Current Challenges to Labour and Employment Law in the United States and Canada and the Need for Reform

This courwill explorse e why Labour and Employment Law in the United States and Canada needs to be reformed to deal with both existing systemic challenges and new challenges which have arisen since the global corona virus pandemic. Potential reform solutions will put forward to inspire dialogue.

• Understanding of fundamentals of Labour and Employment Law in US and Canada
• Understanding of key reasons current law inadequate in current changing economy
• Awareness of initiatives and movements for reform in labour and employment law
• Awareness of some key recent jurisprudence in US and Canada
• Awareness of conditions of employment in “essential” industries exposed by COVID19
• Willingness to dialogue on systemic discrimination in labour and employment law
• Knowledge of key areas for improving areas of reform for “building back better” post-pandemic

• Succinct comparison and contrast of Labour and Employment origins and fundamentals in the United States and Canada: “The Same but Different”
• Inadequacies of existing labour and employment law in meeting the challenges of the transformed economy, from de-industrialization, globalization and the “fissured workplace”
• Declining collective agreement coverage and union density, rising inequality
• Labour Rights and Human Rights: Systemic discrimination and systemic racism in labour and employment law from gendered and racial fragmentation of collective bargaining to Migrant Workers, Canadian Temporary Foreign Workers (TFW program)
• How the Covid19 Pandemic exposed existing weaknesses of Labour law and employment standards – worst hit industries – LTC, agricultural health and safety inadequacies – find Ontario case) Supply chains?
• Reform movements: Fightfor15 / 15 and Fairness, Clean Slate, New Labour Law, Black Lives Matter
• Recommendations on how labour law reform can help “build back better” post COVID? (e.g., sick time, health and safety improvements, broader collective agreement coverage); Will change come as a result of labour struggles and fights or from collaboration and compromise? 
• What does Biden / Democratic presidential / maybe senate win mean? What changes could happen. No progress on labour law since 1959

Aware of existing weaknesses of current systems of labour and employment law and reform movements already underway; be aware of potential impacts on labour and employment law from COVID19 pandemic, be prepared for be aware of and partake in policy-making discussions that are likely to happen; be aware of decisions that could made as a result of that pressure and the Biden/ Democratic win.

• Direct or Manager 
• Labour Relations 
• Industrial Relations or Human Resources 
• Labour Relations Consultant 
• Professors and Instructors of Labour and Employment Law 
• Human Rights Law 
• Union leaders and activists 
• CEO’s  
• Compliance Officer 
• Compliance Coordinator 
• Supply Chain Coordinators 
• Supply Chain Manager 
• Supply Chain Sustainability

Emerging legal consultant, scholar, labor and social justice advocate, and former labor leader in various leadership roles including President at Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 79 representing the City of Toronto Inside Workers, Toronto Community Housing Workers, Bridgepoint Hospital Nurses, Allied, and Paramedical. Representative, delegate, and activist at various levels of Toronto, Canadian Labour Movement.