OnLabor

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Author:David Doorey

Dr. David Doorey is an Associate Professor of Labor and Employment Law at York University in Toronto, a member of the Clean Slate Project International Advisory Group, and a Senior Research Associate at Harvard’s Labor and Worklife Program. He previously practiced labor law in Canada on behalf of unions, including as general counsel to the United Steelworkers. His Law of Work blog (http://lawofwork.ca) is a multiple recipient of Law Blog Awards for best law blog in Canada.

Lessons for the Railway Showdown from a Victory in Canada

Nov 30, 2022 David Doorey

President Biden has called on Congress to avert a rail strike. But a similar showdown in Canada shows that it is workers, not political leaders, who call the shots.

The Ideal ‘Right to Strike’ Would Merge the Strengths of the Canadian and U.S. Labor Law Models

Oct 26, 2022 David Doorey

Canadian and U.S. labor law can each learn from the other about how to better protect workers' right to strike

A Canadian Proposal for Starbucks Bargaining

Jul 29, 2022 David Doorey

The recent wave of union organizing in the service sector has raised hopes that a fundamental transformation is occurring in the United States that will revitalize collective bargaining and bring millions of young workers into the labor movement. At the epicentre of this movement is a mass campaign to organize Starbucks’s employees. As of this […]

How Canadian Unions Responded to Vaccine Mandates, Protests, and Blockades

Mar 8, 2022 David Doorey and Rawan Abdelbaki

Not very often do events in Canada make global headlines. The recent protest convoy that occupied Ottawa for several weeks in February and shut down international borders proved the exception to the rule. The organizers of the protest were a mishmash of right-wing insurrectionists and QAnon delusionists seeking to end vaccine mandates, charge Prime Minister […]

The Law & Politics of Noncompete Reform: A Cross-Border Perspective

Feb 24, 2022 Rachel Arnow-Richman and David Doorey

Noncompete reform is currently the rage in the United States. In recent years, numerous states have enacted laws limiting the reach of these agreements and proscribing their use with low-wage workers. Yet Ontario — Canada’s largest province — blew past its southern neighbor when it enacted an all-out ban on employee noncompetes late in 2021. Although bans […]

The Surprising Agreement Between Uber and UFCW in Canada in Legal Context

Jan 31, 2022 David Doorey

Last week, Uber Canada and UFCW-Canada made a surprise announcement that they had reached “a historic national agreement” for representation rights affecting some 100,000 Uber workers in Canada. The “Agreement” has not been made public yet, but the press releases provide some details. Under the Agreement, Uber recognizes a right of UFCW to represent drivers and […]

Why Canadian Employers Do Not “Permanently” Replace Strikers

Dec 6, 2021 David Doorey

Few aspects of the U.S. labor law model are more confounding to outsiders than the right of employers to hire “permanent” strike replacements. It seems absurd to insist that workers have a legally protected “right to strike” when their employer can simply hand their jobs to another person and then not give it back when […]

The Requirements for Notice of Termination and Just Cause in Canadian Employment Law

May 4, 2021 David Doorey

In a recent OnLabor post, Michael Migiel-Schwartz examined the growing movement to abolish at-will employment, the distinctly U.S. employment law doctrine that permits employers to terminate employees for no reason at all with no prior notice. Several months ago, Professors Kate Andrias and Alexander Hertel-Fernandez published a detailed report for the Roosevelt Institute arguing for […]

The Classification of “Gig” Workers in Canadian Work Law

Jul 7, 2020 David Doorey

The central legal conundrum for labor law when it encounters platform or ‘gig’ work is one of legal classification. The distinction between ‘employee’ and ‘independent contractor’ is as old as labor law itself, and it is based on presumptions that fit uneasily when applied to forms of work other than that which labor law scholars […]

Clean Slate for Worker Power, Through a Canadian Lens

Feb 12, 2020 David Doorey

A new report from Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program entitled Clean Slate for Worker Power lays out a series of ambitious reforms that would help guide U.S. labor law into the 21st century with worker empowerment as a driving policy objective. Four themes emerge from the Report, which follows a two-year research period involving […]

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OnLabor

Law. Workers. Organizing.

OnLabor is a blog devoted to workers, unions, and their politics. We interpret our subject broadly to include the current crisis in the traditional union movement (why union decline is happening and what it means for our society); the new and contested forms of worker organization that are filling the labor union gap; how work ought to be structured and managed; how workers ought to be represented and compensated; and the appropriate role of government — all three branches — in each of these issues.

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Lessons for the Railway Showdown from a Victory in Canada

The Ideal ‘Right to Strike’ Would Merge the Strengths of the Canadian and U.S. Labor Law Models

A Canadian Proposal for Starbucks Bargaining

How Canadian Unions Responded to Vaccine Mandates, Protests, and Blockades

The Law & Politics of Noncompete Reform: A Cross-Border Perspective

The Surprising Agreement Between Uber and UFCW in Canada in Legal Context

Why Canadian Employers Do Not “Permanently” Replace Strikers

The Requirements for Notice of Termination and Just Cause in Canadian Employment Law

The Classification of “Gig” Workers in Canadian Work Law

Clean Slate for Worker Power, Through a Canadian Lens