contracts between 1966 and 1975. The analysis departs from previous studies in that it divides the sample data base into high- and low-wage sectors. The results indicate that union negotiated wage settlements reflect at least partially legislated minimum wage changes over the past contract period. However, this minimum wage effect is restricted to the low-wage sector. In addition, the sectoral results suggest that the relative wage structure should tend to narrow in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC) by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. The NAALC is aimed at improving working conditions and living standards, encourage cooperation, and promote compliance with each labor laws of each state for the mutual benefit of all parties. It is noted that the agreement was designed to promote labor principles.

This paper argues that the deepening and widening of existing worker rights in work environment issues is a necessary condition to promote much needed reform in present day industry, and to reduce the frequency and severity rate of accidents and incidence of industrial disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Incomes policies invariably arouse considerable opposition. It is claimed that they are costly to administer, that, by tinkering with relative prices, they riddle the economy with inefficiencies and that they politicise economic life. It is also argued that where controls do have an impact on wage rates and prices, a point which is by no means universally conceded, agents are driven to (costly) behaviour designed to neutralise effective wage and price ceilings, e.g. wage drift and quality changes. In this paper, the impact of Canada's recent programme of wage controls on wage contract duration was examined. A number of recent papers have suggested that, in addition to contracting costs, inflation uncertainty is an important determinant of contract lengths in the labour market. Using a very large number of individual agreements, it was found that controls are associated with a statistically significant decline in the duration of wage contracts signed in both the private and public sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract--The emerging literature on the determinants of wage change in contracts containing cost-of-living adjustments is reviewed. Models currently in use are shown to belong to the same class. Strong arguments can be adduced in support of an alternative class of models. It is shown that both classes are nested within a more general framework which contains the models of wage adjustment used to analyse COLA and non COLA contracts in both Canada and the United States Empirical evidence, drawn from a sample of Canadian wage agreements, favours the new class of models. Canadian and U.S. results arc compared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents news concerning law as of April 1982. Impact of Canadian antitrust laws on corporate mergers between Canadian and United States corporations; Elements needed to exercise claims against an intentional interference with a labor contract.

This article critically examines the Supreme Court of Canada's treatment of the contract of employment in its wrongful dismissal jurisprudence over the last 25 years, with the aim of challenging the view that only by exempting the contract of employment from the ordinary workings of contract doctrine or by resorting to public policy considerations can the common law of dismissal provide adequate protection for employees. The Court's jurisprudence reveals a commitment to what this paper calls the presumption of employer freedom, a view of the contract of employment which has its origins in the status-based master and servant relationship and which continues to permeate the common law of wrongful dismissal. This paper offers a more straightforwardly contract-based account of these same entitlements, grounding them not in policy but instead in the work-for-wages exchange at the core of the contract of employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a survey of Canadian city managers during the period 2002 -2003 modeled on the U.S. International Cities and Counties Management Association surveys, the authors examine a range of union responses to proposals to privatize city services. When confronted with possible member losses, unions adopted a number of strategies: a) they reacted not at all or they supported the proposal; b) they engaged in collective action; c) they attempted arbitration and litigation; d) they negotiated to reduce adverse effects; or e) they suggested alternatives to privatization. Though unionized cities attracted a greater number of new privatization proposals, unions effectively rejected them, the most successful strategy being to suggest alternatives. Conversely,initiating strikes and other industrial actions were not as effective. Cities in which multiple strategies were adopted had lower long-term privatization rates. These results support a pragmatic view of union-management relations illustrating how unions and city managers found mutually acceptable alternatives to privatization or adjustment policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some critics of proposed legislative labor policy changes contend that laws favoring labor would adversely affect business investment. Research on labor policy, however, often assumes that investment is fixed. The authors present a sequential bargaining model in which labor policies that increase labor's bargaining power and reduce management's options during strikes are predicted to reduce investment. The results of an analysis of provincial data on investment for 1967 to 1999 indicate that strike replacement bans and protections for workers who refuse to handle struck work did indeed reduce new investment, especially within the first few years after the policy change. Particularly sensitive was building construction investment, which declined by about as much when a labor policy benefiting labor was enacted as it would be expected to decline in a recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If, as has been widely suggested, internal labor markets are declining and a new employment contract with reduced employer-employee commitment is emerging, the criteria by which employees judge layoffs as fair or unfair may be changing. This paper presents findings relevant to that question, based on quasi-experimental surveys in Canada and the United States. Respondents rated layoffs stemming from reduced product demand as more fair than those resulting from employee suggestions. Behind this judgment, apparently, was the normative premise that companies should not punish employees for their efforts; rent-sharing norms appear to have played little or no role, as respondents deemed new technology an acceptable reason for layoffs. Consistent with theories of distributive and procedural equity, layoffs were perceived as more fair if the CEO voluntarily 'shared the pain.' Respondents in Silicon Valley were not more accepting of layoffs than were those in Canada, on average. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers how Philippine migrants prepare themselves and are prepared by others for emigration to Canada. In particular, it emphasizes how class-differentiated migrants are rendered socially homogenous as they are encouraged to be “grateful” transnational citizen subjects throughout their migration trajectories, commencing with initial decisions to migrate. Preparations for migration include individual decisions to increase marketability by acquiring particular kinds of skill sets matched to one of a variety of immigration streams. Despite such individual projects, the inequalities associated with gendered and racialized characteristics of Philippine migration trajectories and class dynamics are enduring for many migrants, though not all. Historical structural processes shaping the contours of global migration in the example of Philippine–Canada migration are compounded by the contradictory practices and outcomes associated with various preparations for migration. Current reforms to Canada’s immigration system to a “just-in-time” model promise to cause major disruptions to long-held migrant plans. Meanwhile, migrants are preconditioned to accept uncritically the multiple forms of subordination encouraged through the policies of multiple states and to accommodate themselves to new immigrant/citizen social identities which are devalued in a multiplicity of ways. This paper shows how, through the collusion of agents that migrants encounter in multiple sites, the disciplining of mobile citizens becomes more formalized and the contradictions between migrant ambition and neoliberal imperatives more visible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attendance in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League was studied for the 2009 to 2010 season. This junior league, part of the Canadian Hockey League system, serves as a development league for teenage players who attempt to parlay their participation in this league into a professional career. Fan demand for this level of hockey is found to be sensitive to the success of the home team and to exhibit normal consumer responses to weekday and monthly effects with weekends being more popular and attendance increasing throughout the season toward the playoffs. On-ice factors such as scoring, a proxy for excitement, and fighting are not shown to have a significant effect on attendance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I consider the ways Indo-Caribbean Christian Canadians remember and tell stories about their own and their family's religious histories. Most participants in this study had Hindu ancestors who converted to Christianity during or after the Caribbean experience of indentured labor. Most of the stories I heard identified Africans as the source of the problems that once and still beset the homelands of the families I encountered. Moreover, many of the people I interviewed told generally positive stories about the period during which they or their relatives were objects of British imperial power and the Christian missionary project so closely associated with British geo-political expansion. I suggest that the narrative patterns I heard regarding both Africans and the British must be understood against the backdrop of the interpenetration of race and religion among the Indians I interviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The fact that incumbents generate and spend more campaign funds than challengers raises the question of why incumbents set campaign spending limits. The Canadian federal elections between 1979 and 2000 are used to evaluate three theoretically plausible explanations: to limit costly effort; to reduce the probability that well-funded candidates buy-off elections; to maximize the incumbent’s vote-share. It is estimated that the marginal benefit of low levels of campaign spending are greater for majority candidates than challengers, but that diminishing returns set in more quickly, indicating that a well-chosen limit could maximize the majority candidate’s vote-share. The actual and estimated optimal majority vote maximizing campaign spending limits compare favorably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discussion about the educational practices of politically active secondary teachers regarding citizenship in Porto Alegre, Brazil and in Toronto, Canada. It aims to explore the complex ways and multiple spaces in which these teachers' roles as both citizens and citizenship educators encountered within the local contexts. It focuses on the tradition of comparative education that emphasizes the role of culture in developing education, which has typically centered on the origins of educational systems.

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Presents a study which examined trends in apprentice contracting in Montreal between 1791 and 1842 to pinpoint the years in which the decline of apprenticeship began. Details on craft-apprentice contracts; Changes in the stock of apprentice contracts; Hypotheses on the decline of apprentice contracts.

This article addresses implications of political executives losing control over the implementation of their policy following managerial reforms in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Great Britain, Austria, and Malta between 1980 and 1996. Borrowing from the world of private-sector management, the vocabulary of the new public management has so far shown a remarkable degree of consensus among the political leadership and opinion makers of various countries about the desired nature of change. The striking outcome of this process is that the senior servants who are removed from policy making and thus supposed to be less political, find their positions becoming more insecure due to the political executives' desire for more control. The contradiction between reduced policy making of senior servants and enhanced policy control over them raises two hypotheses. First, the more authority and discretion public managers are given to manage programs, the less secure political executives want them to be. Second, making senior civil servants less secure is most likely to have the following systemic influence on the public administration.

The article explores evidence for the alleged crisis of Canada's loss of competitiveness by studying trade performance and the total factor productivity criteria. The particular way in, which the term competitiveness is defined and measured, would affect the result of any study on whether or not a country is competitive. Most often competitiveness and a change in competitiveness, is associated with trade performance for if a country loses export share or gets increased import penetration, it is said to have become less competitive. But this is a rationalization rather than an independent judgment of what caused such a situation. Earlier studies on the topic have tended to use the term in ways that relate closely to productivity, trade performance and real income growth over time. A sociologist prefers to use the term in a way that is associated with an industry's productivity relative to that of other major trading countries has pointed out how the term competitiveness changes if it is equated with trade performance.

In longshoring, technological change, expanding competition among ports, and the development of lower cost work forces induced a major restructuring of dock operations. This paper focuses on collective bargaining responses to environmental change and the interplay between those responses, government intervention, the law, and market forces. Four coastal regions in the United States and Canada are studied to gain a broad perspective in two jurisdictions with somewhat differing approaches to government intervention and labor law. Market pressures have become a dominant force, altering the need for and nature of government intervention, and accommodation to change seems most appropriate in today's highly competitive marketplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines Canadian firms' voluntary disclosure of defined benefit pension plan (DBPP) information to test disclosure hypotheses. Disclosure hypotheses development; Canadian pension disclosures; Hypotheses on proprietary costs and information costs savings; News hypothesis of the proprietary cost theory.

This paper estimates a model of the labor force behavior of elderly males in Canada, paying explicit attention to the influence of health. The authors construct a health index using data from the Canada Health Survey. We estimate an earnings equation for full-year, full-time participants to obtain the potential earnings of each individual. We then examine four labor force states, using a hierarchical elimination-by-aspects (HEBA) model. Our results suggest that health is as important as potential earnings in determining the labor force behavior of men in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]