Unit 1 - Lesson 1

Question 1

Define employer

Answer 1

An individual or organization that employs one or more individuals to carry out specified tasks, usually for pay.

Question 2

Define intentional discrimination

Answer 2

An action deliberately undertaken to deny opportunity to an individual on the basis of his or her personal characteristics.

Question 3

Define interprovincial component

Answer 3

The part of a business’s operations that cross provincial boundaries. A business whose operations have an interprovincial component will generally be regulated by federal rather than provincial labour law.

Question 4

Define jurisdiction

Answer 4

The legal responsibility for governance of an issue or area.

Question 5

Define labour relations board

Answer 5

A body established by a government to administer labour relations law.

Question 6

Define para-public/quasi-public sector

Answer 6

The labour market sector consisting of organizations funded by the government but not directly operated by the government (e.g., schools and hospitals).

Question 7

Define protected/prohibited grounds

Answer 7

Personal characteristics (e.g., gender or ethnic background) defined in provincial and federal human rights legislation as factors that are forbidden from being used as the basis of discrimination.

Question 8

Define public sector

Answer 8

The labour market sector consisting of municipal, regional, provincial, and federal governmentorganizations.

Question 9

Define quasi-judicial

Answer 9

Having regulatory, enforcing, or interpretive powers similar to those of a civil or criminal court, but not operating in exactly the same manner.

Question 10

Define systemic discrimination

Answer 10

Discrimination caused by policies or practices that have the effect of excluding particular individuals or groups, even if the policies or practices were not established with the intent to create discrimination.

Question 11

Define union

Answer 11

A group established by and for workers to represent them in the workplace.

Question 12

What are some of the arguments for using the term “industrial relations” to describe union- management relationship

Answer 12

it emphasizes that there are two parties in the relationship and does not focus only on “labour.” It also indicates that the relationship exists within the context of an industry or workplace.

Question 13

What are some of the arguments against using the term “industrial relations” to describe union- management relationship

Answer 13

the term should also be used to describe workplace relationships between employers and non-unionized workers.

Question 14

Does it matter whether we define the term narrowly or more broadly?

Answer 14

it does matter as according to one widely used definition, “industrial relations” is “a broad, interdisciplinary field of study and practice that encompasses all aspects of the employment relationship.” This definition clearly implies that the study of industrial relations includes both non-unionized and unionized work- places, and, in fact, in recent years, the scope of industrial relations research has expanded to include studies of non-unionized workplaces.