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Goutor David, Assistant Professor | Undergraduate Chair

photo of David Goutor

David Goutor

Assistant Professor | Undergraduate Chair

Faculty
School of Labour Studies

Area(s) of Interest:

Biography

Areas of Research and Teaching Interests

Labour Studies

  • Working-class formation, union and leftist movement
  • Immigration and transnational migratory labour systems
  • Human rights, right-based legislation and legal activism
  • The intersection of race, class and gender
  • Labour markets, unions' influence on labour market and related policies
  • Labour's role in public discourses and politics
  • Organized labour's interaction of social movements, including feminism, and Human Rights and Civil-Rights movements
  • Gender, sexism, unpaid work and the experience of women in the workforce
  • International & comparative approaches to labour, working class, left politics
  • Globalization and resistance
  • French Canada and the growth of labour and the left in Quebec
  • Theoretical and ideological foundations of labour

 

Canadian History

  • Labour and Working-class History
  • Ethnicity, race and stereotypes of minorities
  • Human rights discourse and human rights campaigns
  • Politics and public discourse
  • Immigration, immigrant experience and communities, promoters and agents
  • National development, nation-building and defining the "national community"
  • Social movements, especially in the 1940s, 1960s and 1970s
  • Business and business leaders' approach to immigration

 

Academic Service & Community Involvement

  • Board Member, Workers Arts & Heritage Centre, Hamilton ON
  • Co-planner, Labour Studies Speakers Series, 2005 - 2007.
  • Vice-Chair and External Officer, CUPE Local 3902, Representing Teaching Assistants and Student Instructors at the University of Toronto, 2005, 2002 - 2003, 2000 - 2001. Maintained relations with Locals within CUPE, other public sector unions, and the wider labour movement. Helped to organize Local's participation in demonstrations, including anti-Harris protests and anti-Free Trade activities in Quebec City.
  • Member, Toronto Labour History Group, 1998 - 2005. Participant in monthly discussions of major themes in Canadian labour history.
  • Organizer, Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 3902, Sessionals Organizing Drive, 2003-2004. Part of successful campaign to unionize 800 contract faculty at the University of Toronto.
  • Panelist, St. Lawrence Centre Forum, "From Crisis to Catastrophe: The Future of Post-Secondary Education in Ontario," Toronto, 2001. Represented graduate students at a major forum on the state of university and college funding.
  • Student and Union Delegate, Provostial Task Force on Graduate Funding, University of Toronto, 2000. Represented student interests on task force to coordinate research into the state of graduate funding at the University of Toronto and across North America. Led to the creation guaranteed funding packages for all graduate students.
  • Keynote Speaker, Canadian Federation of Students, Ontario Division Plenary Session, Guelph, 2000.

Teaching

Courses Taught

  • LS 1A03 An Introduction to Labour in Canada
  • LS 1C03 Voices of Work, Resistance and Change
  • LS 2A03 Unions in Action
  • LS 2C03 Theoretical Foundations of the Labour Movement
  • LS 3C03 Labour Law and Policy
  • LS 3H03 Field Placement Methods
  • LS 4A06 Research and Field Experience
  • LS 4E03 Comparative Labour Systems
  • INQ 1SS3 Inquiry in the Social Sciences

Research

Current Research Projects

  • Research Project: The Living Wage in Hamilton. There have been very few qualitative studies of the impact of adopting the living wage. This project involves qualitative interviews with employers in Hamilton who have been certified as Living Wage Employers, and with their employees, about how the workplace, workers' family life, and the broader community have been affected by the living wage.
  • Research Project: Appeals of the "Personal Suitability" Scores in the Immigration Points System. Looks at Federal Courts' judicial reviews of visa officers' assessments of applications under the Skilled Worker Program. In particular, potential immigrants went to the Courts to appeal the score they received form visa officers for their 'personal suitability' for life in Canada - a category that was part of the Points System up to 2002. Collaborative project with Vic Satzewich, Professor, Sociology, McMaster University.
  • Research Project: Organized Labour and Immigration from 1930s to the 1950s - Continues research on the subject of my first book, Guarding the Gates. Traces how labour leader's approach to immigration was changed by the major changes of the mid 20th century, including the emergence of industrial unions, the advances of the Canadian economy, and the development of human rights campaigns.
  • Book Manuscript in Progress: "Migration, Radicalism, and Humanity above All: A biography of Hans Ibing". Biography of a migrant worker who arrived in Canada in 1930s, became a long-time Communist, served in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, and was activist in one of the few German-Canadian anti-fascist organizations in the 1940s.
  • "'A Slow Opening': Canadian Labour and Immigration, 1931 - 1956." Tracing the gradual diminishing of Canadian unionists' opposition to immigration from the closing of the door to immigrants in 1931 to the formation of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) in 1956.
  • "'An Essential Resource': Canadian Business and Immigration Policy, 1860 - 1939." Using government records, business publications and archives, to explore business leaders' views on immigration policy and the role of immigration in the labour market and national development.
  • "'The Migration of Stereotypes': Anti-Asian Racism in International Perspective." Exploring how similar stereotypes of Chinese, Japanese and South Asian workers were embraced and perpetuated by labour leaders in an array of places around the English-speaking world, including many areas where Asian populations were extremely small.

 

 

Publications

Books

Taking Liberties: Historicizing 20th Century Human Rights Discourse in Canada, (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2013). Co-edited with Stephen Heathorn.

Guarding the Gates: The Canadian Labour Movement and Immigration, 1872-1934, (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2007). Hardcover published May 2007; paperback published January 2008.

Journal Articles

"A Different Perspective on the 'Labor Rights as Human Rights' Debate: Organized Labor and Human Rights Activism in Canada, 1939-1952", Labor Studies Journal, September 2011, Vol. 36, Issue 3, pp.408-427.

"Standing by our Principles: The Trades and Labor Congress of Canada and Immigration, 1933-1939", Just Labour, Vol. 11, Autumn 2007. (Actual publication date: March 2008). Online: http://www.justlabour.yorku.ca

"Constructing the Great Menace: Canadian Labour's Opposition to Asian Immigration, 1881-1914", Canadian Historical Review, Vol. 88, No.4, December 2007, pp. 549-576.

"Stand by the Union, Mr. Arch: The Toronto Labour Establishment and the Emigration Mission of England's National Agricultural Labourers' Union", Labour/le Travail, No. 55, Spring 2005, pp. 9-36.

"Drawing Different Lines of Colour: The Mainstream English Canadian Labour Movement's Approach to Blacks and the Chinese",Labor - Studies in Working Class History of the Americas, Vol. 2, No.1. Spring 2005, pp. 55-76.

Recent Newspaper Columns

"Migrant Farm Workers Inhabit Precarious Working World", Toronto Star, Opinion/Editorial page, April 23, 2013.

"Barack Obama Bucks Traditional Voting Trends," Toronto Star, Opinion/ Editorial page, October 2, 2012.

"NDP Needs to Get Europe Right", Toronto Star,Opinion/Editorial page, march 18, 2012.

"Surge in Migrant Labour Makes Reform Imperative", Toronto Star, Opinion/Editorial page, February 9, 2012.

"This is No Time for the NDP to Grow Up", Toronto Star, Opinion/Editorial page, June 16, 2011.

"NDP's Surprising Surge Shakes Up the Campaign", Toronto Star, Opinion/Editorial page, April 24, 2011.

"Keep the Faith and Turn Left", Toronto Star, Opinion/Editorial page, December 29, 2010.

 

Refereed Publications

  • "New Forces, Unique Challenges: Organized Labour and Human Rights Activism in Canada, 1939-1953", Labour Studies Journal, revised and resubmitted, September 2010
  • "Standing by our Principals: The Trades and Labor Congress of Canada and Immigration 1933-1939", Just Labour, Vol. 11, Autumn 2007 (actual publication date: March 2008). Online: http://www.justlabour.yorku.ca
  • "Constructing the Great Menace: Canadian Labour's Opposition to Asian Immigration, 1881-1914", Canadian Historical Review, Vol. 88, number 4, December 2007, pp.549-576.
  • "Stand By the Union, Mr. Arch: The Toronto Labour Establishment and the Emigration Mission of England's National Agricultural Labourers' Union," Labour/le Travail, No.55, Spring 2005, pp.9-36.
  • "Drawing Different Lines of Colour: The Mainstream English Canadian Labour Movement's Approach to Blacks and the Chinese," Labor - Studies in Working Class History of the Americas, Volume 2, Number 1. Spring 2005, pp.55-76.
  • "The Canadian Media and the "Discovery" of the Holocaust," Canadian Jewish Studies, Volume 4-5, Special Issue on Canada and the Holocaust, Released Spring 2000, pp.87-116.

 

Popular Publications

  • "No Thanksgiving for Migrant Workers", Toronto Star, Opinion/Editorial page, Oct. 8, 2010.
  • "The Old Anti-Immigrant Game", Toronto Star, Opinion/Editorial page, Sept. 24, 2010.
  • "Goodbye Keynes, Hello Thatcher", Toronto Star, Opinion/Editorial page, Aug. 3, 2010.
  • "NDP Needs More than Just a Change", Toronto Star, Opinion/Editorial page, Aug. 13, 2009.
  • "Living in the Real World", Toronto Star, Opinion/Editorial page, July 23, 2009.
  • "Reports of Labour's Demise Overstated", Toronto Star, Opinion/ Editorial page, Sept. 2, 2008.
  • "No Cure for Election Fever", Toronto Star, Opinion/Editorial page, Feb. 27, 2008.
  • "Dion and Grassroots Liberals", Toronto Star, Opinion/Editorial page, Nov. 12, 2007.
  • "Immigrants Need Jobs, Not Rhetoric", Toronto Star, Opinion/Editorial page, Oct. 2, 2007.
  • "Layton Must Change NDP Tactics", Toronto Star, Opinion/Editorial page, Sept. 7, 2006.
  • "History Does Not Favour Martin Strategy," Toronto Star, Opinion/ Editorial page, June 8, 2004.
  • "Eves Plays the Immigrant Card," Toronto Star, Opinion/Editorial page, September 12, 2003.
  • "Minority Report to the Task Force on Graduate Funding," University of Toronto Bulletin, May 2000.
  • "'God Cop': An Update From the Task Force on Graduate Funding," Workplace Online Journal, Issue 5, May 2000.