The right of employees to participate in the organization and design of work: A legal and social analysis

The law of employment contributes significantly to poor mental health among employees through the enforcement of rules which permit minimal participation in the organization and design of work. Lack of participation, through its effect on employees' sense of efficacy and worthwhileness, contributes to major losses in efficiency, productivity and the ability of individuals to function as fully competent members of a democratic society.;Particularly implicated in the defeat of employee mental health are those legal rules which assign to employers, as an implied term of the contract, the right to unilaterally govern the organization and design of work. Such rules characterize not only the Common Law of Employment, but also Collective Bargaining and Occupational Health and Safety Law where ideology would lead us to believe that the fundamental imbalance introduced by the implied management rights theory had been redressed.;In conducting a detailed examination of the substance and origin of the relevant rules, it is found that the basic, legally contrived skew which they bring about in the employment relationship cannot be justified in a society that claims to value autonomy and democracy. Indeed, the democratic imperative requires that the exercise of managerial authority be conditional upon the input and influence of employees. This imperative lies at the heart of proposed contractarian employment relationship described as Division of Labour in Good Faith. The legal incidents of this relationship are described in the framework of a draft statute called the Participation at Work Act which is to serve as the basis for discussion among key stakeholders in a proposed provincial Dialogue on Participation. The object of the proposed reform is to introduce a basic employee right to participate in the organization and design of work as a minimum standard for employment.;Mental health losses are observed primarily when work is organized and designed in such ways that employees can have little or no influence over their day to day work and over their fate as it entwines with strategic decisions involving plant closures, reorganizes, downsizing, relocations and the like.