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Industrial Citizenship, Human Rights and the Transformation of Labour Law: A Critical Assessment of Harry Arthurs', Legalization Thesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

Michel Coutu
Michel Coutu
Affiliation:
École de relations industrielles, Université de Montréal, Montréal (Québec)Canada, michel.coutu@umontreal.ca
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Abstract

In his recent work, Professor Harry Arthurs dismisses the idea of industrial citizenship as being a fundamental paradigm for the study of labour law, although he has supported it convincingly since 1967. Part of this change of mind is based on the legalization process of labour arbitration, which is due, at least to some degree, to the penetration of this field by complex human rights standards. For Arthurs, legal pluralism, characteristic of collective labour relations, is being progressively eroded by the movement of legalization initiated by the Canadian Charter. The author intends to put this thesis to the test, by examining what is going on in Quebec, as regards labour arbitration and human rights. The overall context is not exactly the same, the Quebec Charter being somehow of a specific nature, more open to social rights than it is the case for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But concerning the right to equality, there is enough common ground to allow a comparison. The author then uses the results of an empirical study (content analysis, semi-directed interviews) conducted at the School of Industrial Relations and the Centre de recherche en droit public of the University of Montreal, which considers discrimination cases at work decided by arbitrators and by the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal. This empirical study reveals the self-referential nature of this process in both cases: even if the Law is the same, the way of constructing and applying it is quite different in the sphere of labour relations (the arbitrators) and in the sphere of human rights (the Human Rights Tribunal). This may be explained by the diverging interests and values of the actors involved, and by the pressures the industrial relations system imposes on the arbitrators, who may be portrayed as a “coupling mechanism” between this social system and the legal one. This is not to say that Arthurs' legalization thesis is “wrong”, just that for the time being, it cannot be firmly asserted in the Quebec context. That being said, Arhturs' past and present work on industrial citizenship remains of the outmost scientific relevance to grasp the actual stand of industrial relations and labour law.

Résumé

Dans ses travaux récents, le professeur Harry Arthurs récuse désormais l'idée que la «citoyenneté industrielle» représente un paradigme fondamental pour l'étude du droit du travail, en dépit du fait qu'il ait défendu avec conviction cette position depuis 1967. Ce changement d'attitude est basé en partie sur le processus de juridicisation de l'arbitrage des griefs, lequel découle largement de la pénétration de ce champ par les normes juridiques complexes relatives à la discrimination au travail. Pour Arthurs, le pluralisme juridique caractéristique des rapports collectifs de travail se voit progressivement érodé par le mouvement de juridicisation largement initié par la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés. L'auteur entend mettre à l'épreuve cette thèse, en analysant la situation qui prévaut au Québec quant à l'arbitrage des griefs mettant en jeu les droits de la personne. Le contexte global n'est certes pas exactement le même, la Charte québécoise possédant une nature spécifique, plus ouverte à la reconnaissance des droits sociaux que ne l'est la Charte canadienne. Quant au droit à l'égalité toutefois, on retrouve suffisamment d'éléments communs pour autoriser la comparaison. L'auteur s'appuie à ce effet sur une étude empirique (analyse de contenu, interviews semi-dirigés) menée à l'École de relations industrielles et au Centre de recherche en droit public de l'Université de Montréal, étude portant sur les cas de discrimination au travail traités, d'une part, par les arbitres de griefs, et, d'autre part, par le Tribunal des droits de la personne du Québec. La recherche empirique met en lumière la nature autoréférentielle du traitement de ces cas: même si le droit est le même, son interprétation et son application diffèrent largement suivant qu'un cas est traité par la sphère du travail (les arbitres de griefs) ou par la sphère des droits de la personne (le Tribunal des droits de la personne). Voilà qui s'explique par les valeurs et les intérêts divergents des acteurs concernés, ainsi que par les pressions que le système des relations industrielles exerce sur les arbitres, ceux-ci faisant office de mécanisme de «couplage structurel» entre le système juridique et le système des relations industrielles. Ceci ne revient aucunement à dire que la thèse de Arthurs est «fausse», mais seulement à constater que, pour l'instant du moins, elle ne peut être fermement établie en contexte québécois. À tout événement, les travaux passés et présents de Harry Arthurs sur la citoyenneté industrielle demeurent de la plus grande importance scientifique pour qui veut comprendre l'évolution actuelle des relations industrielles et du droit du travail.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , August 2004 , pp. 73 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 2004

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References

2 Marshall, T. H., “Citizenship and Social Class” in Sociology at the Crossroads and other Essays (London: Heinemann, 1963) at 67.Google Scholar

3 Arthurs, Harry, “Developing Industrial Citizenship: A Challenge for Canada's Second Century” (1967) XLV Can. Bar Rev. 786Google Scholar [“Developing Industrial Citizenship”].

4 Arthurs, Harry, “The New Economy and the New Legality: Industrial Citizenship and the Future of Labour Arbitration” (1999) 7 C.L.E.L.J. 45Google Scholar [“The New Economy and the New Legality”].

5 See also Arthurs, Harry, The New Economy and the Demise of Industrial Citizenship (Don Wood Lecture 1996), (Kingston: Queen's University Industrial Relations Center, 1997).Google Scholar According to Athurs, this is not to say that ‘industrial citizenship’ cannot remain a useful Michel Coutu device for the legal or sociological study of some aspects of industrial relations systems, but it now appears to be, first, an overly optimistic statement about the future of worker's entitlements and labour law, and second, a bad descriptor of what is going on under the “New Economy” which is downgrading the condition of workers in Canada.

6 Vallée, Guylaine, Coutu, Michel, Hébert, Marie-Christine, “Implementing Equality Rights in the Workplace: An Empirical Study” (2001) C.L.E.L.J. 71Google Scholar [“Implementing Equality Rights”].

7 T.H. Marshall, supra note 2. This is also the view of Gersuny, Carl, “Industrial Rights: A Neglected Facet of Citizenship Theory” (1994) 15 Economic and Industrial Democracy 211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar And Müller-Jentsch, Walther “Productive Forces and Industrial Citizenship: An Evolutionary Perspective on Labour Relations” (1991) 12 Economic and industrial Democracy 439 at 442 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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10 T.H. Marshall, supra note 2 at 73ff.

11 Ibid., at 97.

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13 T.H. Marshall, supra note 2 at 97.

14 “Developing Industrial Citizenship” supra note 3.

15 See Harry Arthurs, “Industrial Citizenship Reconsidered” (Paper delivered to the CRIMT Internal Meeting, Magog, Quebec, October 2003) [unpublished] [“Industrial Citizenship Reconsidered”]. As regards legal dogmatics, the point was to defend the autonomy of labour law by considering the legal relationship between employers and employees more as a status than as a contract. As regards legal theory, “industrial citizenship made an important point about legal pluralism: the workplace should be seen as a semi autonomous social field, with its own legal norms, its own legal institutions, its own legal processes.” Finally, there was a kind of normative statement, expressing hope and confidence in the extension in the context of the workplace of rights of citizenship formally recognized in the broader polity.

16 See Harry Arthurs, supra note 4 at 46.

17 “Developing Industrial Citizenship,” supra note 3.

18 Harry Arthurs, supra note 4 at 46.

19 “Industrial Citizenship Reconsidered,” supra note 15.

20 Harry Arthurs, supra note 4 at 786ff.

21 “Industrial Citizenship Reconsidered,” supra note 15 at 1.

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23 “Developing Industrial Citizenship,” supra note 3.

24 See also Müller-Jentsch, supra note 7 at 462.

25 “The New Economy and the New Legality,” supra note 4 at 52.

26 Ibid., at 41.

27 Ibid. at 55.

28 See Weber, Max, Economy and Society, t. 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978) at 976–78.Google Scholar

29 “The New Economy and the New Legality,” supra note 4 at 55.

30 Ibid., at 58. This may be a rather questionable affirmation. At first glance, it resembles the so-called “England problem” much discussed in contemporary literature on Max Weber's legal sociology. According to critics of Weber, the growth of capitalism in England was facilitated and in no way hindered by the relative lack of formal rationality of the common-law system, when compared with the high formal qualities of the romanogermanic legal systems of the rest of Europe. This criticism is premised on a direct link, presumably postulated by Weber, between the formal rationality of law and the efficiency of economic regulation. As we have tried to show in our book Max Weber et les rationalités du droit (Paris: LGDJ, 1995) Weber's own position is exactly to the contrary. The economic sphere expects a certain degree of calculability of the law, but remains indifferent to the legal techniques used to reach that objective. From our point of view, the same is true, mutatis mutandis, of labour arbitration: whether labour arbitration is material, or formal, a mix of the two or even “Kadi-Justice” has no direct bearing on the “empirical validity” of the ruling. On the “England Problem” see: Cain, Maureen, “The Limits of Idealism: Max Weber and the Sociology of Law” in Spitzer, S., ed., Research in Law and Sociology, vol. 3. (Greenwich: JAI Press, 1980) 53Google Scholar; Ewing, Sally, “Formal Justice and the Spirit of Capitalism: Max Weber's Sociology of Law” (1987) 21 Law & Soc'y Rev. 487 at 487ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hunt, Alan, The Sociological Movement in Law (London: Macmillan, 1978) at 118ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kronman, Anthony T., Max Weber, “Jurists: Profiles in Legal Theory” (Standford: Standford University Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Treiber, Hubert, “‘Elective Affinities’ between Weber's Sociology of Religion and Sociology of Law” (1985) 14 Theory and Society 809CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Trubek, David M., “Max Weber on Law and the Rise of Capitalism” (1972) 3 Wis. L. Rev. 720Google Scholar; Turner, Bryan S., For Weber. Essays on the Sociology of Faith (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981) at 318.Google Scholar

31 “If ‘industrial citizenship’ remains a legally accurate and sociologically useful way to think about the rights and entitlements of Canadian workers, one would have to add that it is a diminished, an impoverished sort of citizenship.” “Industrial Citizenship Reconsidered,” supra note 15 at 2.

32 Apart from Guylaine Vallée and Michel Coutu, the team included Guy Rocher – the well-known sociologist –, Jean M. Lapierre, a former legal adviser to the Centrale syndicale du Québec and Jean-Denis Gagnon, a labour law professor and arbitrator. See: “Implementing Equality Rights,” supra note 6; Vallée, Guylaine, Coutu, Michel, Hébert, Marie-Christine, “La norme d'égalité en milieu de travail: étude empirique de la mise en oeuvre de la norme d'égalité par le Tribunal des droits de la personne et les tribunaux d'arbitrage” in Vallée, Guylaine, ed., L· droit à l'égalité: les tribunaux d'arbitrage et le Tribunal des droits de la personne (Montréal: Thémis, 2001) 19.Google Scholar

33 Habermas, JürgenBetween Facts and Norms: Contribution to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996) 388–446.Google Scholar

34 Rocher, Guy, “Les fondements de la société libérale, les relations industrielles et les Chartes” in Blouin, Rodrigue, ed., Les Chartes des droits et les relations industrielles (Québec: les Presses de l'Université Laval, 1988) 1.Google Scholar

35 This is merely a methodological statement. A strong value relation underlies this work, in the sense that we consider the question raised to be of the greatest importance, that we are in no way indifferent to the plight of workers in an era of economic globalization and that we hope our research might serve practical ends, – such as a reinforcement of economic and social rights in the Quebec Charter, in order to prevent any individualistic and formal reading of section 10 of the Charter (right to equality).

36 See Weber, Max, Rudolf Stammler et le matérialisme historique, trans. by Coutu, Michel and Leydet, Dominique with the help of Rocher, Guy and Winter, Elke (Paris/Quebec: Éditions du Cerf/Presses de l'Université Laval, 2001).Google Scholar

37 That doesn't mean that hypotheses deduced from such constructions may not be proven false, according to the empirical methodology of social science.

38 “Implementing Equality Rights,” supra note 6 at 76ff. The following analysis relies closely on this study published in 2002.

39 We considered all the relevant arbitration awards that were either published or accessible through all available data bases.

40 “Implementing Equality Rights” supra note 6 at 77.

41 Ibid. at 79ff.

42 Since our study was completed, the legal frame of grievance arbitration and the “public law” facet of the arbitration process have been considerably emphasized by the Supreme Court of Canada. See Parry Sound (District) Social Services Administration Board v. O.P.S.E.U., Local 324, [2003] 2 S.C.R. 157.

43 “Implementing Equality Rights,” supra note 6 at 79.

44 Ibid. at 80.

45 Ibid. at 97.

46 Ibid.

47 Ibid. at 98.

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid.

50 Ibid.

51 Ibid. at 92ff.

52 Ibid. at 93ff.

53 Ibid., at 96.

54 See Max Weber, supra note 28 at 654ff.

55 See my own work on Canadian constitutional case-law, where I differentiate between formal, instrumental and value rational jurisprudence: Coutu, Michel, “Légitimité et Constitution: les trois types purs de la jurisprudence constitutionnelle” (2004) 56–57 Dr. & Soc. 1.Google Scholar

56 “Implementing Equality Rights,” supra note 6 at 96.

57 Lapierre, Jean M., Rocher, Guy & Vallée, Guylaine, “Légitimités et légitimations de l'arbitrage de griefs: La notion d'apprentissage chez Luhmann” in Coutu, Michel & Rocher, Guy, eds., La légitimité de l'État et du droit. Autour de Max Weber (Québec: Les Presses de l'Université Laval, 2005)Google Scholar [forthcoming].

58 For a few examples, see the following arbitration awards, where the concepts of “reasonable accommodation” and “undue hardship” are mobilized by the arbitration boards, but in a way which is a lot closer to usual labour-management rights and duties approaches than to human rights approaches as constructed by the Supreme Court and human rights tribunals across Canada: Fédération des infirmières et infirmiers du Québec c. Centre hospitalier des Vallées de l'Outaouais (C.H.V.O.), DTE 2000T-1145, 21/08/2000, (Mark Abramowitz, arbitrator); Syndicat des employés de soutien du Cégep de la Pocatière c. Céceg de la Pocatière, T.A., 20/3/2000, (Fernand Morin, arbitrator); Fédération des infirmières et infirmiers auxiliaires du Québec c. Hôpital Hôtel-Dieu de Lévis, 28/08/2000, T.A. (Lyse Tousignant, arbitrator); Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal c. Syndicat national des employés de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, T.A. 19/07/99 (André Ladouceur, arbitrator); Ville de Pointe-Claire c. Syndicat national des employés municipaux de Pointe-Claire (CSN), 31/8/1999, 99T-1113 (Marc Boivert, arbitrator); Centre hospitalier d'Amqui c. Syndicat canadien de la Fonction publique, local 1934, TA, 5/1/99, (Nicolas Cliche, arbitrator); Commission scolaire des Draveurs c. Syndicat du soutien scolaire de l'Outaouais, TA 10/12/1999, SAE 6971 (Rodrigue Blouin, arbitrator).

59 See Rogowski, Ralf, “Autopoietic Industrial Relations and Reflexive Labour Law in the World Society” in Wilthagen, Ton, ed., Advancing Theory in Labour Law and Industrial Relations in a Global Context (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1998) 67Google Scholar; Ralf Rogowski, “Reflexive Elements in Labour and Employment Conflict Resolution” (Paper presented at the Joint meeting of the Law and Society Association and the Research Committee on the Sociology of Law of the ISA, Central European University, Budapest, 4–7 July, 2001) at 28. In our perspective, system theory is a pure theoretical construct, which may nevertheless bring to light important social phenomena (see Coutu, Michel, “Le pluralisme juridique chez Gunther Teubner: La nouvelle guerre des dieux?” (1997) 12:2. C.J.L.S. 93.CrossRefGoogle ScholarCoutu, Michel, “Contrat et auto-référence en droit suivant Gunther Teubner: une «méprise constructive?” (1998) 40 Revue interdisciplinaire d'études juridiques 1.Google Scholar In other words, we basically use it as an heuristic device. We shall consequently have no difficulties grasping industrial relations as an autopoietic system; incidentally, the self-referential construct corresponds largely to the self-understanding of industrial relations theory as an autonomous discipline in its own right.

60 Teubner, Gunther, Law as an Autopoietic System (London: Blackwell, 1993).Google ScholarTeubner, Gunther, “Altera Pars Audiatur: Das Recht in der Kollision anderer Universalitäts-ansprüche” in Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, Beiheft 65 (1996) 199.Google Scholar

61 Supra note 42. Obviously, if arbitration boards are transformed into a species of State tribunals, it is doubtful that they could guarantee the collective autonomy of the workplace in the future.

62 This is in line with the methodological pluralism rightly advocated by Georg Simmel in his time.

63 Teubner, Gunther, “The Two Faces of Janus: Rethinking Legal Pluralism” (1992) 13 Cardozo L. Rev. 1443.Google Scholar

64 [1988] 2 S.C.R. 104.

65 See Ivanhoe inc. v. UFCW, Local 500 [2001] 2 S.C.R. 566.

66 If a “normative logic” gains the upper hand as regards arbitration proceedings, the meaning of such a paradigmatic change should be cautiously interpreted. Should a more central role for the Quebec Charter of Humans Rights and Freedoms necessarily mean the demise of “industrial citizenship?” Quite to the contrary, taking into consideration the Welfare State components of the Quebec Charter, may such a change not be viewed as an opportunity for an actualized and deepened citizenship at work for the unionized workers?

67 Offe, Claus, Contradictions of the Welfare State (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1984).Google Scholar

68 See Ulrich Zachert, “Legitimität arbeitsrechtlicher Beziehungen. Zur Legitimität Konzeption von Max Weber und Hugo Sinzheimer” (Paper presented at the International Conference on “La légitimité de l'Etat et du droit. Autour de Max Weber,” Montreal, April 2003), now published under the title: “Legitimation arbeitsrechtlicher Regelungen aus historischer und aktueller Sicht” (2004) 57 Recht der Arbeit 1.