Labour-Management Relations in the Construction Industry: The Findings of the Goldenberg Commission

Abstract

SINCE the Second World War there has been a growing awareness that labour relations in the construction industry do not lend themselves legislative frameworks designed cope with union-management relations in general.' In the United States this has given rise a number of provisions in the federal legislation which have particular reference the labour problems of the construction industry. Under the Taft-Hartley Act,2 for example, there was the banning of the closed shop and the prohibition of jurisdictional disputes and certain types of secondary boycotts. More recently, under the LandrumGriffin Act,3 unions in the building trades were exempted from some of the restrictions which apply union-security arrangements and the employment of secondary boycotts in industry and commerce generally. That there is also the need for a special legislative approach the labour relations problems of the construction industry in at least one jurisdiction in Canada has been shown by the work of the Goldenberg Commission4 in the Province of Ontario. After setting this work in perspective, this article will focus on the implications of the Commission's findings for the applicability of both the Ontario Labour Relations Act5 and such protective labour statutes as the Industrial Standards Act.6 *The author acted as Director of Research for t-he Commission. This is a modified version of a paper which was delivered the Sixth Annual Conference of the Association of Canadian Schools of Commerce and Business Administration. lSee US Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, To Amend the National Labor Relations 1947, with Respect the Building and Construction Industry, Hearings before the Sub-committee on Labor and Labor-Management Relations, 82nd Congress, 1st Session, Aug. 27-29 and Sept. 4, 1951 (Washington, 1951); and Paul B. Richards, Building and Construction Industry and the Taft-Hartley Act, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, II, no. 3, June, 1956, 13-16. 2Labor-Management Relations Public Law 80-101, 80th Congress, 1st Session, June 23, 1947. 3Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Public Law 86-257, 86th Congress, 1st Session, Sept. 14, 1959. 4The Commission was appointed in June of 1961 under a Provincial Order-in-Council (O.C.-2622/61, June 27, 1961) which instructed it to inquire into and report upon the relations between labour and management in the construction industry in Ontario, and such other matters as in the opinion of the Commissioner may pertain thereto. With the appointment of H. Carl Goldenberg, O.B.E., Q.C., as sole Royal Commissioner, it became known as the Goldenberg Commission. The Commission's Report, the Report of the Royal Commission on Labour-Management Relations in the Construction Industry was released in March, 1962. It will be referred as the Goldenberg Report. 5Throughout this paper reference will be made the Labour Relations Act (Rev. Stat. Ontario, 1960, c. 202) as it stood prior the Goldenberg Commission. Changes which have been enacted, along with a number of other dev,elopmnents since the publication of the Report, have been the subject of a paper by the author at the Spring Meetings of the Industrial Relations Research Association, 1963. 6Rev. Stat. Ontario, 1960, c. 186.