Professor Bethany Hastie, a multiple award-winning researcher in labour and employment law, has been appointed Associate Professor at Queen’s Law and named the next Director of the Queen’s Centre for Law in the Contemporary Workplace (CLCW). She will join Queen’s from the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia, beginning January 1, 2026.

“Bethany’s scholarly excellence will enhance our leadership in labour and employment law at the intersection of technology, ensuring that Queen’s Law remains at the forefront of national and international debates on the future of work and legal regulation,” says Dean Colleen M. Flood.

Hastie’s research tackles some of the most pressing issues in contemporary labour and employment law, especially around technology, equity, and the regulation of work. In 2024, she received a UBC Killam Accelerator Research Fellowship, awarded to early-career researchers demonstrating outstanding achievement and potential for impact. Her fellowship project examines the challenges new technologies pose for workers — and the gaps in current Canadian labour law and policy. The findings are expected to provide valuable insights for policymakers, unions, and legal advocates navigating technology’s impact on the workplace.

Her other recent projects include research that strengthened rights and protections for platform workers (those employed through digital platforms such as Uber, DoorDash or Upwork) in Canada, and work that led to significant changes in the BC Human Rights Tribunal’s interpretation of sexual harassment law. Earlier, she studied models of collective representation for precarious workplaces (defined as those with low wages, poor conditions, and little job security, often compounded by discrimination and marginalization), with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She also conducted a review of human rights law on sexual harassment in BC and Ontario funded by the Canadian Bar Association, and a comparative study of migrant worker recruitment legislation across Canada funded by the Law Foundation of BC.

Hastie’s publications include articles in the Canadian Labour and Employment Law Journal, Osgoode Hall Law Journal, McGill Law Journal, Ottawa Law Review, UBC Law Review, and Canadian Journal of Women and the Law. She also co-authored a chapter on migrant labour to The Law of Work, 3rd Edition (Emond, 2024).

Since joining UBC Law in 2015, she has progressed from lecturer to assistant professor to associate professor, while also serving as a Peter Wall Institute Wall Scholar and a UBC Green College Leading Scholar. In addition to teaching Labour Law, she has taught seminars including Precarious Labour and the Law and Human Rights Law in Canada.

Her academic path includes a Doctor of Civil Law and Master of Laws from McGill University (where she held an O’Brien Fellowship in Human Rights and Legal Pluralism and a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship), a Juris Doctor from UBC, and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Capilano University.

“I was interested in Queen’s Law not only for its stellar reputation as a leading research institution, but also for its highly collegial faculty,” says Hastie. “The opportunity to direct the CLCW, the only centre of its kind in Canada, with a focus on technology and the future of work, presented an ideal opportunity at this stage in my career.”

She adds: “I look forward to becoming part of the Queen’s Law community. As incoming Director of the CLCW, I’m eager to build on the Centre’s strong foundations to expand a network of labour scholars across Queen’s, Canada, and internationally. I also plan to launch new initiatives, including a speaker series and a collaborative research project on technology and the future of work.”