Annual Sefton-Williams Memorial Lecture
Join us for the 2025 Sefton-Williams Memorial Lecture, Trade Unions and Citizenship at Work: Why Union Experimentation Matters, delivered by Professor Gregor Murray, Faculté des arts et des sciences - École de relations industrielles, Université de Montréal, and co-founder of the Interuniversity Research Centre on Globalization and Work (CRIMT). In this lecture, Professor Murray will look at trade unions and citizenship at work, specifically why experimentation is integral for union renewal.
This is a free event and all are welcome. Seating is limited, so please ensure you RSVP to attend in-person. Alternatively, you can live-stream the event via Zoom.
The Sefton/Williams Memorial Lecture series presents topics of interest to scholars and practitioners of labour-management relations, and is jointly delivered by Woodsworth College and the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources at the University of Toronto.
Professor Gregor Murray
Gregor Murray, Full Professor, Faculté des arts et des sciences - École de relations industrielles, Université de Montréal, and co-founder of the Interuniversity Research Centre on Globalization and Work (CRIMT).
Professor Gregor Murray has long worked with the labour movement in Canada and beyond. He is author or co-author of multiple studies on different aspects of trade union action, strategy, democracy and power, which can be encapsulated under the broad heading of pathways to union renewal. He is co-editor, with his colleague Mélanie Laroche, of a recent collection (2024) entitled, Experimenting for Union Renewal: Challenges, illustrations and lessons, published by the European Trade Union Institute, and freely downloadable. This volume mobilizes 19 case studies in a dozen countries around the theme of union experimentation and the lessons to be drawn from these cases for union renewal. He is also co-editor and co-author of a special issue of the Canadian Labour and Employment Law Journal (2025) on the large firm in Canada as a vector of citizenship at work.
Professor Gregor holds a PhD in industrial and business studies from Warwick University in the United Kingdom and has worked successively at the Industrial Relations Research Unit (Warwick University), the Faculty of Management at McGill University, the Department of Industrial Relations at Université Laval in Quebec City and in the School of Industrial Relations at Université de Montréal. Professor Gregor is also co-founder of the Interuniversity Research Centre on Globalization and Work (CRIMT) and was its director from 2002 to 2024. He has served as the principal researcher and co-coordinator of a series of international and interdisciplinary projects on the regulation of work and employment. From 2007 to 2021, he held the Canada Research Chair on Globalization and Work in the School of Industrial Relations at Université de Montreal where he continues to be an associated professor. Professor Gregor is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and has served as President of the Canadian Industrial Relations Association.
His current work centres on the implications of climate change for workers and their unions, on the impact of technological change for work organization and skills, on worker representation and social dialogue in multinational firms, and on union renewal.