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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
In a few economics text-books the labour market is still an area in which the free play of supply and demand brings about the equation of wages to the marginal product of labour. But the modern economist knows very well that “free competition” and “a living wage” are often incompatible, and that free competition itself is to-day little more than an expository device. The determination of wages, and of labour conditions generally, must take into account two important sets of influences, (a) the circumstances which affect the wage bargain between employers and employees, and (b) the extent to which “minimum wages” and basic living and working standards are fixed by the state. To the economic historian each of these opens up long chapters of social movements and state legislation which are more complete in most of the older industrial countries but to which many new pages have been added on this continent in recent times.
This experience has established the recognition of two main methods, and their accompanying sets of principles, by which wages and working conditions have been raised irrespective of the rate set in theory or practice “by the market”. The first is that of collective as distinct from individual bargaining. Collective—which is for all practical purposes, trade union— negotiation involves two principles, of which one is better known than the other. The first is that the ordinary wage-earner, even vis à vis the small employer, has little or no bargaining power on his own: not only is his labour a perishable commodity, but also his employer is likely to be a great corporation and he is beset by the potential competition of the army of the unemployed—and it may be added, even in the best of times by the potential competition of the migrant from the farm, the real “marginal worker” of an agricultural country.
1 After the Hon. C. J. Arcand, minister of labour in the provincial government of 1931-5.
2 For a convenient summary of the Act in its 1934 form and of the 1935 amendments, see the Labour Gazette, 05, 1934, p. 417 Google Scholar, and June, 1935, p. 526.
3 Michaud v. Forest, 1935. The claim that the plaintiff was a casual inexperienced worker was declared inacceptable in view of the fact that he was issued a competency certificate as a qualified painter by the Board of Examination for the trade.
4 For a convenient reference, see the Labour Gazette for 06, 1935, p. 534.Google Scholar
5 Speech from the Throne, , Quebec Legislature, 03 24, 1936.Google Scholar
6 The total number of wage earners (employed and unemployed) in Quebec, excluding high-salaried groups and excluding agriculture, domestic service, and railways (see text infra) was about 520,000 in 1931. Assuming an increase in the working population of about 7.5 per cent. since the census date and present average unemployment at 15 per cent., the potential number of workers to which the Act is applicable is 475,000 for mid-1936.
7 The award of the ocean longshore work contract to the new Independent Union created a new situation in the present (1936) season; this contract has not been submitted to take advantage of the Arcand Law. On the other hand, the inland longshoremen, who have always had little or no organization, have formed a National Catholic Union and have secured the extension of agreements continuously since the advent of the Act.
8 Shoe workers and furniture workers have each ratified an extensive agreement covering the province. Both are organized in National Catholic Unions.
9 Scott, F. R. and Cassidy, H. M., Labour Conditions in the Men's Clothing Industry (Toronto, 1935), pp. 76–7.Google Scholar
10 Cf. also Report of the Royal Commission on Price Spreads (Ottawa, 1935), p. 107.Google Scholar
11 The English version of the Act at present reads “one or more associations of bona fide employees”. This, however, is a translation of “une ou plusieurs associations de salariés bona fide”, and it is understood that the English text is to be revised in the present session of the Legislature.
12 Report of the Quebec Department of Labour for 1933-4.
13 Cf., e.g., the Report of the Royal Commission on Price Spreads, pp. 128-31; Scott, and Cassidy, , Labour Conditions in the Men's Clothing Industry, pp. 37–51.Google Scholar For another important sidelight on the situation, see report on Child Labour in the Province of Quebec, by the Montreal Junior Board of Trade (mimeographed, 1934).
14 A case was before the Courts when this was being written, in which the defendant who refused entry to an inspector claimed that the particular type of clothing on which investigation was being undertaken was not being made at the time of the visit.