Core Courses

The purpose of the course is to develop a critical understanding of the institutions of unionism and collective bargaining, their rationale, policies and programs, and their effects on workers, organizations, and the society. The course will be taught in a comparative U.S./Canadian context with an emphasis on workplace change.

This course addresses the fundamentals of the law governing the individual employment relationship and the collective bargaining relationship; rights of the employee and employer at common law, and their modification by minimum standards statutes and human rights legislation; the development of contemporary collective bargaining legislation; the certification process; unfair labour practices and the duty to bargain.

This course addresses the fundamentals of the collective agreement and its administration through arbitration. The arbitration and adjudication process will also be studied, including such topics as powers of arbitrators and adjudicators and evidentiary issues. Students will have an opportunity to perform in mock arbitrations and adjudications.

This course will familiarize students with the basic responsibilities of the human resources function in organizations. The course covers topics such as strategic planning, job analysis, recruitment, selection, training and development, career planning, performance appraisal, compensation and international HRM. Students will learn about the various tools and techniques available to human resource professionals (such as environmental scanning, delphi methods and transition probability matrices, performance appraisal instruments, selection techniques, job evaluation methods, and some of the various applications of needs analysis) through the use of lectures, case analyses, student presentations, and the text book with supplemental readings.

This course examines contemporary labour market behaviour and processes and considers some of the emerging labour market issues and policies that are relevant to the study of industrial relations. The approach is to relate theory and empirical research from labour economics to industrial relations and institutional analyses. A selection of major topics that are typically covered include: the demand and supply for labour; human capital investments; contracts and compensation; unions and their impacts; and labour market discrimination and related public policy; and NAFTA related implications.

This course applied theories and methods from the behavioral sciences to the analysis of organizations.  Students are introduced to classical and modern theories of organization and their underlying assumptions of human nature, the relationship between organizations and their environment, and the role of power, politics and culture in decision-making.  Topics covered include job attitudes and job satisfaction, motivation, group formation, leadership and power, and organization design and culture.  Solutions/approaches to problems in organizations are covered at both the micro and macro levels.

This course focuses on the methods used to collect, assess, and evaluate industrial relations related qualitative and quantitative data and information in a variety of contexts. Example topics covered include designing and administering workforce surveys (including interviews and focus groups), compiling, analyzing, and presenting organizational data, and analyzing labour market survey data.