This article examines the development of employer liability for workplace injuries in Ontario, Canada, between 1861 and 1900. In the earliest cases, the judiciary slavishly followed English common law precedent, which effectively prevented injured workers from successfully suing their employers....

The decline of American unionism is now a well-documented phenomenon. Its causes and consequences, however, remain the subject of intense debate. Regardless of one’s view of this development, it clearly poses a challenge to the traditional techniques for the legal regulation of the employment...

This paper is a comparative study of worker participation in occupational health and safety regulation in Sweden and Ontario,k Canada, based on research conducted in the late-1980s when worker militancy on the issue was strong in both jurisdictions. It examines differences in the extent of legal...

The central point of this article, written in 1995, was that health and safety struggles can be at the vanguard of challenges to a legal social order that tolerates poor labour standards and high levels of worker exploitation. Workers who fear their work is making them sick or subjecting them to...

The distinction between employees and independent contractors is crucial in determining the scope of application of labour and employment legislation in Canada, since the self-employed are, for the most part, treated as entrepreneurs who do not require the statutory protections accorded to...

Despite the comprehensiveness of neo-liberal restructuring in Canada, it has not proceeded uniformly in its timing or outcomes across regulatory fields and political jurisdictions. The example of occupational health and safety (OHS) regulation is instructive. This article compares recent OHS...

Although the current generation of Canadian labour historians has extensively researched and written about the period of the first industrial revolution (roughly 1850-1900), they have, on the whole, paid relatively little attention to the development and role of labour law, including the legal...

Historically, protective labour law pushed back against capitalist labour markets by facilitating workers’ collective action and setting minimum employment standards based on social norms. Although the possibilities, limits and desirability of such a project were viewed differently in...