Below you will find biographies for Podcast Participants and the Producers of Work In The West
David Camfield is Associate Professor of Labour Studies & Sociology at the University of Manitoba. He is a member of the Editors' Advisory Committee of Labour/Le Travail. He is the author of We Can Do Better: Ideas for Changing Society and Canadian Labour in Crisis: Reinventing the Workers' Movement, and is currently completing a book on capitalism and the politics of climate change forthcoming in 2022 from PM Press.
Tracy Zambory has been a Registered Nurse for 32 years and is President of the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses. Tracy also represents her members as the current Vice President of the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour and as an Officer on the National Executive Board of the Canadian Federation of Nurses' Unions.
Tom Walker teaches courses in The Politics of Working Time and Labour and the Environment in the Labour Studies Program at SFU. He has been a peace and social justice activist since the 1960s and has over 40 year’s experience as an educator and social policy research consultant to unions, community organizations, and federal, provincial and municipal government agencies. Since 1995, Tom has immersed himself in research on working time.
Tom's writing on the history of thought around working time have appeared in the Marshall Studies Bulletin, the Review of Social Economy, and as chapters in two books, Working Time: International Trends, Theory and Policy Perspectives (2000) and Toward a Good Society in the Twenty-First Century: Principles and Policies (2012). Forthcoming in Contributions to Political Economy (2021) is "The Ambivalence of Disposable Time: The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties at 200," a study of the unheralded influence of the 1821 pamphlet on Marx's analysis and on contemporary Marxism.
Julie Guard is Professor of History and Labour Studies at the University of Manitoba. Her recent book, Radical Housewives: Price Wars and Food Politics in Mid-Twentieth Century Canada (UTP), was awarded the Errol Sharpe Book Prize for 2021 by the Society for Socialist Studies and received an Honourable Mention by the Canadian Committee on Women’s History in 2020. Her work on women’s, labour, and left history, social movements, and on labour policy and contemporary union struggles, has published in a number of international journals. She is co-editor, with Wayne Antony, of Bankruptcies and Bailouts (Fernwood, 2009). Her most recent publication is, “Austerity Politics and Anti-Union Animus: Organized Labour in the Pandemic,” in COVID-19 in Manitoba: Public Policy Responses to the First Wave (UMP) 2020.
A Cree and Saulteaux, Cadmus Delorme is a citizen and currently Chief of the Cowessess First Nation. Mr. Delorme received a Master of Public Administration from the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy and a Bachelor of Business Administration along with a Certificate in Hospitality, Tourism and Gaming Entertainment Management from the First Nations University of Canada (FNUniv). While a student, Mr. Delorme served in several capacities within the student association, including vice-president and president, and also served as a student ambassador. In 2012 he was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for his student leadership and the hospitality he showed to Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, when they visited FNUniv in 2012. Mr. Delorme has also been named one of CBC Saskatchewan’s Future 40, which celebrates the province’s new generation of leaders, builders and change-makers under the age of 40.
Suzanne Mills is Associate Professor in the School of Labour Studies and the School of Earth, Environment and Society at McMaster University where she has been recognized as a University Scholar. Mills’ research examines gender, sexuality and work as well as how colonial relations shape work and Indigenous employment in construction, mining and forestry. Mills has collaborated with Inuit and First Nation communities to identify factors that aid or hinder employment on resource development projects. In her most recent research, Suzanne partnered with Unifor, the United Steelworkers, two worker centres and multiple 2SLGBTQ+ organizations to examine the experiences of LGBTQ+ workers in Windsor and Sudbury, Ontario. Mills has written multiple community reports and published articles in national and international journals including Environment and Planning A, Geoforum, and Arctic
Adriane Paavo was born and raised in Saskatchewan, on Treaty 6 territory, and has worked for trade unions, alternative media, and international solidarity organizations. She holds an MA from OISE/UT and currently leads the United Steelworkers national education and equality department. Adriane is a co-author of Cracking Labour’s Glass Ceiling: Transforming Lives through Women’s Union Education (Fernwood Publishing, 2019).
After completing an MA in Labour Studies at McMaster University, Benjamin Owens has worked as a researcher on the Work and Inclusion Project with Dr Suzanne Mills. His research focuses on customer violence and LGBTQ+ workers. He also works on the research team at Covenant House Toronto, doing research on the impacts of COVID-19 on the city’s youth shelter system.
Sean Tucker is Associate Professor of Human Resource Management in the Faculty of Business Administration at the University of Regina. Sean’s primary area of research is occupational health and safety. His other research interests include industrial relations, specifically employer responses to unionization and labour law reform in Canada.
After teaching in law schools in Canada and the UK, Judy Fudge now teaches in the School of Labour Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. She has written widely on many labour law topics, including the history of Canadian labour law, labour rights as human rights, precarious work, migrant labour, equal pay, discrimination at work, and the contract of employment and the scope of labour protection. She adopts a socio-legal and feminist approach to examining work. Her current research investigates legal strategies to combat modern slavery, labour exploitation and unfree labour in supply and labour chains. She has worked with feminist groups, workers’ centres, trade unions, lawyers and the International Labour Organization.
Janice Jarvis has been employed with Canada Post since 2008. She is active in her union – the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) - as President of the Salmon Arm - Revelstoke Local since 2015. Janice is committed to the ideal that unions are vital for all working people, and have secured important benefits for all workers in Canada, like paid parental leave and the 5 day work week.
Barbara is the President of SEIU-West, a province-wide local that represents over 13,000 members in a multitude of sectors in Saskatchewan. She was exposed to the trade union movement at a very young age. She followed her passion for cooking and became a Red Seal Chef by trade, and later became a member of SEIU Local
299 when she began working at Extendicare in Regina. She lives in Regina with her husband Dave. She has one son, Max, who she is really proud of. Her family are a constant support in her fight for respect for working people.
Barbara has always been a passionate advocate for social justice and fairness and this has led to her work within the trade union movement. She joined the Executive
Board of Local 299 and became President prior to the creation of SEIU-West. She's been the President of SEIU-West since 2008. She has a genuine interest in what our members do and as President she balances the needs of members while engaging the public in supporting positive and progressive changes to society that benefit everyone.
While women are a huge component of the workforce, we still often see men leading unions. Barb stands amongst these presidents, leading the way for worker's rights across the prairies. She loves a good rally, stands in solidarity with strikers, encourages those fighting for better every day, and truly embodies what the trade union movement is all about.
A leader raises others up, educates and empowers others to step forward, encourages and supports others to find their own voices. Time after time, we have all witnessed Barbara Cape encourage members to lead the union. For her, it's about the movement and growing capacity. She truly is happiest watching others fight for what's right.
But where there is a fight, there is a Barb! She stands with, for and beside trade union members every day, and in solidarity for a better Saskatchewan. Her work is inspired by the members she serves and her drive to support workers in their fight for dignity and respect in the workplace.
Sara Birrell is a writer and student from southern Saskatchewan. She is the editor of the Sask Dispatch, an independent, anti-colonial Saskatchewan-focused publication. Her writing can be found in Passage, Briarpatch Magazine, Media Co-op, and Canada Files.
Emily Eaton is an associate professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Regina. She has studied the corporate power and influence of the fossil fuel industries on rural institutions and culture in oil-producing municipalities (https://cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/3305) and examined the influence of oil and energy interests in Saskatchewan’s K-12 education system (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2019.1650164). She is currently involved in a community-engaged research project pushing to prioritize justice and equity principles in Regina's 100% renewable city strategy (https://www.uregina.ca/arts/assets/docs/pdf/renewable-regina-report-final.pdf) and in research about transition and anti-transition movements in Quebec and Atlantic Canada. She has two books: Growing Resistance, Canadian Farmers and the Politics of Genetically Modified Wheat (https://uofmpress.ca/books/detail/growing-resistance) and Fault Lines, Life and Landscape in Saskatchewan's Oil Economy (https://uofmpress.ca/books/detail/fault-lines).
Professor Curran is primarily focused on using empirical methods to study labour & employment law and dispute resolution. He has a diverse and extensive academic background. He earned a Bachelor of Laws from Western; a Master of Industrial Relations from the University of Toronto; and a Masters of Law in Alternative Dispute Resolution from Osgoode Hall Law School. Professor Curran has also earned a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, which further augments his interdisciplinary capacity. He obtained it at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources, which has a rigorous emphasis on empirical methodology. The skills he has gained enable him to conduct empirical legal research, a burgeoning and fertile area.
Doctor Curran has developed and honed skills for innovative and high-quality scholarly research. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and chapters in the area of labour and employment law. Many of these publications utilize sophisticated statistical analysis. Professor Curran is also a member of the national Labour Law Casebook Group, a group of Professors from across Canada who have published the authoriative Canadian casebook for labour and employment law.
In addition to his research abilities, Dr. Curran is an outstanding teacher. He is passionate about teaching many different areas of law, especially dispute resolution, negotiation, contracts, labour and employment law, trusts, and human rights. He is especially interested in experiential and multi-disciplinary approaches to teaching. Before becoming a Professor at University of Manitoba Faculty of Law, he was a Lecturer in the Legal Studies program at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) (now Ontario Tech University), where he taught a number of courses roughly analogous to those on the JD curriculum. Professor Curran has also taught courses at Osgoode Hall Law School, and the University of Toronto.
Professor Curran has received a number of awards and honours for his teaching. While teaching at UOIT, he was the 2015 recipient of the Award of Teaching Excellence in the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities. Since coming to the University of Manitoba, he was honoured with the University of Manitoba Merit Award for Teaching Excellence for the Humanities and Social Sciences section. Moreover, he has been nominated twice for the Barney Sneiderman Award for Teaching Excellence, and he was selected by one of his former students for recognition at the Students’ Teacher Recognition Reception in 2020. His teaching experiences have inspired him to take a number of teaching courses, including an optional full semester course called “Teaching in Higher Education”, which provided an excellent foundation in pedagogical research and methods.
Kevin Bittman worked as a master operator at the Co-op Refinery for twenty years. Thirteen of those were spent as president of Unifor Local 594, representing 700 workers at the plant. Last summer, Bittman stepped away from these positions after a bitter seven-month lockout.
Charles Smith is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan. His research interests include Canadian and international political economy, public law, labour unions, and federal and provincial public policy. He is the author of Transforming Provincial Politics (2015) and Unions in Court: Organized Labour and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (2017). He has also authored numerous articles on Saskatchewan politics, labour in court, and labour history. Charles is also co-editor of Canada's foremost labour studies journal, Labour/Le Travail.
Benjamin Anderson is a PhD Candidate in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University (SFU), where he studies work and organizing in artisanal industries. He is involved in a number of worker-led campaigns and initiatives seeking to build organizational capacity for precarious workers in these industries. He teaches in SFU’s Labour Studies Program and School of Communication. His work has appeared in Labour/Le Travail: Canadian Journal of Labour Studies, and Unmediated: Journal of Politics and Communication, and a variety of other journals and books.
Cole Rockarts (they/them) is a labour organizer currently living and working in Edmonton (amiskwaciwâskahikan) on Treaty 6 Territory. For the past 6 years, they have worked for a variety of unions within the public sector. Cole writes on worker issues for Rankandfile.ca and organizes with Free Transit Edmonton and Labour for Palestine. They believe that workers can win if leaders are bold enough to change the direction of unions. You can find their work here, and follow them on Twitter here.
Ricardo Acuña is currently President of the Association of Academic Staff at the U of A (AASUA), the union representing 4,000 professors, teaching staff, librarians, researchers and administrators at the University of Alberta. Since 2002 he has been executive director of Parkland Institute, a public policy research institute in the Faculty of Arts at the U of A. He has a degree in Political Science and History from the University of Alberta, and has over 25 years of experience as a volunteer, staffer and consultant for various non-government and non-profit organizations around the province. He has spoken extensively and written on energy policy, democracy, privatization, and the Alberta economy. He is a regular media commentator on post-secondary and public policy issues, and is currently Chair of Oxfam Canada and Interim Chair of Oxfam International.
Tony Leah is a graduate student in Labour Studies at McMaster University and is researching the history UAW/UNIFOR Local 222. He spent 39 years working at the General Motors plant in Oshawa, Ontario, and is currently involved in activism with Green Jobs Oshawa.
Emily Leedham is a labour reporter in Winnipeg and a community organizer for low-wage, non-unionized workers. She is a staff writer for Press Progress covering Manitoba and Saskatchewan and former editor and podcast producer at rankandfile.ca. Her work has also been featured in Vice, Canadian Dimension, and rankandfile.ca. She is currently writing a chapter for the book Unjust Transitions, Collective Action and the Environment with Doug Nesbitt, the editor in chief of rankandfile.ca. They examine media and journalism during the Coop Refinery lockout, placing it within the context of the climate movement and a just transition for workers.
Paul Holley is the Research Director for the Association for Canadians Studies (ACS) & Metropolis Institute. Paul’s current research focuses on immigrant integration and inclusion, the social and economic impacts of COVID-19 on vulnerable populations in Canada, anti-racism and discrimination, mental health and resiliency, and current issues impacting the English-speaking community of Quebec. In his prior role, Paul was a research and evaluation manager for the Human Early Learning Partnership at the University of British Columbia. Paul received his Ph.D. in Sociology (Global Studies) from Arizona State University in 2006.
coming soon.
Jenalene Antony is an artist and outreach designer with a studio in rural Saskatchewan.
For over ten years she supported organizations that were mission and vision-focused including; the Office of Sustainability at the UofS, Vecova Research at the University of Calgary, Agriculture in the Classroom SK and Environment Canada. She decided to start her own studio and began freelancing for science-based organizations.
Her work advocating for changes to OH&S began after she was being sexually harassed at work. Her passion for protecting the most vulnerable and marginalized communities has led her to push for change to OH&S legislation in Saskatchewan where contract workers are not currently protected. She has asked the Saskatchewan government to update OH&S to include comprehensive language protecting workers from sexual harassment, sexual violence, and sexual assault in the workplace. She is also advocating for the update to include language about mental health first aid. This update needs to be inclusive and protect lgbtqia2s+.
When she isn't fighting for culture change to workplaces across Saskatchewan, she can be found at the beach - her current favorite is Last Mountain.
coming soon
Morgan Jaques is a PhD candidate in Labour Studies at McMaster University. Her research explores the political economy of motherhood and work in Canada.
After completing her Bachelor of Human Justice on Treaty 4 Territory, Sarah (she/her) recently defended her MA Thesis at Simon Fraser University with the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies department. Sarah's current research interest is intersections of Canadian labour accessibility, advocacy, and human rights- particularly for queer, trans, and Two-Spirit workers. Previous research of Sarah's includes the impact of domestic violence in the workplace (Canadian Labour Congress, Ottawa, 2015), public policy and human rights (Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly, 2017), and aspiring allyship education and development (Saskatchewan Federation of Labour & Canadian Labour Congress Union Education Schools, 2016-2021). In addition to research and advocacy with the Teaching Support Staff Union (TSSU), Sarah spends a lot of time petting dogs, swimming in cold bodies of water, and drinking too much coffee.
Saima Desai is the editor of Briarpatch Magazine, a national magazine of grassroots politics and culture based on Treaty 4 territory in Regina, Saskatchewan.
Afra Mehwish is a recent graduate from the Lang School of Business and Economics at the University of Guelph. Her master’s thesis qualitatively explored women’s experiences in the workplace with the goal of building capacity in organizations to support women in leadership positions. She has presented findings from her research at several international academic conferences in North America and Europe. Afra is also the co-founder of the “Beyond Business-as-Usual” conference (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhSkooZvNw0 ) This interdisciplinary academic conference brought together staff, faculty, and graduate students doing research related to sustainability. In fall of 2021, Afra will be starting her doctoral journey at the Lang School of Business and Economics studying the intersections between EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion) and sustainability. Afra was also awarded the prestigious, “Lang Doctoral Entrance Scholarship” which is offered to outstanding students who demonstrate a commitment to being ethical and responsible leaders, and who view business as a force for good that can create a more sustainable world. Afra is committed to advancing equity, diversity, and inclusion through her work.
Graham Coulter is a Master’s student in Labour Studies at McMaster University, studying the impacts of Covid-19 on meatpacking workers’ occupational health and safety in Alberta. He has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for this project, which will be completed by August 2022. Graham was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where he currently resides, but has also worked at the Provincial Archives of Alberta in Edmonton and internationally at the University of Western Australia in Perth. He completed his undergraduate degree in History at the University of Toronto in 2018.
Hudson Paul is a 4th-year finance student at the University of Regina. Hudson has been involved with Work In The West since its initial iteration in 2019 as the website producer. He enjoys developing e-commerce websites, the micro economies of video games and is currently a Marketing Analyst at Sasktel.
Dr. Andrew Stevens is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Business Administration at the University of Regina. His research focuses on the sociology of work and employment, labour studies, and industrial relations. He recently secured a SSHRC Insight Grant (with Dr. Catherine Connelly at McMaster University) to investigate the mechanisms of labour market inclusion and marginalization across race, status, and gender lines during the COVID recovery. Some of his previous published work discusses the political economy of offshoring, collective action, and migrant worker rights in Saskatchewan. In 2012, Andrew helped to co-found the labour journalism site, Rankandfile.ca, with Dr. Doug Nesbitt. Andrew is currently serving in his second term as a Regina City Councillor (on Facebook you can follow him @AndrewStevensWard3).
Nick Faye & The Deputies have graciously allowed the use of their music in the podcast. View them on Facebook.