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Storey Robert, Associate Professor | School of Labour Studies

Research Leave: January-June 2019
photo of Robert Storey

Robert Storey

Associate Professor | School of Labour Studies

Emeritus Faculty
School of Labour Studies

Emeritus Faculty
Department of Sociology

Area(s) of Interest:

Biography

Research Interests

  • Workplace Health and Safety
  • Political Economy
  • Social Movements
  • Labour History

Research Grants

As part of a five year (2006-2011) CURA-SSHRC research grant into the consequences of work injury, I conducted four research projects. The first outlined and analyzed the history of injured workers' struggles with the Ontario workers' compensation system from the early 1900s to the present. The second investigated the role of medical doctors and medical science within the workers' compensation system from the 1970s to the present. The third examined the role of the labour movement within the workers' compensation system from the 1960s to the present, while the fourth uncovered how the establishment of an independent workers' compensation appeals tribunal in the mid 1980s has affected the claims and appeals of injured workers. Some of this material has been analyzed and published. Other publications will follow.

Future research will remain rooted in the fields of workplace health and safety and workers' compensation - especially with regard to a number of looming crises in occupational disease.

Academic Service & Community Involvement

  • Sunnybrook-Women's College Research Ethics Board, Member.
  • Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers, Board Member.
  • Labour Advisory Committee - Hamilton & District Labour Council/McMaster University, Labour Studies Programme/ Mohawk College.
  • Chairperson, Ontario Workers Arts and Heritage Centre, 1991-1996; Member of Board of Directors, 1996-1998.
  • Ontario Federation of Labour, Advisory Committee,Technology Adjustment Research Programme, 1991-1994 .
  • United Steelworkers of America, Advisory Committee, Technology Adjustment Research Project, 1991-1994.
  • Building and Construction Trades of Ontario, Advisory Committee, Technology Adjustment Research Programme, 1991 - 1994.
  • Community Development Committee, Hamilton-Wentworth Social Planning and Research Council, 1989-1992.
  • Education Committee, Hamilton and District Labour Council, 1984-95.
  • Labourers' International Union of North America, Local 837, Chair, Industrial Adjustment Committee, 1991-1993.
  • Labourers' International Union of North America, Local 837, Member of Scholarship Committee.
  • Advisory Committee, Hamilton Worker Education Centre, 1985-87

Education

PhD, University of Toronto, 1982

Teaching

Labour Studies

Undergraduate

  • History of the Canadian Labour Movement
  • Theories of the Labour Movement
  • Different Labours, Different Voices
  • Occupational Health & Safety
  • Current Labour Issues
  • Field Placement
  • Introduction to the Canadian Labour Movement
  • Honours Seminar - Current Labour Issues

Hamilton District Labour Council Certificate courses:

  • History of the Labour Movement
  • Current Labour Issues
  • Politics of Health & Safety
  • Work Restructuring
  • Labour & Contemporary Politics

Sociology

Undergraduate

Political Sociology

  • Social Movements
  • Labour & Society
  • Social Stratification

Graduate

  • Political Sociology
  • Social Movements
  • Labour & Society

Research

Selected Publications

Robert Storey, "Beyond the Body Count? Injured Workers in the Aftermath of Deindustrialization." In, Steven High, ed., Deindustrializaiton and its Aftermath: Class, Culture and Resistance. University of British Columbia Press. Forthcoming.

Robert Storey, "Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will: Engaging with the 'Testimony' of Injured Workers". In, Stephen High, ed., Beyond Testimony and Trauma: Oral History in the Aftermath of Mass Violence. University of British Columbia Press, 2015.

Robert Storey and Carolann Elston, "My pension stops on my 65th birthday when my brain injury goes away": Interim Report. Presented at "No 'Half Measures': Workers' Compensation 100 Years after Sir William Meredith". Osgoode Hall/Ontario Federation of Labour, Toronto, Ontario, Oct. 31 - Nov. 2, 2013.

Robert Storey, "Sir William Meredith and Merit/Experience Rating: A Contradiction in Terms?". Submitted to Workplace Safety and Insurance Board Funding Review. (Chair, Dr. Harry Arthurs). April 16, 2013, Hamilton, Ontario.

Robert Storey, "From Invisibility to Equality? Women Workers' and the Gendering of Workers' Compensation in Ontario, 1900-2005". Labour/Le Travail, 64: 75-106 (2009).

Robert Storey, "They have all been faithful workers: Injured Workers, Truth, and the Workers' Compensation System in Ontario, 1970-2008." Journal of Canadian Studies, 43, 1: 154-185 (2009).

Robert Storey, "Their Only Power Was Moral': The Injured Workers' Movement in Toronto, 1970-1985,” Forthcoming: Histoire Sociale / Social History (2008).

Robert Storey, “ Don't Work Too Hard: Health, Safety and Workers' Compensation in Canada.” In Singh Bolaria & Harley D. Dickinson, eds., Health, Illness and Health Care in Canada, 4th Edition, Nelson, Toronto, 2008: 388-411.

Robert Storey & Eric Tucker, “All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: Worker Participation and OHS Regulation in Ontario, 1970 - 2000,” in Vernon Mogenson, ed., Worker Safety Under Siege: Labor, Capital, and the Politics of Workplace Safety in a Deregulated World, Armonk, New York, M.E. Sharpe, 2006: 157-186

Robert Storey, “Social Assistance Or A Workers' Right: Workmen's Compensation And The Struggle Of Injured Workers In Ontario, 1970-1985.” Studies in Political Economy, 78 (Autumn 2006)

Robert Storey, Activism and the making of occupational health and safety law in Ontario, 1960s - 1980,” Policy and Practice in Occupational Health and Safety, 1 (2005): 41-68.

Robert Storey (2004) “From the Environment to the Workplace . . . and Back Again? Occupational Health and Safety Activism in Ontario, 1970s-2000+.The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, vol. 41, no. 4, pp.419-47, November.

Robert Storey (2000) "From Dust to DUST to Dust: Asbestos and the Struggle for Worker Health and Safety At Bendix Automotive," Labour/Le Travail, 45 (Spring 2000): 103-140 (with Wayne Lewchuk)

Robert Storey (1994)"The Struggle For Job Ownership in the Canadian Steel Industry: An Historical Analysis," Labour/Le Travail. 33 (Spring): 75-106.

Robert Storey (1993)"Making Steel Under Free Trade?" Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations. Vol. 48, No. 4 : 711-726.

Robert Storey (1991)"Studying Work in Canada," Canadian Journal of Sociology, 16:3 (Summer): 241-263.

Robert Storey (1986)On the Job: Confronting the Labour Process in Canada, (Montreal, McGill-Queens' University Press), Collection of original essays co-edited with C. Heron.

Robert Storey (1987)"The Struggle to Organize Stelco and Dofasco," Relations Industrielles / Industrial Relations, Vol. 42, No. 2, (Spring), pp. 366-385.

Robert Storey (1981)All That Our Hands Have Done: A Pictorial History of the Hamilton Workers, Oakville, Mosaic Press, (With C. Heron, S. Hoffmitz and W. Roberts.)