Robert Storey

Education

PhD, University of Toronto, 1982

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Research Interests

• Worker health and safety and workers' compensation (Historical and contemporary studies of workers' movements aimed at protection and prevention of workplace accidents and disease)
• Sociology of work (the intersection of class, gender and race at work: restructuring; the impact of globalization on workers on the margins)
• Political Sociology (social movements, the state)
• Canadian and comparative labour history (welfare capitalism; gender and race and unions)
• Social and Political Theory

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As part of a five year (2006-2011) CURA-SSHRC research grant into the consequences of work injury, I am conducting four research projects. The first will outline and analyze the history of injured workers' struggles with the Ontario workers' compensation system from the early 1900s to the present. The second will investigate the role of medical doctors and medical science within the workers' compensation system from the 1970s to the present. The third will examine the role of the labour movement within the workers' compensation system from the 1960s to the present, while the fourth will investigate how the establishment of an independent workers' compensation appeals tribunal in the mid 1980s has affected the claims and appeals of injured workers. While extensive data will be gathered from available primary and secondary sources, the most important source of data will come from in-depth interviews of injured workers, injured worker advocates, medical doctors, trade unionists and arbitrators who, as part of the appeals tribunal, make decisions on worker appeals.

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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 (1994)"Worker Protection Japanese Style: Occupational Safety and Health in the Auto Industry," (Richard Wokutch), Labour/Le Travail. 33 (Spring).

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.)

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Current Research Projects
As part of a five year (2006-2011) CURA-SSHRC research grant into the consequences of work injury, I am conducting four research projects. The first will outline and analyze the history of injured workers' struggles with the Ontario workers' compensation system from the early 1900s to the present. The second will investigate the role of medical doctors and medical science within the workers' compensation system from the 1970s to the present. The third will examine the role of the labour movement within the workers' compensation system from the 1960s to the present, while the fourth will investigate how the establishment of an independent workers' compensation appeals tribunal in the mid 1980s has affected the claims and appeals of injured workers. While extensive data will be gathered from available primary and secondary sources, the most important source of data will come from in-depth interviews of injured workers, injured worker advocates, medical doctors, trade unionists and arbitrators who, as part of the appeals tribunal, make decisions on worker appeals.

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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

Certificate

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

Sociology

Undergraduate

Political Sociology

• Social Movements
• Labour & Society
• Social Stratification

Graduate

• Political Sociology
• Social Movements
• Labour & Society

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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

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