Search

I t concluded that the language of the franchise agreement was not determinative of the reality of the relationship between Mr Bourque and Modern, and that despite the language in the franchise agreement, Mr Bourque was in fact an "employee" as defined by the Act, not an independent contractor. Once Mr Bourque terminated his relationship with Modern, it was Modern, not Mr Bourque, who reassigned the contracts which Mr Bourque had paid to obtain. Similarly, the renewal of the franchise agreement between Mr Bourque and Modern was contingent on Mr Bourque's compliance with the obligations to the Bank as set out in the cleaning services contract. Modern paid Mr Bourque through direct deposit, after deducting amounts for franchising fees, the loans and the products sold by Modern to Mr Bourque. [Extracted from the article]

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]

This article concerns a case study in labor history which represents an interesting example of union action in a workers' community characterized by intersections between ethnic and class belonging. The focus of the article is on labor conflicts in Toronto's construction industry between 1968 and 1973. In that period, the Torontonian residential sector represented a sort of ethnic niche dominated by Italian immigrants, who populated this industry both as workers and as contractors. At the same time, important economic, technological, and organizational innovations formed part of this niche. In particular, it refers to the new Toronto real estate boom and to the introduction of new building techniques such as the drywall technique, or concrete forming, as well as business innovations such as the flying form or the creation of teamwork. This article tells the story of successful unionization in a peculiar industry dominated by continuous formal and informal bargaining. Moreover, the powerful presence of the phenomenon of mafiosi and widespread racism made the context still more difficult. In this situation, despite the ambiguities, the final result was the unionization of thousands of workers and the successful signing of collective contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This paper uses a benefit index based on collective agreements in each Canadian province to understand the effects employee contracts have on absenteeism of full-time nurses. In particular, I estimate the impact of this benefit index on the number of hours nurses take off in a reference week. Month and year dummy variables, as well as nurses' individual and work-related characteristics, are included in both ordinary least squares and two-part model regressions. My main finding implies full-time nurses in the most generous collective agreement show a nineteen percent increase in the number of hours taken off work in comparison to the least generous collective agreement. This study illustrates how the generosity of benefits in collective agreements varies the rate of absenteeism and highlights that employees and employers still have gains to be made from readjusting employee contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Commonwealth Bank of Australia v. Barker the High Court of Australia refused to impose an implied duty of mutual trust and confidence into the employment contract, reasoning that doing so would take the Court beyond its legitimate authority. Issued two months later, the Supreme Court of Canada went in a different direction. In Bhasin v. Hrynew, the Court crafted a new substantive doctrine of honest contractual performance, based on a newly-recognized central organizing principle of good faith in contract law. A few months later the Court applied the organizing principle of good faith to circumscribe the exercise of an employer's discretion in Potter v. New Brunswick Legal Aid Services Commission. This article offers an assessment of the potential impact of Bhasin and Potter on the future direction of Canadian employment law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates first contract arbitration's ( FCA) capacity to foster bargaining relationships and deter misconduct by analyzing its effect on decertifications. Using time-series cross-sectional ( TSCS) analysis with data from nine Canadian provinces over a four-decade period, it shows: (1) FCA correlates with 20 to 37 percent fewer decertifications in provinces that have an FCA provision relative to those that do not; (2) of the various types of FCA, the automatic and fault forms have the most robust effect on decertifications while the mediation-arbitration form may have the largest effect on decertifications; and (3) the effect of FCA is heightened in the presence of card-check certification such that the best results for fostering bargaining relationships may be found in the presence of both policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Canadian employers have a common law obligation to give reasonable notice when terminating an employment relationship without cause. In determining the appropriate length of the notice period, trial judges hearing wrongful dismissal claims must consider a range of factors, including what are known as the Bardal factors. In this paper, the author presents and analyzes the results of his empirical study of appeal court decisions reviewing trial court awards of reasonable notice across Canada from 2000 to 2011, and examines the impact of the Bardal factors (as well as several others) on outcomes at the appellate level. The study finds that appeal courts have not treated all of the Bardal factors equally, but appear to have given the most weight to the employee's age and length of tenure. Other factors found to have significant predictive value on the length of reasonable notice awards were the employee's gender and whether a successful claim for Wallace damages was made. The data also indicate that employee appeals have succeeded relatively more often than employer appeals, and that the length of notice ordered by appellate courts seems to have plateaued over time. In light of his conclusion that only a narrow range of considerations significantly affect notice awards, the author argues that the current system of judicial assessment of reasonable notice could well be replaced by a less expensive and time-consuming statutory scheme that would incorporate a formula for applying the relevant factors and would be administered by employment standards tribunals rather than by the courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper emerges from a narrative inquiry focused on academics' perceptions of marginalization and belonging in Canadian universities. Through multiple conversational interviews over a 4-year period, the 15 participants described the ways they came to learn that the academy is not the benevolent place they had at one time imagined. Participants once believed their employment contracts were reciprocal agreements of loyalty with their institutions. We heard echoes of Paul Simon's song, 'There Must be Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover' as the participants shared stories of their efforts to disengage from their contractual agreements when they no longer felt desired or appreciated by their institutions. Their stories reflect a gradual recognition that academic troth is premised on the ruling relations of the academy and that self-preservation sometimes demands disengagement. We emphasize the ways that disengagement leads to both personal and communal loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canadian employees working under indefinite-term employment contracts are presumptively entitled to "reasonable notice" of dismissal. Employees dismissed without just cause or reasonable notice can sue for "severance pay in lieu of reasonable notice." The damages payable (which can range up to 24 months' wages) reflect the compensation the employee would have earned during the reasonable notice period. Although there is no statutory or common law formula for determining reasonable notice, various factors, such as the employee's position, tenure, and age, and extant labour market conditions, are relevant considerations. The present study addresses the issue of whether women face gender-based discrimination (or gain any advantage) in the determination of their reasonable notice entitlement. This study examines the impact of gender on negotiated outcomes in wrongful dismissal claims, and the results indicate that women suffer a marked disadvantage in negotiated severance pay settlements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Foreign Policy Journal (CFPJ) is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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 article examines the legacy of the 1909 House of Lords decision in Addis in both Canada and the UK by closely analysing a key case from each jurisdiction: Wallace v United Grain Growers and Johnson v Unisys. It underlines the continuing strong tendency to treat wrongful dismissal solely as breach of the notice term and considers the remedial consequences of that stance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use data from indexed and nonindexed Canadian wage agreements to study the intracontract profile of nominal and real wages. Allowing for endogenous switching between the two indexation categories, we conclude that the number of nominal wage revisions depends on contract duration, expected inflation, and the cost of adjusting wages. Our results have implications for the menu cost, overlapping contracts, dynamic monopoly union, and efficient bargain literatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I present a model in which I show that labor contracts with wages indexed to prices have longer optimal contract lengths and therefore are more likely to adopt performance-related pay. There is empirical support for these predictions in Canadian collective-bargaining agreements. Contract durations are longer in indexed contracts. Performance-related pay is more than twice as likely to be adopted and present in indexed contracts and more likely to be adopted in contracts with longer durations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Union density in Canada is approximately twice that in the United States. The range of densities from high to low states/provinces is much smaller, however: 2:1 in Canada vs. 6:1 in the U.S. After adjusting for differences in industry distribution of employment, this study finds that the major source of interstate and interprovincial differences is private sector density. Most of the low union density states have right-to-work laws, while the greater the comprehensiveness of state bargaining taws, the higher the public sector density. In Canada, where all public and private sector employees have the right to bargain, there is a higher average level of public and private sector densities and a smaller range for both. The more supportive labor legislation in Canada may be associated with the existence of labor-oriented political parties at the provincial level. [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]

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.

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]

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]

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.

The article reports on the possibility that general strike would be launched by medical residents in Quebec, following differences in working hours and pay contracts. Other issues raised by medical residents include a demand of government for more shifts and longer hours at night, a 17 percentage increase in wages, and maternity and educational leaves. The statement of Health Minister Gaetan Barrette about these issues are offered.