Winnie Ng appointed distinguished visiting scholar

Winnie Ng, renowned labour rights activist and scholar, has been appointed distinguished visiting scholar at Ryerson University. Ng will join the Faculty of Community Services, developing courses on critical resistance and equity, Asian-Canadian labour history, and collaborate on community-based research on precarious employment and its impact on the economy. Concurrently, Ng will co-chair the equity, diversity and inclusion advisory committee at the Faculty of Community Services with Dean Lisa Barnoff.

From 2011 to 2016, Ng held the position of Unifor-Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson, until she retired in December 2016. The Unifor Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy is the first union-endowed chair at a Canadian university, with a mandate to create a hub of interaction between social justice activists and academics at Ryerson.

“Ryerson is honored to welcome Winnie Ng back to our academic community,” said Lisa Barnoff, dean, Faculty of Community Services. “With her wealth of experience in labour rights and equity issues, Winnie will be an asset to our faculty and students, and an excellent representative of Ryerson research and academics to the wider community.”

For more than four decades, Ng has championed the rights of workers through her involvement with various labour organizations and networks. She began her activist work in the labour movement in 1977 as a union organizer with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Ng was the acting executive director of the Labour Education Centre, and for eight years, she was the Canadian Labour Congress' Ontario regional director. 

“As a proponent of equity and equality of opportunity, Winnie’s values deeply resonate with Ryerson’s culture and priorities,” said Michael Benarroch, provost and vice-president, academic at Ryerson University. “I am thrilled that Winnie will be joining Ryerson University to help advance the faculty’s important work in labour and employment.”

“I’m really excited with this new opportunity of working with the Ryerson community,” says Ng.  “I look forward to collaborating with colleagues and students on bold and creative ways of documenting our own history of activism and resistance and deepening our knowledge of social justice organizing.”

Recognized for her leadership in the Canadian labour movement, Ng is the recipient of numerous distinctions, including the Urban Alliance on Race Relations Leadership Award, the United Farm Workers’ Cesar Chavez Black Eagle Award and the YWCA Woman of Distinction Award. She is a sought-after speaker and contributor on women's rights, labour equity and anti-racism issues. Ng served as the labour co-chair of Good Jobs for All Coalition, an executive member of the Asian Canadian Labour Alliance and a board member of Labour Community Services.

Ng holds a master’s and PhD degrees from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Her doctoral studies focused on re-imagining the labour movement from an anti-racism perspective. She graduated from McGill University with a bachelor of sociology.