John Fryer , TGN Associate

John L. Fryer is an internationally respected and widely consulted authority on labour relations and human resource issues. His special field of expertise is the public sector.

He has been in turn, a correspondent for the “Economist” magazine, a public sector trade union leader (he was General Secretary of the BC Government Employees Union from 1969 to 1983 and President of Canada’s second biggest union, the 350,000 member National Union of Public and General Employees from 1980 to 1990), and an adjunct professor of Labour Relations at the University of Victoria’s School of Public Administration since 1991.

In 1998, he was appointed an Assistant Deputy Minister in the BC provincial public service in charge of the Crown Corporations Secretariat and in 2000-2001 he chaired the Advisory Committee on Labour Management Relations in the Federal public service.

He is Chairman of the Board of one Canadian consulting company and on the Board of Directors of two others. He is also Chair of the Labour Relations Committee of the Montreal based Centre for Rights and Democracy.

In 1994, he was sent to South Africa by the International Labour Organization to assist the new government, led by Nelson Mandella, to develop modern labour relations policies. During the 1990’s he also served as the Canadian Vice-President of the 20 million member Public Services International (PSI) based in Geneva.

As well in 1994, he was made a member of the Order of Canada for his “contribution to economic and social justice”. And in 1995, he was awarded the Gerard Dion award for his many contributions to Canadian labour relations.

Currently, Mr. Fryer is working in a specialist consulting capacity at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, D.C.