On October 23, an e-mail landed in my inbox with a cryptic subject line:
*TIME SENSITIVE| À LIRE MAINTENANT* TRCM: INVITATION - 2025-10-28 - Barry Eidlin
It was an invitation to testify before the Canadian Senate’s Committee on Transport and Communications. They were conducting “on maintenance of activities or essential services in the federally regulated rail and marine sectors in the case of labour disruptions,” as the invitation read, and they were seeking my expertise.
Strikes have been on the rise in recent years, and while workers have mobilized in many sectors, it’s the strikes in the transportation and logistics sector that have grabbed national headlines. Rail, longshore, airline, and postal workers have all walked out or been locked out. In the process they have snarled traffic, caused shipping delays, and otherwise disrupted everyday life and economic activity. The senators wanted to know what was causing this.
More specifically, they wanted to know how best to avoid these disruptions. Employer groups have been calling for tighter restrictions on workers’ right to strike, citing the intolerable economic costs and loss of reputation as a reliable trading partner on the international stage.
For its part, the federal government has responded to the recent rise in strikes in the federal jurisdiction by developing a of a previously arcane part of the Canada Labour Code known as Section 107. Using this interpretation, they have ordered striking workers back to work by referring disputes to the Canada Industrial Relations Board and imposing binding arbitration, dispensing with the need to pass back-to-work legislation.
At the hearing (held from 6:45—9:00 p.m., lest you think senators keep bankers’ hours!), all the other witnesses were representatives of various employer and trade associations. One by one, they rattled off statistics and shared anecdotes telling of the tremendous costs they were incurring as a result of repeated strikes. They warned the senators of the damage the strikes were doing to Canada’s global reputation as a reliable trading partner. While they all recognized the value of collective bargaining and that workers have a Charter-protected right to strike, they contended that the costs were simply too high to tolerate further strikes. They called for increased government intervention to prevent strikes.
Then it was my turn to speak. Drawing on more than two decades of into Canadian and U.S. labour relations, I reminded the senators that the purpose of strikes is to exert economic pressure on employers with the goal of compelling them to reach a negotiated settlement at the bargaining table. Employers concerned about economic and reputational costs could resolve those issues by showing more flexibility at the bargaining table.
My remarks focused on two key points: First, Charter-protected rights must not be violated systematically if the Charter is to have any meaning. And second, back-to-work orders are an ineffective means to achieve industrial peace.
I provided some on how previous federal governments responded to labour unrest. The lesson they learned the hard way was that placing further restrictions on workers’ ability to strike often had the opposite of its intended effect. Their reluctant conclusion was that employers had to be compelled to negotiate with workers for collective bargaining to function. I expressed concern that the current government was forgetting the lessons its predecessors learned.
The senators then asked questions of the witnesses, with some asking me what my solution to labour unrest would be, and others building on my comments about the importance of respecting workers’ Charter rights. Afterwards, several senators came up to me to express their appreciation for the historical perspective I brought to the proceedings.
While the careful work we do as social scientists, poring over data and publishing our findings in peer-reviewed journals, is essential, it is also vital to use our knowledge and expertise to shape public debate on the critical issues of the day.
While I can’t say for sure what effect my testimony will have on the senate committee’s report, let alone on subsequent policy reforms, I can say that I was able to provide the senators with a perspective they otherwise would not have heard.
I also know that historically, Canadian legislatures and courts have drawn on academic research to develop labour policy. Indeed, I have referred to some of these past reports written with input from previous generations of labour scholars in my own research. I appreciated getting the opportunity to continue that tradition.