DEVELOPING INDUSTRIAL CITIZENSHIP: A CHALLENGE FOR CANADA'S SECOND CENTURY

Abstract

By about 1900, the Canadian wage earner, no longer bound to master or landlord by criminal sanctions or seigniorial obligations, was free to sell his or her labour on the open market. As a result, the rights and duties of the Canadian worker were created not by individual contractual acts, but by a process of piecemeal public and private legislation. There is, then, an emerging “industrial citizen” whose juridical attributes may be analogised to those of citizenship generally. H.W. Arthurs traces the evolution of industrial citizenship and examines the interrelationship between government, unions and management and the corresponding benefits, burdens, freedoms and responsibilities. The kaleidoscopic nature of this pattern of rights and duties demands a protean approach on the part of judges and lawmakers in the future.