Professor Mark Thompson, who died July 24 at the age of 86, was a major figure in the field of labour relations.Martin Dee/Supplied
Over half a century of scholarship, arbitrations, international consulting and quiet advocacy, Mark Thompson exerted a far-reaching influence on industrial relations policies that advanced the cause of workers, while steering clear of the trenches that often mark labour confrontations. Although unwavering in his belief that unions are a legitimate part of society, the long-time professor of industrial relations at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business was nevertheless renowned for his fair and judicious approach.
His rich legacy covered areas as diverse as farm workers toiling in the fields of the Fraser Valley, public-sector bargaining, unions in Mexico, occupational health and safety in Eastern Europe, and the rarefied halls of academia, where he was on the ground floor of successful efforts to bring collective bargaining rights to university faculty. He considered labour relations not merely as policy but as a path to a more just society.
Economist Jim Stanford, director of the Centre for Future Work and former head of policy for Unifor, said workers owe Prof. Thompson a great debt “because of how he helped to build a labour relations culture that is collaborative and constructive and advances the goal of fairness. And we need a lot more of that right now.”
For years, his deep knowledge and reputation for even-handedness made Prof. Thompson the go-to person for the media, whenever there was a difficult labour dispute that required context.
“He was a giant in the field of labour relations, known internationally and part of a great generation of people in labour relations [in the latter 20th century],” said Paul Gallina of Bishop’s University, who worked with Prof. Thompson on international research projects.
But Prof. Thompson, who died July 24 at the age of 86 after being hit by a motorcycle in Mexico, was not without strongly held views, particularly on behalf of those he felt were poorly treated.
In 1993, he stepped aside from his university position to head a year-long independent commission to review employment standards in B.C. that had been unchanged for decades. The result was a groundbreaking report that shook up the staid world of employment standards.
After travelling the province, Prof. Thompson called for tens of thousands of workers in dozens of job classifications, including farm labourers, domestic workers, taxi drivers and, quaintly, newspaper carriers, to be covered by mandatory workplace standards, including the minimum wage, for the first time. He also proposed improved pay and benefits for minimum-wage earners, and strong measures to curb exploitation of farmworkers by unscrupulous labour contractors. Most of his recommendations were implemented by the province’s NDP government.
When employers complained the changes were academically driven and too costly, Prof. Thompson retorted: “I could have stayed in my ivory tower, but I didn’t. We hit the road and heard what people said. Should we deny 29,000 [agricultural workers], 40 to 60 per cent of whom are women, the most basic right: the right to a minimum wage? If some people are going to be affected in a negative way, I’m sorry.”
His wife, Mary Thompson, recalled a woman who worked as a nanny approaching Prof. Thompson to ask if she could give him a hug. “Because of you, I don’t have to sleep in the laundry room anymore.”
When a B.C. Liberal government rolled back some of the reforms spearheaded by Prof. Thompson, the normally mild-mannered academic co-authored an angry investigative report titled Harvest of Shame, lashing out at the Liberal government for its tolerance of “deplorable living and working conditions in our backyard.”
Prof. Thompson headed a year-long independent commission to review employment standards in B.C., resulting in a groundbreaking report.Drew Thompson/Supplied
Mark E. Thompson was born in Oakland on June 17, 1939, but grew up in the northern California city of Redding, where his father ran the local Caterpillar dealership. It was there that he first noticed the plight of agricultural workers in the fields outside the city, poorly paid with little protection. It instilled an empathy for the vulnerable that never left him. Undoubtedly as a consequence, he considered his commission into employment standards that led to concrete measures to improve their lot to be the signature achievement of his long career. He maintained his involvement as founding chair of the Farm and Ranch Safety and Health Association, which educated farming communities on the benefits of the occupational health and safety regulations he helped write.
He obtained his undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Notre Dame, the logical place of study for a bright, devout Catholic, whose faith was fundamental to his beliefs.
“The kids would always complain,” Ms. Thompson remembered, “but in the days before the internet, whenever we were in a new place, the first thing we’d do was drive around town and find a Catholic church to find out when Sunday mass was, so we could attend.”
When he was drafted into the U.S. military, Mark Thompson opted to enter the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, which financed his master’s and PhD studies in industrial relations at Cornell University. His doctoral thesis was an early indicator of his gift for original academic inquiries. With the unassuming title, Collective Bargaining in the Mexican Electrical Industry, it was the first study to take a serious look at how unions operated in Mexico.
After he graduated, his fluency in Spanish prompted the military to assign him to counterintelligence in Washington, translating documents obtained from revolutionary hot spots in Central and South America. His roommate during officer training was later part of the operation to track down and kill the legendary rebel Che Guevara in Bolivia.
The future UBC professor also travelled to several countries as part of his counterintelligence duties, although without the drama of the search for Che. For years afterward, he avoided travel to those countries out of fear that his name was on a “spy list” and he might be denied entry, or worse.
It was in Washington that he met naval nursing supervisor Mary Carey. She ordered military police to escort him and a friend out of a naval hospital where they had gone to celebrate at a nurse’s birthday party but where they were not allowed. Despite this rocky beginning, the two began dating and married a year later, in 1968.
Following his discharge from the military, Prof. Thompson opted for Canada and a year teaching industrial relations at McMaster University in Hamilton, followed by two years with the International Labour Organization in Geneva. He returned to Canada in 1971 to take a position with the Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration (now the Sauder School of Business) at UBC. He was still Professor Emeritus at Sauder when he died. During his early years at UBC, Prof. Thompson was active in the Canadian Association of University Teachers in its successful drive to convince faculty of the need for collective bargaining.
With a body of work that encompassed 80 published articles, numerous visiting fellowships at other universities, constant research and more than 200 arbitrations over the years, Prof. Thompson had a deep-seated influence on industrial relations and collective bargaining. In 1983, he became only the second arbitrator from B.C. to be admitted to the U.S. National Academy of Arbitrators, and, although arcane to non-academics, several of his studies on the science of collective bargaining were pivotal in changing long-held assumptions.
Mr. Stanford, of the Centre for Future Work, said Prof. Thompson wasn’t one of those academics who research labour, then pound their chests and tell unions what they should be doing.
“We’re not lab rats,” Mr. Stanford said. “Mark was a different breed. He was obviously very sympathetic to the union movement, but he wasn’t in its hip pocket. Not even remotely.”
Prof. Thompson earned further praise from Mr. Stanford for not restricting his research to the labour side of the bargaining table but including management behaviour, too. “Unions often don’t think at all about the other side. They just imagine themselves dictating the outcome. So that was valuable work Mark did,” Mr. Stanford said.
In addition to his myriad academic activities, Prof. Thompson was also a superb teacher and mentor, always taking time to school often conservative business students on the importance of unions.
He received the Gérard Dion Award for excellence in industrial relations, an honorary degree from Laval University for the “advancement of justice in the workplace” and in 2018, he was admitted to the Order of Canada.
He leaves his wife, Mary; children, James, Julie and Drew; six grandchildren; and his sister, Peggy Desmond.
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