Laurier expert alert: Labour Day

Aug. 30, 2021
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. 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. He recently wrote about what’s pushing journalists to unionize. Contact: gdepeuter@wlu.ca

Tim Gawley, associate professor in the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, is an expert on media and film representations of occupational injury and fatality. 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. She has consulted for UN Women, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and multiple government agencies. Hennebry was named to the IOM's Migration Research Experts Syndicate, she is a member of the Canadian Council for Refugees’ subcommittee on migrant workers, and she is a member of the UN Expert Working Group on Women's Human Rights in the Global Compact for Migration. 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 the founder of the Gender+Migration Hub and coordinator of the Migrant Worker Health Expert Working Group, along with Professor Janet McLaughlin, which was formed in April 2020 to address the needs of migrant agricultural workers in Canada during the pandemic. Contact: jhennebry@wlu.ca

Robert Kristofferson is a professor in the History and Social and Environmental Justice programs. He is an expert on the history of labour, business, 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, a graphic history of a major strike in Hamilton in 1946. Contact: rkristofferson@wlu.ca

Janet McLaughlin is an associate professor in the Department of Community Health 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 a coordinator of the Migrant Worker Health Expert Working Group and has spoken about how policies put in place in response to the coronavirus pandemic have impacted migrant workers and the goods and services that Canadians rely on. Contact: jmclaughlin@wlu.ca

Ellen Russell, associate professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts, is an economist and expert on labour, public policy, wage trends and growing inequality. She is available to comment on the economic, political and cultural factors impacting workers in recent decades, particularly related to worker bargaining power and real wages, and the role of public policy in improving labour market conditions and promoting economic recovery. She was formerly senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and has commented on economic issues in the media. Read more about her research. Contact: erussell@wlu.ca

Yujie (Jessie) Zhan, associate professor in Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management, is an expert on work stress and well-being, emotion and emotional regulation at work, and older workers and retirement. She is currently studying the psychology of the retirement process to better understand older employees’ adjustment to post-retirement life, as well as the impact of age on employee coping with work-related changes. Contact: yzhan@wlu.ca