Aug. 29, 2019
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, labour economics, and equality and diversity in the workplace.

Rob Kristofferson is a professor in Laurier’s History, Social and Environmental Justice and Social Justice and Community Engagement programs. 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: 519.756.8228 x5837 or rkristofferson@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 recently 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. Contact: jhennebry@wlu.ca or 226.772.3139.

Ivona Hideg, associate professor of organizational behaviour and human resource management at Laurier’s Lazaridis School of Business and Economics, is an expert on gender equality and diversity in the workplace and how prejudiced attitudes may undermine equality and equity. Recently, she has studied the role of benevolent sexism in the underrepresentation of women in leadership positions and the effects of parental leaves on men and women’s careers. Contact: ihideg@wlu.ca or 519.884.0710 x4414.

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 the economic, political and cultural factors impacting workers in recent decades, particularly related to worker bargaining power and real wages. She was formerly senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and has regularly commented on economic issues in the media. Contact: erussell@wlu.ca. Read more about her research.

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 well-being of employees in service positions, including their affective, cognitive, and behavioural reactions to stressors, such as being mistreated by customers. She is also examining the psychology of the retirement process. Contact: yzhan@wlu.ca or 519.884.0710 x4030.

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.