Resolution Mediation

The character of work is changing so quickly that it’s hard to follow, let alone understand.

The study of work is changing along with it, leading McMaster University to expand its labour studies

program into a school of labour studies, a change that is to be announced officially at a reception today.

The school will be the first of its kind in Canada, just as the labour studies program was the first of its kind when McMaster launched it in 1976.

Since then, scholars in labour studies have followed issues that include the ascendancy of trade unions, the rise of women in the workforce, the decline of manufacturing, the growth of technology, globalization, and huge demographic shifts in the workforce.

And what began as an effort to empower local workers and union officials through education has grown into an academic program that draws students from as far away as Mexico, China and India.

“This is a recognition of where labour studies is in terms of what has been going on internationally, in Canada and in Hamilton,” said Don Wells, director of the program and now chair of the new school. “Labour studies has become so much more central to the major changes that are going on.”

Today, the community certificate classes that first linked the needs of unions to the resources of the university continue.

There are also about 1,400 students in McMaster’s first-year labour studies classes, which are part of the broader faculty of social sciences.

Some of those university students will go on to specific undergraduate degrees in labour studies. A handful will go all the way to master’s degrees, and one day the school hopes to develop a PhD program.

Graduates commonly end up working in labour law, research or negotiations, or in the fields of human resources or journalism.

In practical terms, the status change from program to school means more visibility and autonomy.

“I think it’s a very important step forward, symbolically and practically,” said McMaster president Peter George. “It will give them a much higher profile, not only on the campus and in the community, but also nationally and internationally.”

Until the change, faculty members in labour studies were cross-appointed from other parts of the university, always working under the primary authority of their home departments, limiting the program’s ability to plan for itself.

Still, it grew, developing a distinctive character both within McMaster and on the broader academic scene.

An external review of the university’s undergraduate programs in 2008 described labour studies as a “high-quality, innovative and community-rooted” program that deserved higher status, prompting the process of creating the new school, which the university’s senate and board of governors approved late last year.

Owing partly to its subject matter, labour studies grew up without much regard for traditional distinctions between professors, staff members, graduate students and undergraduates, who typically work on a first-name basis.

More than collegial, its model is co-operative, Wells said.

Another ingredient in the program’s success has been McMaster’s location.

Seated in a city and region where labour issues, economic restructuring and their consequences are particularly evident, scholars are in regular contact with the community, where they gather and share information.

The school’s research is practical, Wells said, and is typically aimed at solving specific problems. Current research projects include poverty and education and aboriginal employment issues.

“It’s a tradition of engaged scholarship,” Wells said. “It’s not just a fascinating intellectual question, but it’s about what potential impact people doing that research can have on the community.”

And while academic education and research in labour studies is producing papers and graduates, the school continues to offer non-degree certificate courses on its own and in conjunction with the Canadian Auto Workers and Mohawk College.

Certificate courses cover subjects such as conflict resolution, labour history and the impact of Walmart, and continue to bring members of the workforce into the university fold.

“We didn’t have a town-and-gown distinction from the very beginning,” Wells said.

McMaster’s labour studies program grew out of a joint venture between the university, the Canadian Labour Congress and the Ontario Federation of Labour, starting its life as a way to help workers themselves learn more about the world of work, including the labour movement.

Harry Waisglass scrambled to find the funding to start the experiment, leaving his job as the federal Labour Department’s director of research and development to start the program at McMaster.

He hustled again to keep the program from being cancelled on the eve of it receiving degree-granting status.

Waisglass retired from McMaster in June 1981, one month after securing the program’s future, realizing what he called a dream.

Today, Waisglass is nearing 90, and health issues prevent him from attending today’s ceremony.

His son David Waisglass (whose father’s work influenced him in the creation of Farcus, a syndicated cartoon about working life) said seeing the program grow confirms his father was on the right track, even though he had to battle through initial resistance to the idea of unionists and academics coming together.

“Throughout his long career, he’s fought to apply research, analysis, critical thinking, study and education in union-management relations,” he said. “To see the labour studies program become a school in the faculty of social sciences is just perfect.”

When labour studies grew into a degree program, 14 years before George became McMaster president, he was dean of social sciences.

He said it was important to maintain the original commitment to teaching non-degree courses to members and staff, right in their union halls.

“The commitment early on was to take education out to the labour community — don’t insist they come to the university, where they may feel a little awkward or shy,” he said. “That outreach to the labour community is important.”

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Resolution Mediation

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