Professor Michael Lynk of Western Law sends along notice of the regular Heenan Blaikie labour law conference and Koskie Minksy Lecture, taking place at Western on Friday October 25 and Saturday October 26.
Here is the link to the conference program.
Here is the blurb from the program:
“We hired workers, and human beings came instead.”
— Max Frisch
Rights at work are among our most important and our most unacknowledged liberties in Canadian society. Important because work shapes our identity and occupies much of our waking hours. Unacknowledged because our workplace rights are seldom part of a larger public policy conversation. Yet advances in the workplace on such grounds as freedom of association, disability, gender, religion, race, sexual orientation, family status, contractual and statutory issues and international law have contributed greatly to the larger rights culture that Canada has embraced since we adopted the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982.
The Lecture and Conference will explore the meaning and the sources of our rights at work, examine how these rights have grown and matured over the past 30 years, and assess how they interact with our rights in the broader society. Some of Canada’s most eminent judges, legal scholars and lawyers will share their insights and research. The discussions and debates from this event will contribute to the ongoing work of employers, unions, scholars, lawyers and industrial relations practitioners to define the ever-evolving nature of our rights and liberties at work. This event will be one of the most important dates on the national labour law and industrial relations calendar.
Justice Cromwell of the Supreme Court: Koskie Minksy Lecture
The 8th Koskie Minsky University Lecture on Labour Law will be delivered on the Friday evening (October 25th), to be given by Mr. Justice Thomas Cromwell of the Supreme Court of Canada. Before being appointed to the bench, Mr. Justice Cromwell was an academic and a labour arbitrator, making him one of three justices on the current SCC who have a labour law background.
The 8th Heenan Blaikie University Labour Law Conference on Saturday (October 26th) will host four panels of scholars and practitioners who will explore a range of issues relating to Rights at Work, including sources of rights, constitutional sources and human rights sources. Among the scholars who will be speaking are: Judy Fudge (University of Victoria), Keith Ewing (Ling’s College, London, UK), Nathalie des Rosiers (Dean, University of Ottawa) and Brian Etherington (University of Windsor).
The conference organizer would welcome labour law students and scholars to attend. Registration forms can be found on the website.