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Canadian Law of Work Forum (CLWF)
Law of Work Archive

100 Prominent Canadian Academics on the Employee Free Choice Act

by David Doorey July 16, 2009
written by David Doorey July 16, 2009

I mentioned a while back the concern a number of Canadian scholars had expressed about the misuse and mischaracterization of Canadian labour law and industrial relations in the ongoing debate about labour law reform in the United States.  Some opponents of the proposed Employee Free Choice Act have argued that the higher unionization rates in Canada has caused unemployment here.  That linkage is a stretch, to put it mildly.
Here is a list of prominent Canadian scholars that have endorsed a letter refuting the claim by some opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act that relatively better labour laws in Canada and the higher unionization rate here are somehow a ’cause’ of unemployment.  The letter also warns against the misuse and mischaracterization of Canadian law and statistics in the American labour reform debates.
Notably, Canada ranks considerably higher than the U.S. on all important measures of poverty and income equality.  In other words, in the U.S., which is virtually union-free at under 10% union density, income inequality is the highest of all advanced economic nations. That  is, the vast majority of wealth goes to a relatively small percentage of Americans.  That is the statistic that President Obama has used to explain his desire to rebuild the American labor movement, since unions do usually manage to bargain a greater share of the pie for workers.  What opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act have still failed to explain is how they would address the shameful income disparity in the richest country on the planet.  Their answer appears to be ‘stay the course’, allow collective bargaining to mostly disappear, and rely even more on the ‘free labour market’ without government regulation.
Is that an acceptable solution to the problem?  Or is vast income disparity not a problem at all?  Note that the country with the lowest income inequality, Denmark, also happens to have among the highest unionization rates in the world, and, by the way, the Dannish are also perennially found to be happiest people on the planet in those sorts of surveys. Professor MIchael Lynk recently discussed the link between income inequality and unionization in his Rand Memorial Lecture.

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David Doorey

Professor Doorey is an Associate Professor of Work Law and Industrial Relations at York University. He is the Director of the School of HRM at York and Director of Osgoode Hall Law School’s executive LLM Program in Labour and Employment Law and on the Advisory Board of the Osgoode Certificate program in Labour Law. He is a Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program and a member of the International Advisory Committee on Harvard University’s Clean Slate Project, which is re-imaging labor law for the 21st century

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@SCLSclinic and I were so fortunate to represent this client last year. I am thrilled that this decision brings more clarity for family status accommodations rights amidst a pandemic that has tested parents, caregivers, and families like never before. https://twitter.com/CanLawWorkForum/status/1364605259071561730

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New from @RSandill (counsel for applicant), discussing important new "family status" discrimination decision from OHRT:

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https://lawofwork.ca/13360-2/

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TheLawofWorkDavid J. Doorey@TheLawofWork·
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Here's my latest in @jacobinmag.

If Ontario's labor laws applied in Alabama, the Amazon vote would have been held months ago so workers could get back to their jobs. Instead, the NLRA permits Amazon to conduct a months' long onslaught of anti-union propaganda. https://twitter.com/jacobinmag/status/1364613560425275392

Jacobin@jacobinmag

Amazon workers in Alabama are voting on whether to unionize, but the company is bombarding them with anti-union propaganda. In Canada, by contrast, votes are held quickly, making it harder for companies to stack the deck — a model that can work in the US. http://jacobinmag.com/2021/02/amazon-alabama-canada-labor-law-union-vote

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CanLawWorkForumCLWF@CanLawWorkForum·
24 Feb

New from @RSandill (counsel for applicant), discussing important new "family status" discrimination decision from OHRT:

"Kovintharajah v. Paragon Linen & Laundry: When Failure to Accommodate Child Care Needs is “Family Status” Discrimination"

https://lawofwork.ca/13360-2/

Reply on Twitter 1364605259071561730Retweet on Twitter 13646052590715617304Like on Twitter 13646052590715617304Twitter 1364605259071561730
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