BUSI 3335 Week 1

Labour relations

• All aspects of employees at work

• Relations between unions and management

• Strikes, picketing, tough negotiators, and public inconvenience

Legal regimes that govern the Canadian employment relationship

• Employment common law

• Regulatory standards law

• Collective bargaining law

Referred to as the law of work

Employment law

Common law regime and regulatory standards regime

Labour law

legal regime that governs collective bargaining processes

Common law regime

• Stare decisis

  • Creates predictability, but can evolve as social values change

• Comprises of Contract Law and Tort Law

Contract Law

• Legally binding agreement where 2+ parties make provide benefits to each other

• Employment contracts

• Freedom of contract

• Breaches are brought to court and trialled

  • Judge decides if there was a breach and, if yes, its remedy

Employment contract

• Conditions under which employee provides labour to employer in exchange for monetary and other benefits

• Can be written or oral

• Prior to this, master and servant law

Freedom of contract

• Negotiating contract conditions where with fair and efficient outcomes

• Removes possibility of workers being treated like commodities, ensures dignity, autonomy, and citizen equality

• Permits parties to regulate their employment relationship

Tort law

• Legal wrong that allows person to recover damages for harm caused by another’s actions when it doesn’t violate a contract

• Nuisance, trespass, negligence, conspiracy, defamation, etc

• Usual remedy is monetary damages

• Judge-made decision becomes part of common law of employment contracts

Supreme Court of Canada

• In Ottawa

• Hears final appeals from all Canadian jurisdictions

• Must grant leave (permission) to hear appeal

Court of Appeal

• In each province

• The federal court hear appeals from lower level courts and tribunals

Lower courts

• Have different names in each province

• Sometimes divided into superior and inferior courts

• Inferior court judges are provincially appointed

• Superior court judges are federally appointed

Regulatory standard

• Rules governing work relationship by governments and codified in legislation

• Recognizes employer/employee power imbalance

• Complaints are heard by administrative tribunals

Collective bargaining regime

• Addresses inequality of bargaining power

• More power on employees to act collectively to bargain a better deal for themselves

• All disputes are resolved by labour arbitrators

• Has 3 legal rules

Statutory collective bargaining rules

• Government made

• Regulates union formation and administration, collective bargaining, and industrial conflict

Collectively bargained rules

• Found in collective agreements

• Some things can’t be bargained

Judge made collective bargaining rules

• Based in common torts

• Applies to labour picketing and strikes