Latest Articles
Latest Articles
Employment related drug testing has become a contentious issue in Canada. While some employers have implemented some form of drug testing and many more are still considering it, the extent of its legality has yet to be determined by the human rights commissions, arbitrators and the courts. This essay examines the legal implications of employment related drug testing in Canada by analyzing relevant human rights legislation, arbitral jurisprudence, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In carrying out this analysis some reference is made to the legal developments in the United States. more
This paper was written from the perspective of Don Taylor, who was able to work in every part of Canada with union people - both leaders and members - many of whom had been involved in the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) from its beginnings in this country. He felt that there were too few written memoirs of the experiences of those whose deeds didn't conform to accepted heroic traditions or dramatic conventions, but who enjoyed the great priviledge of working for a good cause in pursuit of noble principles. more
In the late 1980s, a considerable body of literature was emerging about the so-called "vanishing" middle class. Studies by Bluestone, Harrison and others raised the issues of deindustrialization and a growing low-wage economy. In this paper from 1988, the author reviews the issues and evidence, and explores nine possible explanations: the baby-boom effect, changes in family composition, more working women, labour's falling income, traditional business cycle effects, a trade-based industrial shift, deindustrialization, industrial relocation and increased part-time work. more
Sweden and Canada provide two significantly different maternity and parental leave programs. Sweden's Parental Leave program is comprehensive and "progressive", covering all eligible individuals and enjoying an extremely high utilization rate. Canada's Maternity Leave program, in contrast, does not share the Swedish success; only about half the women who bear children each year collect maternity benefits.
The Canadian labour movement entered the 1980s in a state of great uncertainty. Following almost forty years of steady uninterrupted growth the union movement in Canada experienced in the early 1980s losses in the total number of union members. Although these losses in the absolute number of union members were recouped in the mid-1980s, the proportion of nonagricultural paid workers who are union members dropped from 1983 to 1986 to a level that had been achieved in the mid-1970s. more