Donald Wells

Areas of Research Interest
Current Research Projects
Teaching
Academic Service and Community Involvement
Selected Publications

Areas of Research Interest

Labour Studies

• international regulation of labour standards
• labour internationalism
• public policy, family cohesion and migrant workers (agricultural workers; live-in caregivers)
  

Non-Governmental Organizations, Corporations, Unions and Social Movements

• anti sweat shop and 'fair trade' campaigns
• non-governmental organizations and labour regulation in the global South
• corporate social responsibility
• public-private partnerships and the regulation of labour rights and standards
  

Public Policy

• family cohesion of foreign migrant workers
  
• international organizations and the regulation of international labour standards
• trade policy and the regulation of labour standards
  

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Current Research Projects

• public policy and family cohesion of foreign agricultural workers in Southern Ontario
• public policy and family cohesion of foreign live-in caregivers in Southern Ontario
  
• corporate social responsibility, international labour regulation and communicational politics
  
• UN Global Compact and political legitimation
  

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Teaching

Labour Studies Programme

• Labour and Globalization
• Field Research
• Economic Restructuring
  

Political Science Department

• Comparative Political Parties and Social Movements
• MA and PhD Theses

MA in Work and Society

• Work and Democracy in the Global Society
• MA Theses
• Major Research Papers

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Academic Service and Community Involvement

• Director, School of Labour Studies, McMaster University
  
• Steering Committee, McMaster Community Poverty Initiative (research, volunteer and educational organization linking McMaster University to local anti-poverty groups)
  
• Steering Committee, Cantabal Education and Health Care Project (fundraising and building a middle school and health clinic in Guatemala)
• Editorial Board, Just Labour: Canadian Journal of Work and Society
• Academic Steering Committee, Study Abroad Program, Mexico Solidarity Network
• Board, Immigrant Worker Family Centre (advocacy, research and drop-in centre for immigrant live-in caregivers)
  
• Living Wage Working Group, Hamilton Roundtable on Poverty Reduction
  
• McMaster University Indigenous Rights Group
• Advisory Board, Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (non governmental organization promoting international labour standards)
• Committee of Instruction, Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
• Advisory Board, United for Fair Trade-Unis pour commerce equitable (UFT-UCE) (fair trade NGO)
  

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Selected Publications

(*denotes peer reviewed)

• "Local Worker Struggles in the Global South: Reconsidering Northern Impacts on International Labour Standards" Third World Quarterly, 30:3 (2009) 567-579.
  
• * "Workplace Cohesion and the Fragmentation of Solidarity" (with Wayne Lewchuk) in Robert O’Brien ed. Solidarity First: Canadian Workers and Social Cohesion Vancouver; UBC Press ), 2008, pp. 63-85.
• * "Transforming Worker Representation: The Magna Model in Canada and Mexico" (with Wayne Lewchuk) Labour/ Le Travail 60 (Fall 2007) 107-136.
• Review of Ethel C. Brooks, Unraveling the Garment Industry: Transnational Organizing and Women’s Work.' Canadian Journal of Sociology Online, November - December 2007 (http:/www.cjsonline.ca/reviews/unraveling.html).
• * "Bringing the Local Back In: Trajectory of Contention of the Union Struggle at Kukdong/Mexmode" (with Graham Knight), Social Movement Studies 6:1, 83-103 (2007).
• * "Too Weak for the Job: Corporate Codes of Conduct, Non-Governmental Organizations and the Regulation of International Labour Standards" Global Social Policy 2007, 7:1, 51-73.
• * "When Corporations Substitute for Adversarial Unions", (with Wayne Lewchuk), Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations, 61:4, Autumn 2006, 639-665.
• * " 'Best Practice' in the Regulation of International Labor Standards: Lessons of the U.S.-Cambodia Textile Agreement" . Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal, Vol. 27, No. 3, p. 357, 2006 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=996876
• * "How Credible are International Corporate Labour Codes? Monitoring Global Production Chains" in Jim Stanford and Leah Vosko,eds., Challenging the Market: The Struggle to Regulate Work and Income, McGill Queen’s University Press, 2004, pp. 365-383
• * :"How Ethical are Ethical Purchasing Policies?" Journal of Business Ethics Special Issue: Universities and Corporate Responsibility, 2004, 2:1,119-140.
• * "Are Labour Unions Obsolete in the New Global Economy?" Inroads 13, summer 2003, pp. 46-53.
• * "Labour Markets, Flexible Specialization and the New Microcorporatism", Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations, Fall 2001, 56: 2, pp. 277-304.
• * "Building Transnational Coordinative Unionism" in S. Babson and H. Juarez Nunez eds., Working Lean: Labor in the North American Auto Industry, Wayne State University Press, 1998.
• * "From Fordist Worker Resistance to Post-Fordist Capitalist Hegemony?" Labour/Le Travail (Spring 1997, pp. 241-260).
• * "When Push Comes to Shove: Competitiveness, Job Insecurity and Labour Management Cooperation in Canada," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Spring 1997, 18:2, pp. 167-200.
• * "New Dimensions for Labour in a Post-Fordist World" in E. Yanarella and W. Green eds., North American Auto Unions in Crisis: Lean Production as Contested Terrain, (State University of New York Press, 1996, pp. 191-207).
• * "The Impact of the Postwar Compromise on Canadian Unionism: The Formation of an Auto Worker Local in the 1950's," Labour/Le Travail, Fall 1995.
• * "Origins of Canada's Wagner Model of Industrial Relations: The United Auto Workers in Canada and the Suppression of 'Rank and File' Unionism, 1936-1953," Canadian Journal of Sociology, 20:2, June 1995, pp. 193-225. 

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