Product Description
Work on Trial is a collection of studies of eleven major cases and events that have helped to shape the legal landscape of work in Canada. While most of the cases are well-known because of the impact they have had on collective bargaining, individual employment law, or human rights, less is known about the social and political contexts in which the cases arose, the backgrounds and personalities of the judges and the litigants, the legal manoeuvres that were employed, or the ultimate fate of all those who were involved. These studies, written by some of Canada’s leading labour and legal historians, provide this context. Beginning with Toronto Electric Commissioners v. Snider, one of the earliest and most important cases involving the division of powers in the Canadian federation, to the events leading to the articulation of the “Rand Formula” in the immediate post Second World War period, and on to the struggles of women workers in the late 20th century in challenging the continuing employment practices based on hegemonic gender-based assumptions, each study tells a compelling story, rich in detail and full of perceptive insights into the complex relationship between law and work.
Foreword
The Osgoode Society for Legal History
Preface
Harry Arthurs
Introduction
Work on Trial: Canadian Labour Law Struggles
Judy Fudge and Eric Tucker
Part One: Constitutions and Institutions
“Capitalist ‘Justice’ as Peddled by the ‘Noble Lords’”: Toronto Electric Commissioners v. Snider et al.
R. Blake Brown and Jennifer Llewellyn
John East Iron Works v. Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board: A Test for the Infant Administrative State
Beth Bilson
Part Two: Responsible Unions: Security, Orderly Production, and Dissent
How Justice Rand Devised His Famous Formula
William Kaplan
Dissent, Democracy, and Discipline: The Case of Kuzych v. White et al.
Mark Leier
Organizing Offshore: Labour Relations, Industrial Pluralism, and Order in the Newfoundland and Labrador Oil Industry, 1997–2006
Sean T. Cadigan
Part Three: Courts and Collective Action in the Post-War Regime
The Royal York Hotel Case: The “Right” to Strike — And Not Be Fired for Striking
Malcolm E. Davidson
Hersees of Woodstock Ltd. v. Goldstein: How a Small Town Case Made it Big
Eric Tucker
A Certain Malaise: Harrison v. Carswell, Shopping Centre Picketing, and the Limits of the Post-war Settlement
Philip Girard and Jim Phillips
Part Four: Human Rights Norms at Work
Debating Maternity Rights: Pacific Western Airlines and Flight Attendants’ Struggle to “Fly Pregnant” in the 1970s
Joan Sangster
Challenging Norms and Creating Precedents: The Tale of a Woman Firefighter in the Forests of British Columbia
Judy Fudge and Hester Lessard
Part Five: Changing Common Law Norms
The Micropolitics of Wallace v. United Grain Growers Ltd.
Daphne G. Taras
Afterword: Looking Back
Harry Glasbeek
