labor relation
Labour relations
Labour relations refers to the relations between employers and employees. They are affected by certain factors, including labour organizations, collective bargaining, labour market, government policy, the structure of the economy, labour law and technological change. Since industrial relations are regularly connected with unions, it is noteworthy that in Canada, until the 1970s, a greater part of unions and union members belonged to American-based craft and industrial unions.
According to some observers, incidence of strikes has been very high and unusual in North American labour relations. Studies have also disclosed that the frequency of savagery and unlawfulness emerging out of labour disputes has been much higher in the US and Canada than in other comparably industrialized countries. They included the relatively recent development of large-scale "mass unionization," a extensive deposit of pressure and common hostility arising from the boundless, extended and very often violent opposition of employers to unions; intense organizational and leadership rivalries among unions; the highly decentralized structure of labour organization and collective bargaining in most industries; and the absence of a strong or dominant labour party capable of gaining power at the national level.
The relative strength of organized labour in Canada was also affected by cultural and ethnic divisions among workers, especially the considerable gap between Francophone and Anglophones, which was symbolized by the development of the separate francophone confederation of national trade unions in Québec. Maintained geographic and political divisions also precluded effective unionization and often set the interests of the workers in one region against those in another.
Politically, the labour movement had been divided since the turn of the century, when the trades and labour congress, backed by the American Federation of Labour, ousted the activist knights of labour.
Labour relations refers to the relations between employers and employees. They are affected by certain factors, including labour organizations, collective bargaining, labour market, government policy, the structure of the economy, labour law and technological change. Since industrial relations are regularly connected with unions, it is noteworthy that in Canada, until the 1970s, a greater part of unions and union members belonged to American-based craft and industrial unions.
According to some observers, incidence of strikes has been very high and unusual in North American labour relations. Studies have also disclosed that the frequency of savagery and unlawfulness emerging out of labour disputes has been much higher in the US and Canada than in other comparably industrialized countries. They included the relatively recent development of large-scale "mass unionization," a extensive deposit of pressure and common hostility arising from the boundless, extended and very often violent opposition of employers to unions; intense organizational and leadership rivalries among unions; the highly decentralized structure of labour organization and collective bargaining in most industries; and the absence of a strong or dominant labour party capable of gaining power at the national level.
The relative strength of organized labour in Canada was also affected by cultural and ethnic divisions among workers, especially the considerable gap between Francophone and Anglophones, which was symbolized by the development of the separate francophone confederation of national trade unions in Québec. Maintained geographic and political divisions also precluded effective unionization and often set the interests of the workers in one region against those in another.
Politically, the labour movement had been divided since the turn of the century, when the trades and labour congress, backed by the American Federation of Labour, ousted the activist knights of labour.