Laurier expert alert: Labour Day

Aug. 31, 2020
For Immediate Release

Waterloo – Labour Day is celebrated on the first Monday of September. The holiday was created to celebrate the achievements of workers.

Wilfrid Laurier University has experts across a range of disciplines available to speak about related topics, including the history of labour movements in Canada, immigrant and migrant workers’ rights and labour economics.

Jason Dean, instructor in the Laurier’s Lazaridis School of Business and Economics, is an expert in labour economics and the economics of immigration. He can speak about topics related to employment, wages and taxation, including how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting workers. His past research has focused on the work of Canadian immigrants, in the present day and prior to the First World War. Contact: jadean@wlu.ca

Greig de Peuter is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies. He researches working conditions and labour politics in cultural and media industries. His recent research addresses union organizing, worker-driven policy reform proposals, and worker-owned co-operatives. Contact: gdepeuter@wlu.ca

Tim Gawley, associate professor in the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, is an expert on media representations of occupational injury and fatality in Canada, especially in the print news media. Contact: tgawley@wlu.ca

Jenna Hennebry is an associate professor in the Balsillie School of International Affairs and co-founder of the International Migration Research Centre at Wilfrid Laurier University. She has carried out globally comparative research on labour migration governance; migrant worker rights, social protection and health; and gender and migration for over 15 years. Her work has informed policy recommendations and rights-based approaches to governance of labour migration at local, provincial, national, regional and international levels. Hennebry is a coordinator of the Migrant Worker Health Expert Working Group, along with Associate Professor Janet McLaughlin, which was formed in April to address the needs of migrant agricultural workers in Canada during the pandemic. Read about the working group’s recommendations to provincial and federal government agencies. Contact: jhennebry@wlu.ca

Robert Kristofferson is a professor in the Department of History and for the Social and Environmental Justice program and coordinator of the Master of Social Justice and Community Engagement program. He is an expert on the history of labour, businesses, class formation and social movements in Canada. His research has focused on how the rise of industrial capitalism in Canada was experienced by skilled workers and their unions. He has produced an app and website detailing some of Hamilton’s labour and industrial history and co-wrote Showdown! Making Modern Union, which tells the story of a major strike in Hamilton in 1946. Contact: rkristofferson@wlu.ca

Janet McLaughlin is an associate professor in the Department of Health Studies and a research associate with the International Migration Research Centre. She is an expert on migrant workers’ rights, health and safety, and compensation. Her research has focused in particular on temporary foreign workers from Mexico and Jamaica who labour in Ontario agriculture. McLaughlin is available to speak about how policies put in place in response to the coronavirus pandemic is affecting migrant workers and how this could impact the goods and services that Canadians rely on. McLaughlin is a coordinator of the Migrant Worker Health Expert Working Group, with Associate Professor Jenna Hennebry, formed in April to address the needs of migrant agricultural workers in Canada during the pandemic. Read about the working group’s recommendations to provincial and federal government agencies. Contact: jmclaughlin@wlu.ca

Ellen Russell, associate professor in Laurier’s Faculty of Liberal Arts, is an economist and expert on labour, public policy, wage trends and growing inequality. She is available to comment on how the COVID-19 outbreak is impacting Canadian workers and the role of public policy in improving labour market conditions and promoting economic recovery. Russell was formerly senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Read more about her research. Contact: erussell@wlu.ca