The Canadian Industrial Relations Assocition (CIRA) held its annual conference May 2-4 2018 at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). With the theme “Working for Fairness at Work – L’équité au travail,” this bilingual conference was an exciting opportunity to hear perspectives on industrial relations from across English- and French-speaking Canada.
The Centre was well represented at the conference, with many CIRHR faculty, doctoral students, and alumni in attendance.
Among the presenters were numerous CIRHR alumni: Elham Marzi (University of Toronto) “Helpful or Hindrance: Income averaging flexible work arrangements as source of Job Demands”; Joanna Pitek (Bishop’s University) “Looking back and looking to the side: the role of social and temporal comparisons in coworker perceptions of flexible work arrangements” with Svetlana Davis; Tingting Zhang (Western New England University) “Merging Unions and Merging Identities: A New Horizon?” with Lorenzo Frangi and Sinisa Hadziabdic; Johanna Weststar (Western University) “Seeking Fairness: Challenges of Discretionary Decision-Making in the Video Game Industry” with Marie-Josée Legault; Bruce Curran (University of Manitoba) “Liability to Responders to a Nuclear Accident: Where Should the Law Go?”; Rupa Banerjee (Ryerson University) “Constructing Careers: Migrant Careers in Construction Sector in Milan” with Lorenzo Frangi; Rachel Aleks (Cornell University) and Tina Saksida (University of Prince Edward Island) “Practice What You Preach: Gender (In)Equality in Labor Union Leadership”; Tony Fang (Memorial University) “Chinese unions in non-Chinese MNCs”; and Umar Boodoo (University of Warwick) “The Complexity of Labour Conflict: Insights from the United States” with Lorenzo Frangi, CIRHR Director Rafael Gomez, and Robert Hebdon.
The conference’s many roundtables also included a strong CIRHR presence: Professor Dionne Pohler spoke on both “HRM and Labour Relations: Two Solitudes?” and “The Future of CIRA as the Study of Work Evolves”; CIRHR Director Rafael Gomez spoke on “Labour Standards Revision in Quebec and Ontario, and at the Federal Level”; and CIRHR Communications Officer Cate MacLeod represented the CIRHR Library on “Sources and Resources for Research in Industrial Relations.”
The CIRA conference also set the countdown to the 2020 International Labour and Employment Relations Association (ILERA) Regional Congress of the Americas, which CIRA will host in Toronto. Mark your calendars!