This symposium essay argues that workers must face up and wake up to the emerging real world of perpetual employment vulnerability. Clinging to the faith that those who govern us will abide by simple moral codes simply will not do in this world. Workers must resist forces promoting vulnerability...

Ontario and British Columbia, Canada, have not seen a police strike in living memory. The reason for this is the mandatory interest arbitration model adopted in the two provinces, which sees disputes that cannot be resolved by mutual bargaining referred to a panel of arbitrators who assess...

In this chapter, we present an outline of the economic analysis of the regulation of unions and collective bargaining. We begin with the simple model of the market for union services and analyze regulations that may increase or decrease either the demand or supply for union representation. In...

The British Columbia Teachers' Federation (BCTF), representing all public elementary and secondary school teachers in the province, is one of the largest and most powerful unions in British Columbia. BCTF has always sought formal rights to full-scope collective bargaining, and unrestricted...

Cost reduction is one of the desirable results frequently attributed to Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) processes. Although it is reasonable to assume that businesses always are interested in saving money, this goal takes on added importance when the economy is struggling. The cost savings...

In 2007, I published Approaching Coal Mine Safety from a Comparative Law and Interdisciplinary Perspective, which raised, but did not answer, the following question: What do citizens of a “just” society owe workers, such as coal miners, who daily risk their lives for our collective comfort?...

Between 1975 and 1997, school teacher bargaining was conducted under the School Boards and Teachers Collective Negotiations Act (Bill 100). By most accounts, the teacher bargaining law was successful in promoting bilateral settlements with minimal strike activity. Following its election in 1995,...

Amid the scholarly dialogue regarding amending labor certification procedures, there have been calls for the adoption of internet, electronic and/or telephonic representation voting (IETV) procedures in representation elections. To date, most labor relations agencies in the United States and...

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the recent Health Services decision that the Canadian Constitutional protection of "freedom of association" should be interpreted to provide "at least as much protection" of associational rights as provided by ILO Convention 87, as interpreted by the ILO's...

"Card check" organizing is the most controversial issue in labor law today, and this article is the first to analyze Dana Corp., the landmark decision on card check that was issued by the National Labor Relations Board in September 2007. The Dana Corp. decision represents a fundamental shift in...