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The Canadian Association for Work and Labour Studies (CAWLS) is calling on the federal government to collect more and better data on labour relations.
The academic association issued an open letter directed at Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) and Statistics Canada on December 10 encouraging the agencies to reform their data collection and begin producing more robust labour relations information.
Founded in 2013, CAWLS is a national association of more than 260 academic, union and community-based researchers focused on work and labour. (Full disclosure: I’m a member of the CAWLS executive committee.)
The letter was prompted by ESDC removing data tables reporting “work stoppages” from its website several months ago. This data normally provide information about the number and duration of work stoppages across the country, as well as person-days lost to strikes and lockouts. The data typically go back a decade.
As CAWLS writes, “It has now been over three months since [ESDC] quietly removed data tracking work stoppages from its website. This move also affected StatCan’s tables which report strike and lockout numbers historically. The removal of these data deprives researchers and unions of critical information.”
The government website reports that the data are “temporarily unavailable while we prepare updates to the dataset.” However, it’s highly unusual for strike and lockout data to be missing for such a long period of time.
ESDC has offered little further explanation for the missing data and has given no clear indication when it will become available again.
A spokesperson for the government agency rather cryptically told The Globe and Mail that “stakeholders raised concerns” about the work stoppages data for the 2022 to 2025 period. This does not explain why data covering previous years were removed nor why the longitudinal data at StatCan was pulled.
Work stoppages increased notably during recent years as workers and unions fought for higher wages amid a cost-of-living crisis. Strikes increased during and after the pandemic when inflation took a bite out of workers’ wages. They then peaked around the Common Front uprising in Quebec. While overall strike activity has slowed since, major strikes in several provinces suggest workers are continuing to feel the post-pandemic economic pain.
ESDC’s website continues to display data on average union wage settlements by jurisdiction and industry, as well as listings of recently ratified collective agreements. Its helpful “collective bargaining calendar,” which lists expiring and reopening union contracts, also remains available.
However, as CAWLS makes clear in its letter, being without work stoppage data poses significant challenges for researchers studying work and labour.
“Researchers rely on ESDC and Statistics Canada data to produce high-quality, public research about work and workers. Without reliable and up-to-date figures, we can’t analyze, compare and contextualize current industrial conflicts. And without consistent longitudinal data, we can’t identify trends and changes in labour relations,” the association writes.
The missing data is also a problem for unions. For example, Angelo DiCaro, research director at Unifor, told The Globe and Mail: “Work stoppage data is important for us, especially as we continually monitor the negative impact of replacement workers on the duration of labour disputes and bargaining outcomes,” adding, “If government is revising how they collect and display this data, that can be a good thing because we need to see more granular and reliable workplace data on strikes and lockouts.”
CAWLS is using the occasion of the missing work stoppage data to call for “deeper reflection about how Canada collects data on labour relations.” As the association points out: “Even after ESDC restores access to the work stoppages data, researchers in Canada will still lack critical information because government agencies do not collect sufficient data about unions and labour relations.”
For example, there is no national source of information about new union certifications, union membership, unfair labour practice cases, collective bargaining processes and outcomes, or work stoppages that take place when a collective agreement is in force.
“With no central source from which to obtain labour relations data, researchers must wait for annual reports (that may not provide the necessary information), or they must make time-consuming and potentially expensive individual requests to provincial labour boards or Statistics Canada,” CAWLS writes.
As McGill University sociology professor Barry Eidlin tweeted: “Something that really shocked me when I started researching Canadian labour issues was how so much data was either hard to find or non-existent. In recent months that has only gotten worse, with key datasets taken offline.”
CAWLS president Charles Smith told Class Struggle: “It is essential for the Canadian government to provide accurate and updated information about work, labour, and industrial relations. Without national data, we cannot understand the material reality that workers are enduring, nor can we construct an accurate picture of what is occurring with unions, collective bargaining, and the right to strike. Not only does the lack of data collection hurt labour relations researchers, it creates a policy vacuum because governments are not legislating in a manner that reflects conditions on the ground.”
Canada is a laggard when it comes to collecting and publishing data about unions and labour relations. As CAWLS points out, many other countries regularly collect this vital information and make it available to researchers and the public.
In the United States, for example, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) publishes monthly reports tracking union certification applications and unfair labour practice cases. The NLRB also makes a host of other data readily available, including graphs and tables reporting recent board decisions, complaints, union petitions and elections, and board-issued remedies. Certification and other filings are also updated daily through the Board’s website. This provides American researchers with detailed information that is generally unavailable in Canada.
The federal government should look to other countries for inspiration in reforming its labour relations data practices. But it could also obtain ideas from closer to home.
For instance, the Ontario Ministry of Labour’s collective bargaining database provides quarterly and annual information about private and public sector union negotiations, including wage settlements and sectoral wage trends, mediation, arbitration and settlement outcomes, as well as up-to-date files detailing the contents of recent collective agreements.
As CAWLS says, even a national level equivalent of Ontario’s database would be a substantial improvement on what’s currently available.
One of the primary challenges of creating better national-level data in Canada is that labour and employment are regulated provincially. As such, data collection and information sharing is patchy and uneven. Some provincial labour boards and ministries of labour produce regular data, while others release very little. Still, these challenges could be overcome with federal commitment and resources.
To take yet another instructive example, the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada publishes very good data about workplace injuries and fatalities, drawing its information from the records of provincial boards. As CAWLS argues, ESDC could work with provincial labour boards and ministries of labour to do the same for labour relations data.
CAWLS is therefore demanding that the federal government devote the resources necessary to begin collecting data about: “Union certification applications and union membership; Unfair labour practices and labour board decisions; Collective bargaining processes and outcomes; and other work stoppages, including during collective agreements.”
It’s time for the federal government to recognize the vital role that unions and labour relations play in Canada’s economy. The lack of timely and granular labour relations data hinders researchers’ ability to produce high-quality research that supports a more worker-friendly economy and society.
As CAWLS aptly puts it, “Collecting and publishing better information on labour relations in Canada will improve transparency and accountability, assist in the production of high-quality research, and, perhaps more importantly, demonstrate that workers in Canada are a priority.”
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