ABSTRACT
The conduct of labor relations in Canada and the United States is typically most closely identified with the contemporary system of collective bar gaining. Indeed, in the Canadian federal public service, the right of employees to form unions and engage in collective bargaining originated with the passage of the Public Service Staff Re lations Act in 1967. While this represented a major turning point in federal public-service labor rela tions, it was, in fact, not the beginning of the for mal system of industrial relations. Instead, it was a natural extension of what was then a nonunion system of labor and employment relations in the federal public service that had been in existence since the end of World War II and that had a for mal arrangement for joint labor-management con sultation as its centerpiece. This chapter examines the origins and development of the joint employee-employer council that afforded employ ees of the Canadian federal government a formal forum for joint consultation with their employer prior to the advent of unionism.
