Contingent labour conditions and immigrants will be the focus of an upcoming public lecture and panel discussion at York titled Labour Activism and Migrant Rights: Countering Neo-Liberal Labour-Market Regulation… From the Bottom Up?
University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Professor Nik Theodore, director of the Center for Urban Economic Development, will lecture on the attempts in the United States to mobilize against contingent labour conditions affecting immigrants in particular.
The lecture and panel discussion will take place from 2 to 4pm, Friday, June 11 at 519 York Research Tower, Keele campus.
Right: Nik Theodore
Theodore is a leading scholar, activist and commentator on US labour markets and urban neo-liberalism. His research agenda looks at problems of socioeconomic inequality arising from the restructuring of urban economies. Grounded in community development practice, his research seeks to combine primary data collection and analysis, policy assessment and evaluation, as well as theory building to illuminate the complex, and often contradictory, processes that give rise to economic hardship in urban communities.
His recent research projects include studies of conditions in low-wage labour markets, community-based responses to violations of basic labour standards, the informal economy and global social policy.
Prior to joining UIC, Theodore was a 1997-1998 Atlantic Fellow in Public Policy at Manchester University in the United Kingdom and a researcher in the Chicago Urban League’s Research & Planning Department from 1988 to 1997.
A panel discussion will follow the lecture featuring three York labour market regulation and labour organization experts: Professor Leah Vosko, Canada Research Chair in Feminist Political Economy in the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS); Professor Steven Tufts of the Department of Geography, LA&PS; and Professor Mark Thomas of the Department of Sociology, LA&PS.
The lecture will be presented as part of the International Political Economy & Ecology Summer School at York, which is sponsored by the Faculty of Environmental Studies and the Departments of Political Science and Geography in LA&PS. It is also sponsored by the Toronto Immigrant Employment Data Initiative at York.
This is a public event and all are welcome to attend. A reception will follow the panel discussion.
For more information, visit the Faculty of Environmental Studies Web site.