Meet some of our researchers.
McMaster's School of Labour Studies has faculty expertise in:
- Precarious employment
- Unions and social movements
- Equity and diversity
- Labour politics and strategy
- Immigrant worker rights
- Health and safety
- Sexuality and gender
- Resource workers and workplaces
Leading Edge Research
Our faculty members conduct leading-edge research on domestic and international labour issues. We take interdisciplinary approaches to our research, drawing on theories and methodologies from across the Social Sciences, including Economics, Political Science, Sociology, Geography, Health and Aging, and Social Work. We are leaders in community-engaged scholarship, collaborating with unions, community organizations and policy-makers on research that will help make work better for everyone.
Wayne Lewchuk
(Labour Studies), B.A., M.A. (Toronto), Ph.D. (Cambridge)
Professor | LIUNA Enrico Henry Mancinelli Professor in Global Labour Issues
Wayne Lewchuk’s research focuses on the rise and effects of precarious work, especially on workers’ health, the restructuring of labour markets, occupational health and safety, and work reorganization, particularly in the auto sector.
Suzanne Mills
Associate Professor and Graduate Chair
Suzanne Mills’ research explores diverse topics pertaining to equity at work and worker representation. Her research addresses gender and indigeneity in resource employment and union engagement with Indigenous peoples and gender and sexual minorities.
Robert Storey
Associate Professor | Director of School of Labour Studies
Robert Storey’s teaching and research interests are concerned with societal inequalities and power, with a particular focus on workers’ struggles for safe and healthy workplaces, and, when injured, just compensation.
Judy Fudge
PhD, University of Oxford; Osgoode Law School, York University, Toronto ON; MA York University; BA McGill, Montreal
Professor (as of July 01, 2018)
Stephanie Premji (Melamed)
Assistant Professor
Research Leave: July 1, 2018-June 30, 2019
Stephanie Premji researches working conditions and health problems in jobs held primarily by women, immigrants and minorities (ethnic and linguistic). She also examines social inequalities across and within occupations that have implications for health.
Geraldina Polanco
Assistant Professor
Geraldina Polanco is an ethnographer and global scholar whose work is situated at the intersection of work and migration. Her research explores the role of labour-sending states in the regulation of temporary labour programs, and how Canada’s expansion of its Temporary Foreign Worker Program has introduced new regimes for establishing labour consent.
Stephanie Ross
Associate Professor
Research Leave: July-December 2018
Stephanie Ross’s research and teaching focuses on public sector unionism, union political strategy, emerging forms of worker organizing, labour movement renewal, and democracy in working-class and social movement organizations.