The Freedom of Association Mess: How We Got into It and How We Can Get out of It

Canadian constitutional law regarding freedom of association for workers is a mess. The jurisprudence to date has taken an approach to state action and positive obligations to legislate which is inconsistent with section 15, and has failed to articulate the relationship between the abstract statement of basic rights or freedoms and the detailed statutes and regulations that instantiate and enforce them. This paper focuses on the impact of the recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in BC Health. The author argues that this case misunderstood Canada’s labour law history, international labour law obligations, “Charter values”, and the distinction between “freedoms” and “rights”.This paper argues that by using labour relations statutes as a starting point and applying the constitutional idea of equality, courts can protect freedom of association for workers and find a way out of the mess we are in.Le droit constitutionnel canadien relatif à la liberté d’association des travailleurs est un fouillis. Jusqu’à présent, la jurisprudence a traité de l’action étatique et des obligations positives de légiférer de manière incohérente avec l’article 15. Elle n’a pas réussi à articuler la relation entre l’énonciation abstraite des droits et libertés fondamentaux et les lois et règlements détaillés qui leur donnent vie et les mettent en oeuvre. Cet article se concentre sur l’impact de la décision récente BC Health de la Cour suprême du Canada. L’auteur affirme que plutôt que de clarifier le fouillis de la liberté d’association, cette affaire a mal saisi l’histoire du droit du travail au Canada, les obligations internationales en droit du travail du pays, les valeurs de la Charte, la nature des droits du travail et la distinction entre «libertés» et «droits».Cet article affirme qu’en s’appuyant sur les lois relatives aux relations de travail et en appliquant l’idée constitutionnelle d’égalité, les tribunaux peuvent protéger la liberté d’association des travailleurs et trouver une solution au fouillis actuel

The Michelin Amendment in Context

On Friday, December 28, 1979 an Act to Amend Chapter 19 of the Nova Scotia Acts of 1972, The Trade Union Act, received Royal assent. This piece of legislation is commonly (and much more conveniently) referred to as the Michelin Bill, the Michelin Act or the Michelin Amendment.\u27 Its namesake is Michelin Tires (Canada) Limited, the Canadian subsidiary of the large French multinational radial tire manufacturer. It must, and indeed it should, seem odd that a bill amending in general terms an act of general application (the Trade Union Act of Nova Scotia)2 should bear the name of a manufacturing company located in the province. But as seems to be admitted by all concerned, there is a direct link between Michelin and the amendment. Because the link has been openly admitted or alluded to by the government which passed the amendment, much of what is contained in this comment is not new or at all extraordinary. Also, because it seems generally conceded that the handle The Michelin Amendment fits, in large measure the issues surrounding the Michelin Amendment are not labour law issues at all. The central issue is one of fundamental economic, philosophical, and political principle. To put it simply, the amendment has a great deal to do with the basic political dilemma of trading fundamental, and in a sense intangible, rights or freedoms for economic gains or increases in the general economic welfare of an economically depressed area. This is so much more important a question than any problem of tinkering with technical labour law concepts such as appropriate bargaining units and community of interest that it overwhelms any attempted labour law analysis

Don’t Mess with Mr. In-Between

In a separate, related paper, we reveal and criticize an important “methodical error” which is commonly made in labour law jurisprudence. In this paper, we undertake a review of the attempts by Canadian and UK legislators and decision makers to overcome some of the problems of applying labour law’s traditional orthodoxy in the face of an ever more complex world by creating new categories “in between” the existing classes of employees and independent contractors. These attempts often fail precisely because they perpetuate the traditional approach and its methodological error, maintaining its perverse incentive structures. Our advice: “Don’t mess with Mr. In-Between”. Dans un article distinct, mais connexe, nous révélons et critiquons une « erreur méthodologique » importante qui est couramment commise dans la jurisprudence du droit du travail. Dans le présent article, nous examinons les efforts déployés par les législateurs et les décideurs canadiens et britanniques pour surmonter certains des problèmes liés à l’application de l’orthodoxie traditionnelle du droit du travail dans un monde de plus en plus complexe, en créant de nouvelles catégories « intermédiaires » entre les catégories existantes d’employés et d’entrepreneurs indépendants. Ces tentatives échouent souvent précisément parce qu’elles perpétuent l’approche traditionnelle et son erreur méthodologique, en maintenant ses structures perverses d’incitation. Notre conseil : ne vous asseyez pas entre deux chaises

Hunting for Employees, Employers, Independent Contractors, Dependent Contractors and Other Figments of the Legal Imagination

This paper exposes the falsity of a fundamental assumption of labour law—namely that there is such a thing as an “employee” or “employer” or “independent contractor” and that such legal entities can be “found” through an examination of the facts. As we shall demonstrate, once we have discarded the flawed assumption that “employees” or “employers” (or “independent” or “dependent contractors,” or “worker,” or any other legal creature) exist in the real world, we see that labour law’s purpose as it is currently widely understood is also fundamentally flawed. It is from this standpoint that a new conceptual framework for—and normative underpinning of—labour law emerges. Cet article expose la fausseté d’une hypothèse fondamentale du droit du travail, à savoir qu’il existe une notion d’« employé » ou d’« employeur » ou d’« entrepreneur indépendant » et que l’on peut « trouver » ces entités juridiques par un examen des faits. Comme nous le démontrerons, une fois écartée l’hypothèse erronée selon laquelle les « employés » ou les « employeurs » (ou les « entrepreneurs indépendants » ou « dépendants », ou les « travailleurs », ou toute autre création juridique) existent dans le monde réel, nous constatons que l’objectif du droit du travail tel qu’il est actuellement généralement compris est également fondamentalement erroné. C’est de ce point de vue qu’émerge un nouveau cadre conceptuel pour le droit du travail et son fondement normatif

Functional characteristics of calcitonin gene-related peptide receptors in human Ewing's sarcoma WE-68 cells

AbstractCalcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) receptor activity was studied in WE-68 human Ewing's sarcoma cells. 125I-human CGRP bound in a time-dependent, reversible and saturable manner. Scatchard plots were compatible with the presence of a homogenous population of CGRP receptors with high affinity (Kd = 15 pM, and Bmax = 1.9 fmolmg protein). The potency order of unlabeled peptides, in the presence of radioligand, was: human CGRP-II > human CGRP = chick CGRP > rat CGRP = rat [Tyro]CGRP > human [Tyro] CGRP > > salmon calcitonin (CT) > rat [Tyro]CGRP-(28-37). Each peptide except CT and [Tyio]CGRP-(28-37) stimulated cyclic AMP generation in a concentration-dependent manner, and the relative potencies paralleled their relative ability in inhibiting 125I-human CGRP binding. We conclude that WE-68 Ewing's sarcoma cells express genuine CGRP receptors which upon activation lead to stimulation of cyclic AMP formation.Calcitonin gene-related peptide; Calcitonin; cyclic AMP; (Human; Ewing's sarcoma cell

The impact of chemerin or chemokine-like receptor 1 loss on the mouse gut microbiome

Chemerin is an adipocyte derived signalling molecule (adipokine) that serves as a ligand activator of Chemokine-like receptor 1(CMKLR1). Chemerin/CMKLR1 signalling is well established to regulate fundamental processes in metabolism and inflammation. The composition and function of gut microbiota has also been shown to impact the development of metabolic and inflammatory diseases such as obesity, diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease. In this study, we assessed the microbiome composition of fecal samples isolated from wildtype, chemerin, or CMKLR1 knockout mice using Illumina-based sequencing. Moreover, the knockout mice and respective wildtype mice used in this study were housed at different universities allowing us to compare facility-dependent effects on microbiome composition. While there was no difference in alpha diversity within samples when compared by either facility or genotype, we observed a dramatic difference in the presence and abundance of numerous taxa between facilities. There were minor differences in bacterial abundance between wildtype and chemerin knockout mice, but significantly more differences in taxa abundance between wildtype and CMKLR1 knockout mice. Specifically, CMKLR1 knockout mice exhibited decreased abundance of Akkermansia and Prevotella, which correlated with body weight in CMKLR1 knockout, but not wildtype mice. This is the first study to investigate a linkage between chemerin/CMKLR1 signaling and microbiome composition. The results of our study suggest that chemerin/CMKLR1 signaling influences metabolic processes through effects on the gut microbiome. Furthermore, the dramatic difference in microbiome composition between facilities might contribute to discrepancies in the metabolic phenotype of CMKLR1 knockout mice reported by independent groups. Considered altogether, these findings establish a foundation for future studies to investigate the relationship between chemerin signaling and the gut microbiome on the development and progression of metabolic and inflammatory disease

Identification of the Regulatory Logic Controlling Salmonella Pathoadaptation by the SsrA-SsrB Two-Component System

Sequence data from the past decade has laid bare the significance of horizontal gene transfer in creating genetic diversity in the bacterial world. Regulatory evolution, in which non-coding DNA is mutated to create new regulatory nodes, also contributes to this diversity to allow niche adaptation and the evolution of pathogenesis. To survive in the host environment, Salmonella enterica uses a type III secretion system and effector proteins, which are activated by the SsrA-SsrB two-component system in response to the host environment. To better understand the phenomenon of regulatory evolution in S. enterica, we defined the SsrB regulon and asked how this transcription factor interacts with the cis-regulatory region of target genes. Using ChIP-on-chip, cDNA hybridization, and comparative genomics analyses, we describe the SsrB-dependent regulon of ancestral and horizontally acquired genes. Further, we used a genetic screen and computational analyses integrating experimental data from S. enterica and sequence data from an orthologous regulatory system in the insect endosymbiont, Sodalis glossinidius, to identify the conserved yet flexible palindrome sequence that defines DNA recognition by SsrB. Mutational analysis of a representative promoter validated this palindrome as the minimal architecture needed for regulatory input by SsrB. These data provide a high-resolution map of a regulatory network and the underlying logic enabling pathogen adaptation to a host