She/Her
Tel:
(416) 736-5557
Email:
jfudge@osgoode.yorku.ca
Professor Judy Fudge is one of the most prominent and prolific scholars of labour law in Canada and internationally.
Currently at the School of Labour Studies at McMaster University, she has taught at Osgoode Hall Law School, the University of Victoria, and Kent University in the U.K. She has held fellowships and visiting professorships at universities in Sweden, Italy, and France. In 2013, she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and in 2014, she received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Law at Lund University.
Professor Fudge takes a socio-legal approach to the study of work and labour, and she is committed to fostering a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the challenges and opportunities facing workers. Her initial research was on Canadian labour law history and precarious work, but she has written widely in the broad area of labour law, most recently focusing on the labour/migration law nexus, citizenship at work, and feminist approaches to labour law. An activist as well as an academic, she has worked with women’s groups, legal clinics, and the International Labour Organization. Her most recent work addresses labour exploitation, modern slavery, and forced labour in the context of labour migration, and she is currently working on a book on that topic. Her research has proved influential in a number of important Supreme Court of Canada cases, including B.C. Health Services (2007) and Saskatchewan Federation of Labour (2015), changing the law on collective bargaining and the right to strike in the context of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In a remarkable show of reliance and respect, the Court cited five of Professor Fudge’s articles and her text, co-authored with Professor Eric Tucker, Labour Before the Law.
In short, Professor Fudge’s commitment to social progress and her development of labour law theory have drawn international awareness and shone a light on Canadian legal research and scholarship.
Recipient of the 2019 Bora Laskin Award.
