Bill Cole

Bill Cole has represented labour unions in the public and private sectors for more than three decades. This has included police, firefighters, airline pilots, health care, public and private sector workers in collective bargaining, often as spokesperson, strategist, researcher or general advisor. With an emphasis on the public sector, he has represented unions in more than one hundred and fifty interest arbitrations as spokesperson or nominee.

Bill is a Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program where his research interests include negotiations, dispute resolution systems, organizational development and related topics. He is a frequent speaker at Harvard’s Trade Union School, as well as to audiences across Canada and United States.

He is the co-author of a leading text on negotiations – “The Art of Collective Bargaining” (available at Thomson Reuters), and has written extensively on this and other contemporary legal issues.

Bill has a Master of Laws degree from Osgoode Hall law school where his research included a detailed review of the effectiveness of mediation-arbitration in the police and firefighter sectors in Ontario. He is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and the Canadian Industrial Relations Association. He is also a goalie-parent who spends many hours in cold hockey rinks throughout Ontario.