Canadian Collective Bargaining Law, 2d ed.

• Author: Mangan, David
• Position: Book review

Canadian Collective Bargaining Law, 2d ed.

By Wesley B. Rayner

Markham, Lexis Nexis, 2007. Pp. 715.

Wesley Rayner's work in Canadian labour law spans close to forty years. Including his time as Professor at the University of Western Ontario, Faculty of Law (now Professor Emeritus), his contributions range from academic texts, such as this one, to sitting as a labour arbitrator (which he continues to do). Canadian Collective Bargaining Law (1) seeks to bring the law of collective bargaining up-to-date. As with its predecessor, (2) this edition outlines the law with each chapter examining a discrete topic. As a general proposition, collective bargaining, Rayner notes in the Preface, is "one of the most sophisticated and dynamic areas of law in Canada." (3)

While the law on collective bargaining is updated in Canadian Collective Bargaining Law; Rayner's learned, critical commentary on the recent changes to collective bargaining would have been a distinct strength of this work and a good addition to the writings in the area. For example, Rayner's engagement of globalization in Chapter 3, entitled "Labour Monopoly in an International Market: Conflict or Cooperation?," and its impact on Canadian collective bargaining stands out as a good example for elaboration where be may have injected his own observations. He first expands on domestic regulation of labour via anti-combines legislation and then segues into globalization as a force prompting new considerations. The term "globalization" has become somewhat reified insofar as it is used to describe any international movement of people, goods, corporations or economic pressures. Rayner employs the terra "economic globalization" which he defines as "the creation of wider and wider markets for the production and consumption of wealth in its broadest sense, although in the context of labour, the concern is primarily with manufactured goods, again viewed broadly." (4) This definition appears to be especially lacking as an explanation for an event (if it may be called such) which has reshaped decades of collective bargaining, thereby necessitating a reconsideration of the subject (and precipitating the need for an updated edition of this text).

Rayner outlines a development of globalization which begins with the end of the Second World War when North America produced assembly line goods. This mass production was easy to replicate. The transferability of technology and the relative low-skill level needed from a labour force meant that these jobs could move offshore. The next point he makes is a logical extension: there has been a decline in the number of unionized workers in private sector jobs. Only an increase in unionization among public sector employees has buoyed overall rates of unionization. Unfortunately, Rayner provides unreferenced statistics to support this generally accepted notion. (5) He ends the passage by writing: "One suspects that the full impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement may result in a furtherance of the trend." (6) Why is this? Certainly, it would be useful, if not enlightening, to have Rayner's thoughtful consideration.

Canadian Collective Bargaining Law does contain some of Rayner's own observations of general trends, though certainly not as much as one would like to have from an individual who has presided over such a robust era of labour relations. When writing about the basic premises of modern labour legislation, he marks two events of note in Canadian labour history: the Anti-Inflation Act (7) and the "social contract" of the New Democratic Party when it governed Ontario during the last decade of the twentieth century. His assessment of these occurrences is as follows:

It is argued that drastic times call for drastic measures and the lack of governmental fiscal restraint over some decades has created those drastic rimes. The question is whether the legislation was merely a temporary aberration from the norm of free collective bargaining. Although the answer to that question is speculative, I would suggest that the answer is that the legislation will prove to be temporary. This type of legislation is simply too great a departure from the concepts of pluralism and market economy which have led us to support wage determination by collective bargaining and not by government fiat. Nevertheless, the passing of this legislation clearly demonstrates our final premise, that is, that government will act to protect third parties or the general public even at some cost to the integrity of collective...