McGill University law professor Adelle Blackett, a former International Labor Organization (ILO) lead expert in efforts to set decent work standards for domestic workers, will deliver the ILR School’s annual Cook-Gray Lecture, Oct. 15 at 4:30 p.m.

The Zoom lecture is free and open to the public; registration is required.

Credit: Provided

Blackett, the Canada Research Chair in Transnational Labour Law and Development at McGill, is the author of “Everyday Transgressions: Domestic Workers’ Transnational Challenge to International Labor Law” (2019, Cornell University Press), which highlights domestic workers’ struggle for transnational labor law.

The ILO’s Convention 189 (Decent Work for Domestic Workers), adopted in June 2011, created the first comprehensive international standards to extend protections and rights to domestic workers laboring in homes around the world. Blackett, who served for several years as an official in the ILO’s International Labor Office and helped lead the standard-setting work, will discuss the convention’s impact on household workplace laws and the protection of domestic workers’ rights, and what the future might hold for an inclusive, transnational vision of labor law.

Blackett is an elected member of the International Academy of Comparative Law. She was awarded the Law Society of Upper Canada and the Barreau du Québec’s Christine Tourigny Award of Merit in 2014 for her social commitment and her contributions to the advancement of women. The Canadian Association of Black Lawyers presented her with its Pathfinder Award in 2015 for her contributions to the legal community and the community at large.

The annual lecture, named in memory of former ILR faculty members Alice Hanson Cook and Lois Spier Gray, is organized by Rosemary Batt, the Alice Hanson Cook Professor of Women and Work; and Pamela Tolbert, the Lois S. Gray Professor of ILR and Social Sciences. The goal of the annual lecture is to advance the social justice and equality visions of Cook and Gray, who were known internationally for their scholar-activism.

The annual Cook-Gray Lecture is sponsored by the School of Industrial and Labor Relations; the Center for the Study of Inequality; and the Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program.

Mary Catt is communications director of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations.