Vertical Disintegration and Related Employers: Attributing Employment-Related Obligations in Ontario

The traditional basisfor attributing employment-related rights and

obligations has been the personal, bilateral contract ol employment.

However the decline of the vertically integrated firm as the dominant

model of economic production, and the rise of complex new forms of

business organization in which employmentfunctions may be divided

among a number ol entities, have created significant challenges to using

the traditional conception ol employment in order to identify the

employer This paper considers how courts and legislatures have sought

to address the problem ol attributing employment-related responsibili-

ties among multiple employing entities. It does so by examining the con-

cept ol "associated" or "related" employers in three legal contexs, with

an emphasis on Ontario: the contract ol employment at common law,

employment standards legislation, and collective bargaining legislation.

The authors argue that while some attempts have been made to move

away from a bilateral approach to the employment relationship and an

emphasis on the legal form of the corporation, those attempts have been

piecemeal, and have been undermined by the tendency ol courts and tri-

bunals to limit the intended scope ol protective legislation by ignoring

the statute's language and purpose, and by applying instead contract or

corporate law principles.