The Global Labour Research Centre (GLRC) at York University in Toronto, Canada, in partnership with the SSHRC-funded Re-Imagining Workers’ Education in the 21st Century project, is launching a new virtual Speaker Series on workers’ education. The broader project seeks to renew understandings of radical workers’ education as a vital social project, strengthen connections among workers, labour educators, community activists, practitioners and scholars, and bring together experiences from workers’ education initiatives in different contexts.
The aim is to build a broad network of people committed to advancing radical workers’ education
Learning from the Prairie School
November 3, 2026 | 6:30–7:45 PM ET | Online
Our first Speaker Series event, Learning from the Prairie School, features Barb Byers, with commentary from Donna Smith.
Barb Byers is a long-time labour and social justice activist and former Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Labour Congress. A former President of the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour and recipient of the Order of Canada, Byers has dedicated her career to advancing workers’ rights, gender equality and social justice. She continues to support labour education, Indigenous youth leadership and community organizing.
Donna Smith is a longtime Prairie School collaborator and staff at Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, with emphasis on queer rights
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Confronting the Legacies of Labour Imperialism
November 25, 2026 | 6:30–7:45 PM ET | Online
This session will provide an opportunity to examine the historical and ongoing relationship between labour movements, colonialism and imperialism. How have racialized and colonial relations shaped international labour solidarity? What can workers and labour organizations learn from past struggles to build more transformative forms of solidarity today?
Katherine Nastovski is an Assistant Professor in Work and Labour Studies at York University. Her research brings an anti-racist Marxist feminist perspective to global labour studies, focusing on workers' justice, labour transnationalism and the relevance of colonialism, imperialism and racism to workers' organizing.
Rooted in her experience as a union activist and international labour solidarity organizer, Nastovski's community-engaged research explores the possibilities for transformative transnational labour solidarity and coordination. She is completing a book manuscript, Transnational Horizons: Workers in Canada Enter the Global Sphere, under contract with the University of Toronto Press.
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