The New Work: Surveying the Landscape

Abstract

T his survey of the landscape of the new Canadian workplace has a strong temporal dimension. It is more akin to an historical atlas than to a topographical map in order to depict the changes to the Canadian labour market and the transformation in employment relationships and the Canadian workplace over the past 50 years. The benefit of an historical perspective is that it portrays continuity and change over the period in which our contemporary regime of employment and labour law was established. It allows us to identify the foundational assumptions about labour market actors and institutions upon which the key elements of Canadian employment and labour law were built. It also provides an opportunity to evaluate the extent to, and ways in which, employment and labour law has adapted to the profound changes globalization and neo-liberalism have caused in the labour market.