Government Conciliation in Labour Disputes: Some Recent Experience in Ontario

Extract

Increasingly in the last few years, and more particularly in recent months, the effectiveness of compulsory government-sponsored conciliation in labour disputes has been called into question. Unions and employers alike have begun to ask not only whether the delays required by Canadian law make a worth-while positive contribution to the settlement of disputes, but whether in some cases they do not actually impede the reaching of a settlement.

In the midst of this debate it is of interest to recall that the principle of compulsory delay and conciliation has had a prominent and generally respected place in Canadian labour law for fifty years. The original Industrial Disputes Investigation Act of 1907 introduced the then revolutionary idea that an enforced waiting-period, accompanied by investigation, would so modify the perspective of the parties in a labour dispute that many stoppages of work would be avoided; and this principle has stood virtually unaltered in Canadian law ever since. The significant changes which have taken place since 1907 have been in the application of the principle rather than in the principle itself. As Professor Woods pointed out to this Association last spring, the use of compulsory conciliation and delay, originally meant to encompass all types of dispute, has come to be limited to one of the four main types, namely, negotiation disputes. At the same time, the range of industry in which the principle is being applied has been greatly extended. In the original I.D.I. Act, it was applied compulsorily only to industries held to possess the character of a public utility; it was applied to other industries only when desired by both parties.