10.2190/JC0P-0538-0026-R49X JC0P05380026R49X 0 LAWYERS AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE CANADIAN PUBLIC SECTOR 20020509 20020509 20020509 20020509 http://baywood.metapress.com/link.asp?target=contribution&id=JC0P05380026R49X 2 KENNETH WM. THORNICROFT Collective bargaining within the legal profession is a relatively new phenomenon, both in Canada and the United States. There is nothing particularly surprising in this, given that public sector bargaining itself only began to take hold in the late 1960s. It has been suggested that lawyers and other "traditional" professionals, such as doctors, accountants, and engineers, are less amenable to the entreaties of union organizers than are other occupational groups. Attitudes among salaried lawyers in the public sector are changing, however, as their customary earnings parity <em>vis-a-vis</em> their private sector colleagues erodes. Another catalytic factor may be the increasing "deprofessionalization" experienced by lawyers employed in the public sector. In Canada, undoubtedly, legislative barriers have slowed the diffusion of collective bargaining by lawyers in the public sector although, as the Ontario experience shows, the absence of enabling legislation may not always prove to be an insurmountable obstacle.