Associate Professor, Human Resources and Labour Relations
Contact information
Email: jasonf@athabascau.ca
Phone:
Dr. Jason Foster is Associate Professor of Human Resources and Labour Relations at AU. He is also Director of Parkland Institute, a public interest research institute affiliated with the University of Alberta. Prior to his academic career, Jason spent many years working in the non-profit sector and with the labour movement, including eleven years as the Director of Policy Analysis at the Alberta Federation of Labour. Jason likes to say his area of study is "work". His varied research interests include union renewal, labour and employment policy, occupational health and safety, migrant workers in Canada, and labour history. He prioritizes making academic research accessible to a wider audience, speaking to media and contributing to publications with a public audience whenever possible. He is currently President of the Canadian Industrial Relations Association.
PhD., Business Administration (Management), St. Mary’s University, 2015
Master of Arts, Work and Society (Labour Studies), McMaster University , 2003
Bachelor of Arts (Honours), Political Science, University of Alberta, 1991
Professional affiliations
Parkland Institute, University of Alberta
Canadian Industrial Relations Association
Canadian Association of Work and Labour Studies
Foster, J. (2021). Tipping the Balance: Bill 32, The Charter and the Americanization of Alberta’s Labour Relations System. Edmonton: Parkland Institute.
Foster, J. & Luciano, M. (2020). In The Shadows: Living and Working Without Status in Alberta. Edmonton: Parkland Institute.
Foster, J. (2018). Defying expectations: The case of UFCW Local 401. Edmonton AU Press.
Foster, J., & Barnetson, B. (2016). Health and safety in Canadian workplaces. Edmonton: AU Press.
Barnetson, B., Foster, J., & Matsunaga-Turnbull, J. (2018). Estimating Under-Claiming of Compensable Workplace Injuries in Alberta, Canada. Canadian Public Policy, 44(4), 400–410.
Foster, J., Barnetson, B., & Matsunaga-Turnbull, J. (2018). Fear Factory: Retaliation and Rights Claiming in Alberta, Canada. SAGE Open, 8(2).
Foster, J., Barnetson, B., & Matsunaga-Turnbull, J. (2018). Don’t fear the reaper: Distortive media effects on workers’ perceptions of injury. Labour & Industry: A Journal of the Social and Economic Relations of Work, 28(4), 244–260.
Foster, J. (2017). Accidental Revitalization? Looking at the Complex Realities of Union Renewal. Labor Studies Journal, 42(4), 322–344.
Foster, J., & Barnetson, B. (2017). Who’s on Secondary?: The Impact of Temporary Foreign Workers on Alberta Construction Employment Patterns. Labour / Le Travail, 80, 27–53.
Foster, J., & Barnetson, B. (2017). Dead Today, Gone Tomorrow: The Framing of Workplace Injury in Canadian Newspapers, 2009-2014. Canadian Journal of Communication, 42(4), 611-629.
Barnetson, B., & Foster, J. (2016). Dead quiet in the hinterlands: The construction of workplace injuries in western Canadian newspapers, 2009–2014. Labour & Industry: A Journal of the Social and Economic Relations of Work, 26(2), 75–89.
Foster, J. (2016). Solidarity on the TransCanada: The Role of Immigrant Activism and Innovative Union Tactics in the 2005 Lakeside Packers Strike. Labour / Le Travail, 78(1), 197–218.
Barnetson, B., & Foster, J. (2015). If it bleeds, it leads: The construction of workplace injury in Canadian newspapers, 2009–2014. International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 21(3), 258–265.
Foster, J., & Barnetson, B. (2015). The Construction of Migrant Work and Workers by Alberta Legislators, 2000-2011. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 47(1), 107–131.
Foster, J., Taylor, A., & Khan, C. (2015). The dynamics of union responses to migrant workers in Canada. Work, Employment and Society, 29(3), 409–426.
Taylor, A., & Foster, J. (2015). Migrant Workers and the Problem of Social Cohesion in Canada. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 16(1), 153–172.
Foster, J. (2014). From “Canadians First” to “Workers Unite”: Evolving Union Narratives of Migrant Workers. Relations industrielles, 69(2), 241.
Foster, J., Helms Mills, J., & Mills, A. J. (2014). Shades of Red: Cold War Influences on Canadian and U.S. Business Textbooks. Journal of Management Education, 38(5), 642–671.
Foster, J., & Mills, A. J. (2013). Construction Work: Evolving Discourses of the “Worker” in Management Textbooks, 1920s to the First Decade of the 21st. Journal of Workplace Rights, 17(3–4), 443–466.
Foster, J., & Taylor, A. (2013). In the Shadows: Exploring the Notion of “Community” for Temporary Foreign Workers in a Boomtown. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 38(2), 167–190.
Barnetson, B., & Foster, J. (2012). Bloody Lucky: The careless worker myth in Alberta, Canada. International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 18(2), 135–146.
Foster, J. (2012). Making temporary permanent: The silent transformation of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program. Just Labour, 19, 22–46.
Foster, J. (2011). Talking Ourselves to Death? The Prospects for Social Dialogue in North America—Lessons from Alberta. Labor Studies Journal, 36(2), 288–306.
Foster, J. (2011). Revolution, Retrenchment, and the New Normal: The 1990s and Beyond. In A. Finkel (Ed.), Working People in Alberta: A History (pp. 205–242). AU Press.