Welcome to our new COVID-19 and the World of Work Research Reports series that will explore and analyze the impacts of the pandemic on workers. We will feature original reports on research hosted by the GLRC and conducted by GLRC students, faculty, and community partners that address evolving issues related to work, employment, labour, and livelihoods. If you are interested in submitting to our series, please pitch your ideas to glrc@yorku.ca. We encourage reports in the range of to 3,000-5,000 words, with an upper limit of 5,000 words (references included).
Feature Series
The Story So Far: COVID-19 and the Canadian Labour Market
Andrew Mitchell, Luann Good Gingrich
Reports
Impacts of COVID-19 on the Working Arrangements of Faculty and Staff: Wave 2
November 25, 2022
James Chowhan, Kelly Pike
"No Safe Place": Documenting the migration status and employment conditions of workers in Alberta’s meatpacking industry during the pandemic
September 23, 2021
Bronwyn Bragg
Contrasting Care: Provincial variations in care work policy during COVID-19
September 9, 2021
Leah Nicholson
The Impacts of COVID-19 on the Academic Performance of Graduate Students
July 22, 2021
Rubina Karyar
COVID-19 Impacts on Faculty and Staff: Changing the way employees work
May 27, 2021
James Chowhan, Kelly Pike
COVID-19: Disruption, Denudation, and Dawning
The global health crisis has disrupted every aspect of everyday/everynight realities, all across the globe. The disruption brought on by COVID-19 and government responses at all levels – local, national and international – was swift and deep. Along with disruption came a denudation, an exposure or stripping away of all sorts of social and economic truths that are ordinarily concealed. In geology, denudation refers to the slow erosive processes that cause landforms and landscapes to be laid bare, to be made naked.
The denudation of COVID-19 was sudden, throwing into sharp relief the truth of ourselves – our communities, institutions, nation, and world. We learned, in new ways, that we are all connected – that my actions have consequences not only for myself, but for every person with whom I have contact; that we are “in this together”. But we also learned that while we are all in the same storm, we are not in the same boat (tweet by Damian Barr April 21, 2020). “Viral inequality” is not a new landscape; rather, established distractions and dressings were swiftly pulled back. And so, we are presented with an opportunity, or a dawning of a new day, of awakened imaginations for a more just and sustainable "normal". What will we do with the moment we are in?
Through this series, the GLRC hopes to inspire conversations and imaginations addressing the following questions:
- How are deep-rooted dynamics of exclusion and structural violence reinvigorated, made new?
- How do emergency responses by international organizations (e.g. ILO), national governments, and civil society differently impact certain individuals and groups, and what do we need to learn from their experiences?
- What opportunities and strategies for transformation, for influencing a more just and compassionate “normal”, are emerging?
We invite you to contribute your research reports to glrc@yorku.ca.
Luann Good Gingrich
Director, GLRC