Archives for February 1988

Parental and Maternity Leave Policies In Canada and Sweden

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 fundamental difference between Sweden’s and Canada’s maternity and parental leave programs stems from the underlying philosophies behind their respective policies. This study examines and compares the current programs in place in Sweden and Canada, and extracts potential lessons that can be learned for Canada from the Swedish Parental Leave program.

Union Organizing Activity in Ontario, 1970-1986

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. This important indicator of union strength seemed to confirm much speculation about the stagnation or perhaps decline of the union movement in Canada.

Another critical indicator of the condition of the labour movement in Canada is the level and composition of new organizing activity that is conducted. In order to be vibrant and to maintain past levels of strength the union movement must successfully recruit new members into the union fold. The purpose of this study is to examine the labour movement’s performance in this critical work in Ontario, the province of Canada with the largest number of union members.

The method of analysis in this study is statistical. Aggregate data on the number of certifications and decertifications granted by the Ontario Labour Relations Board in the years 1970-1986 has been compiled into series tables. These tables are the primary source for analyzing the union movement’s organizing activity in Ontario in the past two decades. They also provide a new perspective from which to assess the condition of the Canadian labour movement in the 1980s.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.