Laurence Hamel-Roy is a doctoral candidate in the humanities at Concordia University’s Center for Interdisciplinary studies in Society and Culture (CISC). In her thesis project, she is studying, from a feminist perspective, the impact of the neoliberalization of Quebec labour policy and the deregulation of labour relations in the construction industry on the career paths of workers in the industry. This oral history project is a continuation of the sociological reflections she has been conducting since her Master’s degree on the relationship between the transformation of the State, the destructuring of employment, the segmenting of labour markets and the gendered and racialised divisions of labour. 

Laurence Hamel-Roy is a member of the Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire et interdisciplinaire sur l’emploi, la pauvreté et la protection sociale (GIREPS), within which she contributes in particular to the project ‘La recherche engagée sur le terrain du travail précaire et faiblement rémunéré’. She also works regularly with Action travail des femmes (ATF), a Quebec community organisation that defends women’s rights in the workplace, on research and training issues relating to systemic discrimination and sexist and sexual harassment. 

 

Current Project: Building Montréal from father to son: labour reproduction in the construction industry through the lens of struggles for equality in employment

My PhD project is a continuation of the work I have been carrying out since 2016 with Action travail des femmes (ATF) on the retention of women in the construction industry in Quebec. By taking a retrospective look at the impact of the neoliberalization of labour policy and the deregulation of labour relations in the construction sector on workers’ professional trajectories, this oral history project aims to understand how the restructuring of labour markets that resulted from the deindustrialization of the Quebec economy contributed to maintaining the homogeneity of the workforce in the sector, and, incidentally, to the renewal of the gendered and racialized divisions of the working class. Rooted in my community-based research practice, this project aims to contribute to the advancement of the struggles for equal access to employment that have been waged in the sector since the early 1990s.