Manufacturing Descent? Labour Law and Union Organizing in the Province of Ontario

This paper examines the effect of labour law on union certification dynamics in Ontario during the period 1983 to 2006. Results reveal the independent, significant effects of the Progressive Conservative government's Bill 31 reforms and the recent Liberal government's Bill 144 upon certification success rates and aggregate volumes of new organizing, in expected directions. Results also reveal a massive decline in unfair labour practice complaints following the Bill 7 reforms in 1995, exacerbated by Bill 31, and which remains unaltered by Bill 144. Overall, the results suggest that labour law still has a significant effect upon union organizing over time, despite economic internationalization and/or shifts in industrial structure, and contradict the recent claim that a "pre-1990 equilibrium" in Ontario labour relations policy was recently restored. Rather, the current regime remains, both in formal legal terms and concrete effects, more restrictive of union growth than its pre-1990 form.