Canada: Interview with Stephanie Ross & Larry Savage

The LabourStart Podcast this week -- our first in 2025 -- is an interview with two Canadian writers who've written an important new book about one of the country's largest trade unions.

Stephanie Ross is an associate professor in the School of Labour Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., and founding president of the Canadian Association for Work and Labour Studies. Larry Savage is a professor in the Department of Labour Studies at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont.

LabourStart’s Pat Bulmer interviewed them about their book, Shifting Gears, which examines the evolution of one of Canada’s largest unions. Today, it’s known as Unifor, but it started out as the Canadian wing of the United Auto Workers before breaking away to become the Canadian Auto Workers.

The authors particularly examine the union’s evolving - and controversial - role in Canadian politics.

Ross and Savage are also co-authors of Building a Better World: An Introduction to the Labour Movement in Canada and co-editors of Public Sector Unions in the Age of Austerity, Rethinking the Politics of Labour in Canada, and Labour under Attack: Anti-Unionism in Canada.