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1.1 Part III of the Canada Labour Code

The Canada Labour Code (hereafter the Code), through Part III, provides a regulatory framework for conditions of work (e.g., hours of work, treatment of overtime, conditions of dismissal, holidays, and related provisions). The Code applies in the federally regulated sectors. These sectors include interprovincial and international commerce, such as trucking, shipping and air transportation, banking (federal banks), communications, and selected other industrial sectors of importance to the Government of Canada, which are generally those outlined as being important to the federal infrastructure.³The Code defines conditions of work for over 700,000 Canadians.

Labour standards under the Code are paralleled by a similar set of regulations and provisions applied by each province and territory to non-federal sectors (these provincially regulated sectors include, for example, manufacturing, services, retail and wholesale, and agriculture [excluding grain elevators]).

Other parts of the Code regulate labour relations (Part I) and occupational safety and health (OSH) (Part II). Labour Affairs Officers (LAOs), who administer Part III, may in many cases also administer Part II.

1.2 Past Evaluation Research

This report is part of a continuing investigation of Part III of the Code and its workings in relation to public-policy goals, legislation, and broader human-resource concerns of the Government of Canada. Phase I of this evaluation research, completed in Fall 1997 (HRDC, 1997), indicated important benefits from Part III — that the Code resulted in a number of positive impacts for Canada as a whole.

The 1997 study demonstrated, for example, that particular benefits occur for workers (e.g., protected conditions of work), as well as for employers (e.g., level playing field). The 1997 evaluation research also demonstrated that compliance with the Code was not an unwarranted cost to employers.

The 1997 evaluation report identified a number of important issues, among them the issue of widespread non-compliance with Part III and the need for education and information for employers. These findings led to an hypothesis that new forms of education and information could improve compliance with the Code.

The Phase I study also highlighted some relationships between Part II and Part III of the Code. For example, the Phase I evaluation research indicated that Part III complaint processes had, for a number of years, been drawing resources from enforcement of Part II. This finding led to other discussions regarding the hypothesis considered in this study that employers not complying with Part II might also be non-compliant with Part III.

1.3 Purposes of the Phase II Study

The overall purpose of this evaluation study is to gather information to identify considerations for the Labour Programs with a view to keeping Part III of the Code in tune with social change and the changing nature of work.

The report builds on the first phase of work by examining in more depth the relation of Part III of the Code to labour-market changes, and particularly to the impacts of certain working conditions on workers. The Phase II study builds on new knowledge by examining a variety of labour conditions affecting workers, particularly as related to what has been termed here the "changing world of work" (CWW).

The report gives emphasis to the CWW and its implications for Part III. Various features of the CWW were explored, with results analyzed and implications drawn for federal labour standards using selected surveys in Canada and domestic/international key informant interviews. The report includes survey findings on employers' and workers' experiences with such CWW factors as part-time work, at-home work, teleworking, contracting, non-standard hours of work, etc., and the implications for labour standards regulations and administration.

Primary Purposes, Examining Key Issues in the CWW: The analysis was planned to emphasize key policy priority areas deemed to affect important goals for Canadian society and for human resources — quality of work, life-long learning, security, and quality of family life.

Each of these priority areas is rather broad. Quality of work life relates to the employees' assessment of the workplace setting per se, particularly in terms of such issues as hours of work, flexibility, and working conditions in general. Life-long learning incorporates the individuals' need to continuously upgrade himself/herself over the longer term to cope with increasing market and employer demands. Accordingly, the ease of access and the actual availability of training and upgrading are important issues. Security refers both to general security and workplace and job security, including all forms of harassment which might be associated with the workplace. Quality of family life relates to the specifics of the work situation as it affects the family. Quality of family life is closely linked to the quality of the workplace, particularly hours-of-work issues.

This report and the analysis to follow focus on the changing incidence of these work-life phenomena. The analysis examines negative impacts, as well as the positive features, of the CWW for workers and employers.

Other Purposes of the Evaluation: Using key informant interviews, this report includes substudies of several other issues in Part III, and also selected issues regarding Part II of the Code. The report examines federal labour standards as they affect First Nations in Canada and examines issues in Part II (OSH) and its potential linkups to Part III — the hypothesis noted earlier (and operational implications) that employers who are non-compliant under Part II of the Code may also be non-compliant under Part III. This is considered primarily from the perspective of operations — that a system to identify non-compliant employers in one part could aid in the efficient identification of non-compliant actors in the other part. In addition to these operational issues, the evaluation examines the topic of the potential need for a broader evaluation of Part II to ensure that OSH in the federal jurisdiction is achieving the best possible financial and human impacts within the most efficient operational framework for program delivery.

The report also examines issues in education, information and compliance; related issues in experimentation; certain implications of findings on the CWW, and their policy implications. Finally, consideration is given to the desirability of, and issues for, a possible Phase III evaluation of Part III.

1.4 Methodology

This section provides an overview of all the components of this study. Use of multiple methods is noted — as information has been gathered from a wide variety of sources.

As in the Phase I report, the key evaluation research and policy issues are approached from a number of complementary directions. For example, insights on the CWW (and the related issue of non-standard work [NSW]) are initially drawn from a broad review of the literature.

Additional insights are drawn from our review of the international literature, from a series of interviews with stakeholders and experts in Canada and abroad, and by means of two major surveys of employers and workers.

These surveys go beyond the past valuable work of Statistics Canada and others in examining such issues as hours of work and work arrangements. The surveys for this evaluation are "ground-breaking" in the sense of providing a first systematic look at the impacts of NSW. These surveys provide not only a look at the negative impacts of NSW on such areas as life-long learning and family life but also a view of the kinds of changes workers and employers would like to see employers and government making to deal with these issues in Canadian workplaces.

Thus, multiple methods are applied — the views of labour standards experts (particularly Canadian Association of Administrators of Labour Legislation [CAALL] officials, international officials, private-sector stakeholders, union officials, etc.) are highlighted against other forms of information, i.e., the literature reviews and the surveys of workers and employers.

The survey data permit us some important conclusions to be drawn with respect to NSW and the CWW. As well, the survey data illustrate some important differences in the CWW and NSW between federal and provincial jurisdictions.

The key elements of the CWW are also examined in the literature review, where issues are isolated under the priority areas discussed above (quality of work, life-long learning, security, and quality of family life). In a similar fashion, the domestic and international stakeholder interviews and the worker and employer surveys also focus heavily on the same key priority areas. Finally, a consistent set of policy issues is followed throughout the study.

1.5 Outline of the Report

The report is presented in 11 sections, as noted below:

Section 1: presents the basic raison d'être, approach, and method of the evaluation;

Section 2: outlines the core evaluation research questions;

Section 3: summarizes key findings from the literature;

Section 4: summarizes the domestic stakeholder interviews;

Section 5: presents findings from surveys of employers and workers;

Section 6: presents the international review of selected labour standards topics, with a focus on best practices and future expectations;

Section 7: discusses labour standards and First Nations;

Section 8: examines Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) and linkages to Part III;

Section 9: deals with issues relating to education and compliance as they affect Part III, including the potential for future experiments in this area;

Section 10: summarizes the findings and their implications for Part III of the Code; and

Section 11: deals with various future considerations for Part III.

Footnotes

3	Banks are federally regulated, but most other financial institutions, such as trust companies are provincially regulated. Other federal sectors include pipelines, grain elevators and First Nations.