The Ghosts of Wagnerism: Organized Labour, Union Strategies, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Abstract

Wagnerism has been at the centre of Canadian labour relations since the end of World War II. Wagnerism rests on a so-called balance between workers and employers. Between 2007 and 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that the constitution includes protections for good faith collective bargaining and to strike. In these cases, the Court stated that it is not constitutionally enshrining Wagnerism, yet it also leaned heavily on Wagner principles in arriving at its decisions. Building on interviews with national union leaders, I argue that the ambiguity between the Court’s decisions and Wagnerism has left workers uncertain about how these rights alter the material conditions of unions. I conclude that the court’s embrace of labour freedoms will only have material benefit if workers are willing to use these newfound freedoms to build working class capacities to directly confront ongoing attacks by governments and employers on core union freedoms.