The Law of Work
  • Home
  • About
  • Professor David Doorey
  • Osgoode Hall LLM
  • Books
  • Guest Contributors
  • Useful Links
    • Archive
  • Home
  • About
  • Professor David Doorey
  • Osgoode Hall LLM
  • Books
  • Guest Contributors
  • Useful Links
    • Archive
The Law of Work
British ColumbiaCollective BargainingFissured WorkFreedom of AssociationOLRBOntarioStrikes and LockoutsUnions and Collective BargainingUnited States

Models of Broader-Based Sectoral Collective Bargaining

by David Doorey February 3, 2023
written by David Doorey February 3, 2023

Written by David J. Doorey

Among the hottest topics at any labor law gathering in recent years, along with how best to regulate ‘gig’ workers of course, is broader-based bargaining or sectoral bargaining. These terms refer to collective bargaining models that situate negotiations at a level higher than the individual workplace or ‘enterprise’.

For example, under the existing labour law model dominant in Canada and the United States (often described as the “Wagner model”), the presumption is that collective bargaining takes place at the workplace level.  If employees of a single McDonalds store join a union, then that union would normally try to bargain a collective agreement that covers only the employees at that one store.  This model works pretty well when the workplace is a steel mill or car factory that employs hundreds or thousands of workers.  However, it does not work well when the workplace is a single store of a company like McDonalds, which has hundreds of restaurants in Canada, sometimes operating as franchises and sometimes owned by ‘corporate’ McDonalds.  It doesn’t work well because a handful of employees at a single store have virtually no bargaining power against a giant multinational corporation like McDonalds that is intent on remaining non-union.

Not surprisingly, therefore, the service/retail sectors have among the lowest levels of collective bargaining coverage. These sectors also tend to employ many of the least well off workers in our society, including high percentages of women and racialized workers.  As a result, there has for a very long time been discussions about moving collective bargaining ‘upwards’ to a sectoral or at least ‘corporate’ level rather than a workplace level.  We have examples of this in Canada, especially in the construction sector where some bargaining takes places by trades at a provincial level (all carpenters employed in Ontario).  You can learn about the construction model here if you’re interested.

There are a number of challenges to implementing broader-based, sectoral bargaining in Canada’s service sectors (and other sectors without a history of this structure).  One is that employers don’t want it and will put up huge resistance in all likelihood.  Broader-based bargaining was introduced in Canada’s construction industry in some provinces because EMPLOYERS wanted it.  However, the McDonalds and Starbucks of the world aren’t lobbying for a new model that will help workers access collective bargaining.  Another challenge is that virtually no one agrees on what a model of sectoral bargaining should look like even if a government were inclined to consider introducing one.  These challenges, among others, recently led the experts on the Ontario Changing Workplaces Review to consider and then (mostly) reject calls for a new dramatic model of sectoral bargaining.

Nevertheless, some models do (or did) exist in Canada and elsewhere and other models have been floated but never adopted.  I have explained some of the proposed models before, including a model proposed in 1992 in British Columbia (the “Baigent-Ready Proposal”) and New Zealand’s new law providing a form of sectoral bargaining.   I’ve also described one of my favourite laws that was in effect briefly in Ontario and that is not ‘sectoral bargaining’, but that provides a roadmap for organizing unions to build towards broader-based bargaining one location at a time (“A Canadian Proposal for Starbucks Bargaining”).

For my own benefit, I recently prepared a couple of charts that provide a quick overview of various models of sectoral bargaining that have been considered as potential models for Canada. For those interested in the subject, I’m attaching the two documents here:

Spreadsheet describing models of broader-based bargaining.

One-Page Chart summarizing who bargains with whom and how the model works.

 The documents describe the following models:

  1. The “Baigent-Ready Model” proposed in British Columbia in 1992 (which you can read here)
  2. The new New Zealand model for sectoral bargaining.
  3. The model of sectoral bargaining proposed in Harvard Law School’s Clean Slate for Worker Power report (I was the Canadian representative on the Clean Slate International Committee).
  4. A model of broader-based bargaining for franchises proposed by Ontario’s Changing Workplaces Review.
  5. A model that has been proposed on a number of occasions and that was law in various forms in 1993 and then again briefly in 2018 in Ontario, which permits the labour board to consolidate multiple unionized workplaces of the same employer and then permits unions to sweep into that unit any newly unionized locations of the same employer.

As always, your thoughts welcome on whether you believe any of these models are worth pursuing in Canada.  Would they work to the benefit of employees?  Are there other models that you prefer?

 

 

0 comment
2
FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail
David Doorey

Professor Doorey is an Associate Professor of Work Law and Industrial Relations at York University. He is Academic Director of Osgoode Hall Law School’s executive LLM Program in Labour and Employment Law and a Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program. Professor Doorey is a graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School (LL.B., Ph.D), London School of Economics (LLM Labour Law), and the University of Toronto (B.A., M.I.R.).

previous post
Is Memorial University Illegally Preventing Workers from Joining Picket Lines?

You may also like

Is Memorial University Illegally Preventing Workers from Joining...

February 2, 2023

What Might a Right to Strike for Non-Union...

December 16, 2022

Lessons for the Railway Showdown from a Victory...

November 30, 2022

Court Strikes Down Ontario’s Punitive Public Sector Wage...

November 29, 2022

New Video: Standing Up to the Notwithstanding Clause

November 25, 2022

On the Right to Strike in Canada and...

November 1, 2022

UPDATE: Ontario Invokes Notwithstanding Clause, Crushes Labour Rights...

October 31, 2022

R.O. MacDowell: Who Defines Appropriate Bargaining Units After...

October 10, 2022

(Video) Professor Doorey on ‘Micro Labour Law’ Below...

October 6, 2022

Right of B.C. Workers to Refuse to Cross...

September 26, 2022

Follow Us On Social Media

Twitter

Latest Tweets

David J. Doorey🇨🇦 @TheLawofWork@mas.to Follow

Law Prof. Talking #labor & #employment #law to the masses. @YorkUniversity @OsgoodeNews @LSELaw @CLJEHarvard @Jacobin @OnLaborBlog https://t.co/5V9r8VPHsh

TheLawofWork
Retweet on Twitter David J. Doorey🇨🇦 @TheLawofWork@mas.to Retweeted
peterframpton Peter Frampton @peterframpton ·
27 Mar

I have posted this before but ..

26 years ago, a gunman entered
Dunblane Primary School in Scotland,
killing 16 kids and a teacher. The UK
govt responded by enacting tight gun
control legislation. In the 9400+ days
since, there have been a total of O
school shootings in the UK.

Reply on Twitter 1640422829442121743 Retweet on Twitter 1640422829442121743 53735 Like on Twitter 1640422829442121743 195835 Twitter 1640422829442121743
Retweet on Twitter David J. Doorey🇨🇦 @TheLawofWork@mas.to Retweeted
josheidelson Josh Eidelson @josheidelson ·
21h

Scoop: Labor Board prosecutors have concluded Starbucks illegally refused to fairly negotiate at dozens of newly-unionized cafes across the country https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-28/starbucks-illegally-refused-to-bargain-on-zoom-nlrb-lawyer-says Starbucks’ refusal to negotiate if some workers participated via Zoom was illegal, NLRB general counsel says

Reply on Twitter 1640509028567506950 Retweet on Twitter 1640509028567506950 234 Like on Twitter 1640509028567506950 674 Twitter 1640509028567506950
Retweet on Twitter David J. Doorey🇨🇦 @TheLawofWork@mas.to Retweeted
alexisshotwell Alexis Shotwell @alexisshotwell ·
27 Mar

This morning the president of @Carleton_U sent out a note underlining his understanding of “how painful labour disruptions can be to communities,” pleading for us to be calm and respectful and to support our students at the end of term. 1/

Reply on Twitter 1640430514627551256 Retweet on Twitter 1640430514627551256 123 Like on Twitter 1640430514627551256 336 Twitter 1640430514627551256
Load More

Categories

  • Alberta
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Australia
  • British Columbia
  • Charter of Rights and Freedoms
  • Childcare
  • Class Action
  • Climate and Just Transition
  • Collective Bargaining
  • Common Law of Employment
  • Comparative Work Law
  • competition law
  • construction
  • COVID-19
  • Diversity
  • Employee Classification
  • Employment Insurance
  • Employment Regulation
  • Europe
  • Financial Industry
  • Fissured Work
  • Freedom of Association
  • frustration of contract
  • Gig Work
  • Health and Safety
  • Health Care
  • Human Rights
  • Immigration
  • Interest Arbitration
  • International Law
  • Labour Arbitration
  • Labour Economics
  • Law of Work Archive
  • Legal Profession
  • Manitoba
  • Migrant Workers
  • Minimum Wage
  • Newfoundland
  • Nova Scotia
  • OLRB
  • Ontario
  • Pension Bankruptcy
  • Privacy
  • Public Sector
  • Quebec
  • Real Life Pleadings
  • Saskatchewan
  • Scholarship
  • Sports Labour
  • Strikes and Lockouts
  • Student Post
  • Supreme Court of Canada
  • technology
  • Transnational Law
  • Uncategorized
  • Unions and Collective Bargaining
  • United States
  • Videos
  • Women and Work
  • Wrongful Dismissal
  • Home
  • About
  • Guest Contributors
Menu
  • Home
  • About
  • Guest Contributors
  • Legal Scholarship
  • Useful Links
  • Archive
Menu
  • Legal Scholarship
  • Useful Links
  • Archive

2020. Canadian Law of Work Forum. All Rights Reserved.