LABOUR RELATIONS LAW AND POLICY IN ONTARIO

SUMMARY Collective bargaining in Canada faces a period of rapid change because of the unusual rate of economic growth, technological change, industrial locational shifts, and evolving occupational patterns. This dynamic process requires that the institutional relationship of unions and employers shall be maintained on as fluid a basis as possible. Public law in Ontario has been based on a differentiation of industrial dispute areas. Special provision has been made to resolve the problems of jurisdiction, recognition, negotiation and application. In each of these probably there are reasons for legal amendment and procedural change, but this article has been confined to negotiation issues only. The provisions for state intervention in negotiation disputes are believed to require considerable alteration. The proposals presented in this submission have certain objectives. These might be listed as follows: 1 To remove the deterrents to effective collective bargaining by narrowing the range of application of compulsory conciliation. 2 To increase the effectiveness of the conciliation officer by eliminating conciliation boards except in special circumstances. 3 To enhance the prestige of conciliation boards by reducing their application to situations (a) of consent where both parties request them, or (b) of vital public concern where the civil authorities decide that such boards are needed in the public interest. 4 To extricate the conciliation process as far as possible from the tactics of collective bargaining, in which it has become enmeshed by the continued influence of compulsory conciliation and compulsory delays on direct economic action, as well as by the existence of two stages in the compulsion. 5 To re-impose responsibility in collective bargaining on the parties to disputes by removing compulsory scapegoats.14 6 To create an environment which will encourage the parties out of sheer necessity to experiment with private arrangements for negotiating. 7 To recognize more clearly that the public interest in some cases is sufficiently great to justify special procedures; that the degree of public interest covers a wide range justifying compulsory conciliation in some cases and compulsory arbitration in others; that the responsibility for deciding rests with public authority.