FUEL TO FIGHT DS30: Test Film & Book Event

Test Dept

FUEL TO FIGHT DS30: TEST FILM & BOOK EVENT

June 13 @ 6PM, firstsite, Colchester: http://www.firstsite.uk.net/page/fuel-to-fight-ds30-test-dept-film-book-event
Followed by party at the Waiting Room
The legendary London industrial noise musicians Test Dept are presenting a special screening of their film DS30 at the firstsite on the 13 June.

Marking 30 years since the 1984-5 miners’ strike, DS30 is a political collage of sound and image. The film is set within the monumental structural lines of Dunston Staiths built on the River Tyne in 1893 to ship coal from the Durham coalfields to the world. Featuring footage of mining communities and industry along the River Tyne and of the wider mining community together with footage and sounds from Test Dept’s own archive related to the strike, DS30 reflects on the group’s nationwide Fuel to Fight Tour in support of the miners, during which they collaborated with local activists and mining communities. These included Kent miner Alan Sutcliffe, who performed as writer and guest vocalist on live and recorded material and the South Wales Striking Miners’ Choir, with whom they recorded the album ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’ to raise money for the Miners’ Hardship Fund.

This screening of DS30 is accompanied by a selection of archive material of the group on film and video and will be followed by a Q & A with founding member Paul Jamrozy, who will be joined by Peter Webb (from PC Press), and Stevphen Shukaitis (from the University of Essex).

This event also celebrates the release of the book Total State Machine, a major historical document and visual representation of Test Dept, published by PC-Press. There will be a launch event following the screening.

Test Dept formed in the decaying docklands of South London in late 1981. The group made raw, visceral music out of re-purposed scrap metal and machinery scavenged from industrial waste-ground and derelict factories; a percussive sound with a political edge performed live against monumental slide and film projections in recently abandoned industrial spaces. Drilling, pounding, grinding, metal bashing – a Constructivist/Futurist-inspired soundtrack to the death throes of industrial Britain.

SCHEDULE
6:00 PM Doors Open
6:15-7:15: Film screening
7:15-8:00 Discussion with Test Department
8:00-11:00 Move to Waiting Room for drinks, DJs

Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/695456000563749/
—

Stevphen Shukaitis

Autonomedia Editorial Collective

http://www.autonomedia.org

http://www.minorcompositions.info

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The Miners’ Wives: Winning the Community

Marx Memorial Library

THE MINERS’ WIVES: WINNING THE COMMUNITY

The Marx Memorial Library & Workers School is holding the third of its four classes marking the 30th anniversary of the miners’ strike on TUESDAY 2nd DECEMBER starting at 6.30pm held at the MML, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London, EC1R 0DU.

Joyce Sheppard, who was active in the movement of miners’ wives throughout the miners’ strike of 1984-85 in Doncaster, will lead an educational discussion on how the community was organised during the strike.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Marx Memorial Library & Workers School

37a Clerkenwell Green
Marx Memorial Library
London
EC1R 0DU
United Kingdom

020 7253 1485

enquiries@mml.xyz

Website: http://www.marx-memorial-library.org

Opening Hours: Monday-Thursday 12-4pm

 

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Democracy and Collective Action in the Twenty-First Century

Critical Education / Education is Critical

DEMOCRACY AND COLLECTIVE ACTION IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

A message from Jeremy Gilbert

A Public Event with:

Angela McRobbie

Hilary Wainwright

Mark Fisher

Jeremy Gilbert

Neal Lawson

November 11th 2014, 6:30pm-8:30pm
Committee Room 6, House of Commons

All details and booking: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/democracy-and-collective-action-in-the-twenty-first-century-tickets-13633868267?aff=eventful%2Fr%2Feventful

‘Reclaim Modernity: Beyond Markets, Beyond Machines’ is a new pamphlet published by Compass and written by Mark Fisher and Jeremy Gilbert. A brief introduction to the pamphlet can be read here, and you can click through to short piece I wrote about the pamphlet for the Guardian website, and then to the actual document, from there:
http://jeremygilbertwriting.wordpress.com/2014/10/21/reclaim-modernity/

A related essay on UKIP, Populism and the Left is here:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/jeremy-gilbert/populism-and-left-does-ukip-matter-can-democracy-be-saved
Please circulate widely
Jeremy Gilbert
http://www.jeremygilbert.org
@jemgilbert=

 

**END**

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The Politics of Worker’s Inquiry

Labour

THE POLITICS OF WORKER’S INQUIRY

New issue of ephemera on ‘The politics of worker’s inquiry’ released…

The Politics of Worker’s Inquiry
ephemera: theory & politics in organization
Volume 14, Number 3 (August 2014)
Edited by Joanna Figiel, Stevphen Shukaitis, and Abe Walker
http://www.ephemerajournal.org/issue/politics-workers-inquiry

This issue brings together a series of commentaries, interventions and projects centred on the theme of workers’ inquiry. Workers’ inquiry is a practice of knowledge production that seeks to understand the changing composition of labour and its potential for revolutionary social transformation. It is a practice of turning the tools of the social sciences into weapons of class struggle. It also seeks to map the continuing imposition of the class relation, not as a disinterested investigation, but rather to deepen and intensify social and political antagonisms.

Workers’ inquiry developed in a context marked by rapid industrialization, mass migration and the use of industrial sociology to discipline the working class. It was formulated within autonomist movements as a sort of parallel sociology based on a radical re-reading of Marx and Weber against the politics of the communist party and the unions. The process of inquiry took the contradictions of the labour process as a starting point and sought to draw out such political antagonisms into the formation of new radical subjectivities. With this issue we seek to rethink workers’ inquiry as a practice and perspective, in order to understand and catalyse emergent moments of political composition.

Including essays from Fabrizio Fasulo, Frederick H. Pitts, Christopher Wellbrook, Anna Curcio, Colectivo Situaciones, Evangelinidis Angelos, Lazaris Dimitris, Jennifer M. Murray, Michał Kozłowski, Bianca Elzenbaumer, Caterina Giuliani, Alan W. Moore, T.L. Cowan, Jasmine Rault, Jamie Woodcock, and Gigi Roggero; an interview with Jon McKenzie; and book reviews by Craig Willse, Stephen Parliament, Christian De Cock, Mathias Skrutkowski, and Orla McGarry.

**END**

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Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

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Reframing Labour and Workers’ Resistance for the 21st Century

Labour

REFRAMING LABOUR AND WORKERS’ RESISTANCE FOR THE 21st CENTURY

Call for Papers

Working USA special issue

Issue Editors:

Maurizio Atzeni, Loughborough University, UK; m.atzeni@lboro.ac.uk

Immanuel Ness, Brooklyn College, CUNY, New York City; manny.ness@gmail.com

Interpretations of global labour in the age of neoliberal capitalism urgently demands robust and critical historical and comparative analysis. For decades, research on labour collective organisation has focused almost exclusively on workers collectively employed on a stable basis in industrial settings or in the public sector, defended by collective bargaining, represented by trade unions and inserted within relatively stable systems of industrial relations. This view however it has always failed to take into account the transformative potentialities of that vast, rich and meaningful array of ‘precarious’ work experiences and relations that allow the production and re-production of capital as a whole.

Women’s labour in the sphere of social reproduction, low-waged workers who work outside conventional work as subcontractors in global production chains or in the informal economy of the global cities or as crowd workers in the digital economy, migrant workers whose exploited work often lays at the margin of legality, new groups of dispossessed people forced into the labour market, are categories of workers traditionally excluded and neglected by the labour relations literature as labourers; often considered unproductive, unregulated, and thus unrepresentable. Considering the speed of development and intensity of integration of global capitalist processes and the political turn to neoliberalism, which have brought about new (or refreshed old) paradigms to increase workers’ productivity and profits, absent has been the signal importance of these ‘invisible’, precarious workers, today representing not just the vast majority of workers in the global South but also increasingly shaping the social landscape of cities across the world.

Broadening research on this underworld of precarious and not represented workers is important to understand one fundamental dimension of the process of capital accumulation in the global age but it also helps to address deep theoretical concerns, put in evidence by heterodox Marxist currents across the social sciences, originating from the use of narrow conceptions about work and workers:

• The conventional notion of the working class, based on the industrial, waged worker, has been questioned for not considering how different labour regimes co-exist and contribute to the development of capitalism as a system, especially women engaged in social reproduction.
• The social organisation and militancy of workers it has been reduced to workers’ resistance to official strikes organised by representative trade unions, the ‘institutionalised form of resistance’, leaving aside the rich history and tradition of workers’ self-organisation. This remains crucial today in framing precarious workers organisation and in setting possibilities for transformative agency.
• Geographically research concentrated on struggles at the workplace without considering the linkages of these with broader struggles over workers’ daily lives.

In the past 30 years, one sided views of labour has been explicitly based on the political role assigned to the industrial workers. Either from a revolutionary or a reformist perspective this particular section of the working class was considered central to any transformative politics. The advent of neoliberalism has swept away many of the elements upon which this centrality was built, leaving a tabula rasa, politically and theoretically speaking. From an empirical point of view, diversity, heterogeneity, unevenness, unpredictability characterise most workers’ struggles of the 21st century.

Against this theoretical and empirical gap in knowledge, the aim of this special issue is twofold.

It aims to offer insights on the daily lives, organization and resistance of precarious workers, intending these in broader terms, as employed in a range of different sectors, geographical and spatial landscapes, economic environments, and regulatory employment regimes.

It aims to produce new knowledge into the connections between these different workers’ struggles and the specific socio-economic, historical and productive context in which have developed.

Within these aims and considering the scope of the journal, we seek submissions from any social sciences discipline concerned with the study of workers and labour using a range of empirical and methodological analyses. The editors however would especially welcome papers that reach theoretical insights in addressing the relevance of certain groups of workers’ experiences or develop their arguments through comparative/historical analysis; focus on global cities and diverse employment regimes, workplaces and daily lives experiences; consider the experiences of workers in strategic sectors of the economy (distribution, transportation, knowledge economy); search for connections of workers struggles in different locations across the global production chain;  or offer insights on new forms of organizing and resistance

 

DUE DATE FOR ABSTRACTS OF 750-1000 WORDS: 15 September 2014

WORD LENGTH: 6000-10,000 words

DUE DATE FOR FINAL SUBMISSION: end March 2015

PUBLICATION DATE: September 2015

INCLUDE NAME, AFFILIATION

WE ENCOURAGE PHD STUDENTS AND ESTABLISHED SCHOLARS TO CONTRIBUTE

 

First published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/call-for-papers-reframing-labour-and-workers2019-resistance-for-the-21st-century

 

**END**

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Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

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Matchwomen’s Festival

Match Women

MATCHWOMEN’S FESTIVAL

Saturday 5th July 2014

Mander Hall

Hamilton House, Mabledon Place

London

WC1H 9BD

11AM to 9PM

Nearest stations: Euston and King’s Cross

Website: http://www.matchfest.co.uk/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/matchwomen

 

The Legacy of the Matchwomen

In the summer of 1888, 1400 women walked out on strike over management bullying and appalling, hazardous working conditions. The women and girls working at Bryant & May’s match factory in London’s East End shocked the world, and ultimately changed it.

Working-class women at this time were supposed to be seen and not heard, especially if, like many matchwomen, they were of Irish heritage. Instead, the matchwomen paraded the streets of the East End, singing songs and telling the truth about their starvation wages and mistreatment by the firm.

They marched to Parliament, and their strength and solidarity won them better pay, safer conditions, and the right to form the largest union of women and girls in Britain.

They were an inspiration to other groups of workers up and down the country and throughout the world. The modern movement for workers’ rights had begun, and the matchwomen were at the forefront of it.

Last year’s first Matchwomen’s Festival marked the 125th anniversary of the Matchwomen’s Strike.

It was a brilliant day with around 700 visitors, including the late Bob Crow, and was one of Tony Benn’s last public engagements.

Since then, the importance of the matchwomen to British history has been acknowledged in Parliament with a debate devoted to them, and Labour MPs recommending that the book about them, Striking a Light, should be on the school syllabus. Minister Ed Vaizey replied that Michael Gove would read it: so far, no word on whether Mr Gove enjoyed it, but we wait with baited breath.

MPs also wanted to see a properly-worded blue plaque acknowledging the women’s courage at the old factory site, which Vaizey supported. Watch this space, or indeed, that space if you live nearby.

This year’s festival is smaller, but still perfectly formed. We have some wonderful speakers, songs from Tina McKevitt, and spoken word from Faisal Ali.

We’re excited to have the inspiring Sara Khan on the importance of making links with Muslim women, Sukhwant Dhaliwal on the work and history of Women Against Fundamentalism, eminent trade union and human rights barrister John Hendy QC, and the TUC’s Scarlet Harris.

Kate Connelly will speak on her book about the astonishing life of Sylvia Pankhurst,

Terry McCarthy will speak about the matchwomen-inspired London Dock Strike of 1889, on which he is an authority. Actor and director Kate Hardie will talk about her film Shoot Me, and Alex Wall will talk about working with people with eating disorders, and how they can affect us all.

Heather Wakefield and Caroline Raine have excellent records on organising trade union women, and will update us on the latest issues and disputes and how we can support them.

Louise Raw is the author of Striking a Light and speaks and writes on the Matchwomen, women, unions and history.  Diana Johnson MP was instrumental in bringing the Matchwomen’s legacy to the attention of parliament.

 

Special Guest:

Eam Rin

We welcome to the festival a very special guest. Eam is at the forefront of the dangerous struggle for workers’ rights in Cambodia, which has left 5 people dead this year alone. A garment sewer for 14 years and secretary of the Cambodian Democratic Union, Eam is visiting the UK to talk about the current brutal government crackdown on freedom of association.

 

The Line-up: http://www.matchfest.co.uk/matchfest-line-up.html

Tickets are £2 each for the whole day through Eventbrite, plus a small booking fee.

Booking: http://www.matchfest.co.uk/tickets.html

Bryant & May

**END**

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Revolutionary Teamsters: The Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934

Strike!

REVOLUTIONARY TEAMSTERS: THE MINNEAPOLIS TEAMSTERS STRIKE OF 1934

BRYAN PALMER

NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK FROM HAYMARKET BOOKS

———————————–

“Palmer’s superb micro-history of the Minneapolis General Strike provides readers with an unprecedented view of a Depression-era class struggle from the inside out. Revolutionary Teamsters offers invaluable ‘dancing lessons’ — still relevant today — for labor radicals and protest organizers.” — MIKE DAVIS, author of Ecology of Fear, Planet of Slums, and Buda’s Wagon

———————————–

Minneapolis in the early 1930s was anything but a union stronghold. An employers’ association known as the Citizens’ Alliance kept labor organizations in check, at the same time as it cultivated opposition to radicalism in all forms. This all changed in 1934. The year saw three strikes, violent picket-line confrontations, and tens of thousands of workers protesting in the streets.

Bryan D. Palmer tells the compelling story of how a handful of revolutionary Trotskyists, working in the largely non-union trucking sector, led the drive to organize the unorganized, to build one large industrial union. What emerges is a compelling narrative of class struggle, a reminder of what can indeed be accomplished, even in the worst of circumstances, with a principled and far-seeing leadership.

———————————–

PRAISE FOR REVOLUTIONARY TEAMSTERS

“A stirring study worthy of the epic struggles it describes. Palmer’s account situates the creativity, seriousness, and heroism of revolutionaries and rank-and-filers in an historical moment while trusting that they speak to our moment as well.”

—David R. Roediger, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and co-author of The Production of Difference

“Revolutionary Teamsters … is not only a fresh look at a critical set of historical events in the history of both the left and the labor movement, but also an invitation to engage in a creative reconsideration of the relationship between the past and the present. Like any really good historian, Palmer reveals himself to be more interested in the future than in the past.”

—Peter Rachleff, Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota

———————————–

BRYAN D. PALMER, Ph.D. (1977), SUNY-Binghamton, is Canada Research Chair in the Department of Canadian Studies, Trent University. His prize-winning monographs, edited collections, and articles on the history of labour and the Left, historiography and theory, have been translated and published in Greek, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and other languages.

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ISBN: 9781608463794 / $28 / Paperback / 352 pages

———————————–

For more information or to buy the book visit: www.haymarketbooks.org

First published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/paperback-from-haymarket-books-revolutionary-teamsters-the-minneapolis-teamsters-strike-of-1934-by-bryan-palmer

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

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Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Marx Memorial Library: Political Economy for Trade Unionists

Marx Memorial Library

MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY: POLITICAL ECONOMY FOR TRADE UNIONISTS

There is a series of four classes entitled Political Economy for Trade Unionists taking place in April and May as follows:

 

Tuesday 29 April – Today’s Capitalist Crisis: Banks, Profits, Wages and Austerity

Tutor:  Jonathan White

 

Tuesday 6 May – The Assault on the Workplace: Rights, Conditions and Pay

Tutor: John McGee

 

Tuesday 13 May – The Law and Industrial Relations

Tutor: John Hendy QC

 

Tuesday 20 May – The Assault on Democratic Rights: The threat to labour’s collective voice

Tutor:  Professor Marj Mayo

 

All classes begin at 6.30 in the Lecture Hall at the Library.  The Registration fee for four classes is £12.

 

Dr Laura Miller

Administrator

Marx Memorial Library

37a Clerkenwell Green

London EC1R 0DU

(Tel)  0207 253 1485

(Web site) http://www.marx-memorial-library.org

 

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

 Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academic.edu/GlennRikowski

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The Enemy Within – by Seamus Milne

THE ENEMY WITHIN: THE SECRET WAR AGAINST THE MINERS

30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION!

By Seumas Milne

“The definitive account of the strike—the best book on the Thatcher era.” – Naomi Klein

“A terrifying, frightening indictment of the British establishment.” – Owen Jones

See: http://www.versobooks.com/books/1655-the-enemy-within

————–

Margaret Thatcher branded the leaders of the 1984–85 miners’ strike “the enemy within.”

In this classic account, Seumas Milne reveals the astonishing lengths to which her government and its intelligence machine were prepared to go to destroy the power of Britain’s miners union. In this 30th anniversary edition new material brings the story up to date with further revelations about the secret war against organized labour and political dissent, and the devastating price paid for the Thatcher administrations onslaught by communities across Britain.

Read more:

The Enemy Within: The 30th anniversary of the Miners’ Strike in the Guardian

http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/1540-the-enemy-within-the-30th-anniversary-of-the-miners-strike-in-the-guardian

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Seumas Milne is a columnist and Associate Editor on the Guardian and the paper’s former Comment Editor. He was previously the Guardian’s Labour Editor and a staff journalist on the Economist. He is the author of The Enemy Within and co-author of Beyond the Casino Economy.

————–

“The most important exposé of contemporary political Britain I have read.” – John Pilger

“Riveting. It knocks spots off the usual ‘whodunnit.’” – Guardian

“An astonishing book.” – The Nation

“A tribute to detailed journalistic investigation … strips away the myths and lies.” – New Statesman

“One of the most remarkable demolition jobs ever.” – Spectator

————–

Paperback / 472 pages / ISBN: 9781781683422 / MARCH 2014 / £12.99

ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN E-BOOK

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To learn more about THE ENEMY WITHIN and to purchase a copy please visit
http://www.versobooks.com/books/1655-the-enemy-within

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Visit Verso’s website for information on our upcoming events, new reviews and publications and special offers: http://www.versobooks.com

 

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski at Academia: http://independent.academic.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskpoint.blogspot.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

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Left Forum 2014: Reform and/or Revolution

Capitalism

LEFT FORUM 2014: REFORM AND/OR REVOLUTION

Left Forum 2014

May 30 – June 1, 2014

John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York

524 West 59^th Street, New York, NY, 10019

Imagining a World with Transformative Justice 

The world remains mired in the 7th year of capitalist crisis. The celebrated “recovery” benefits only the few who generated the crisis, while endless economic declines beset its victims, the vast majority. Economic, political and cultural inequalities deepen inside every country. Class divisions sharpen. Social injustice brings us all to breaking points.

Big business and the rich maximize social controls to protect and preserve their dominance. Everywhere they and their politicians impose austerities while reserving public resources to bail out banks and other failed mega-corporations. Capitalism’s “new normal” for most people features poor job and income prospects, unsustainable debts, ecological decline, and right-wingers aiming to deflect social discontent against their usual scapegoats.

Human and natural resources wasted and abused expose this system’s immense social costs. Even as the environmental crisis reaches epic proportions, the forces of capital either sit idly by or actively oppose serious measures to address it. We can surely do better than this system. The 1% have managed the crisis for their benefit.

The question is whether we can now solve the crisis and build a system that serves instead the 99%. This question is on the minds of millions now, more than at any time in half a century. The Left Forum 2014 offers a place for us to explore and debate our common needs for reforms, a revolution, or both.

As the system fails so many so badly, activists for democracy, sustainability, equality, and the abolition of oppression and exploitation increasingly grasp their shared demand for basic social justice. Fifty years of anti-communism, anti-radicalism, hesitant social criticism, and activists’ mutual suspicions are fading into irrelevance.

Pressing questions loom for justice-seeking social forces: What is to be done today when a reform brings us one step forward, while leaving other important struggles worse off in the process? What type of movements will it take to overcome such challenges? What type of institutions, systems and societal conditions are possible when transformed conditions of justice no longer take the forms of, “the aggrieved speaking to the grievance alleviators”? How do these issues raise the question of the relation of reform to revolution? More than ever, people know that a new and different world is urgently needed. How do we get there from here: reforms, revolution, or strategic combinations of both?

Please come analyze, debate, build, ally, and strategize at Left Forum, 2014.  

Download the Theme: http://www.leftforum.org/files/Left-Forum-2014-Theme.pdf

Register for the conference – here while early discounts last

​​Call for Panels/Workshops: Download or forward – here 

LEFT FORUM: http://www.leftforum.org

Please Forward Far and Wide

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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The Dynamics of Virtual Work – Conference and Call for Papers

Knowledge

THE DYNAMICS OF VIRTUAL WORK: THE TRANSFORMATION OF LABOUR IN A DIGITAL GLOBAL ECONOMY

Sponsored by COST (European Co-operation in Science and Technology), Work Organisation Labour and Globalisation, Competition and Change and Triple C

To be held at the University of Hertfordshire, UK, September 3-5, 2014

Globalisation and technological change have transformed where people work, when and how. Digitisation of information has altered labour processes out of all recognition whilst telecommunications have enabled jobs to be relocated globally. But ICTs have also enabled the creation of entirely new types of ‘digital’ or ‘virtual’ labour, both paid and unpaid,  shifting the borderline between ‘play’ and ‘work’ and creating new types of unpaid labour connected with the consumption and co-creation of goods and services.  The implications of this are far-reaching, both for policy and for scholarship. The dynamics of these changes cannot be captured adequately within the framework of any single academic discipline. On the contrary, they can only be understood in the light of a combination of insights from fields including political economy, the sociology of work, organisational theory, economic geography, development studies, industrial relations, comparative social policy, communications studies, technology policy and gender studies

COST Action IS1202 brings together an international network of leading experts from 29 European Countries with researchers from other parts of the world to develop a multi-faceted approach to understanding these phenomena. This international conference will open up an interactive dialogue between scholars both inside and outside the network.

Papers drawing on theoretical, methodological or empirical research are welcomed on the following topics:

The new international division of labour
Restructuring of value chains – theoretical perspectives
Relocation or Global sourcing? New patterns of spatial mobility
Does ‘place’ still matter, and why?
Interactions between the gender division of labour and the spatial division of labour.
Changes in skills and occupational identities in the digital economy
The creation of new occupational identities and the disintegration of old ones
Reskilling or deskilling? New forms of Taylorisation or new opportunities for creativity?
Changing patterns of working time, work-life balance and gender division of labour
New forms of organisation inside and outside the workplace
Value creation in the Internet Age
The monetisation of the Internet – theoretical and methodological challenges
Commodification and value creation in online activities
‘Prosumption’, ‘co-creation’ and ‘playbour’: conceptualising the shifts between labour, consumption and leisure activities
Virtual work and immaterial production (including crowdsourcing, goldfarming and other forms of online work)
Policy implications of virtual work
Implications of virtual work for employment in creative industries
User-generated content – threat or opportunity for employment?
Implications of virtual work for work-life balance and equality
Regulation of work and industrial relations in virtual work environments (the global context)
Implications of virtual work for work-life balance and equality
Effects of virtual work on occupational profiles, skills and HR practices

The conference will be organised in four streams, with plenary sessions on each day.

All submissions will be subject to peer review.
Deadline for submission of extended abstracts: January 31st, 2014
Confirmation of acceptance: April 30th, 2014
Some scholarships may be available for attendees from Developing Countries.

The Dynamics of Virtual Work: http://dynamicsofvirtualwork.com/

The Conference website and Call for Papers: http://dynamicsofvirtualwork.com/call-for-papers/

 

First published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/virtual-work-conference-registrati200bon-now-open

**END**

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo   

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Centre for the Study of Education and Work: Update 7th October 2013

Peter Hudis

CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EDUCATION AND WORK: UPDATE 7th OCTOBER 2013

EVENTS

RYERSON SOCIAL JUSTICE WEEK (OCTOBER 7 – 11)
A week of events, speakers, exhibit and cultural events to transform Ryerson into a hub of social justice and solidarity.

Monday October 7th

Rally: Decent Work For All!
Time: 12:00pm – 1:30pm
Location: Gould Street & Victoria
-Drumming
-Student and Worker Speakers

Social Justice ‘Walking Tour’
Time: 2:00pm – 3:30pm
Location: Meet at Ryerson statue

Opening Lecture – Idle No More: Reframing the Nation To Nation Relationship
Time: 6:30pm – 8:30pm
Location: TRS1067 (TRSM Building – 55 Dundas St. West)

For more info on the week’s events: http://www.ryerson.ca/socialjustice/events/index.html

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REBELS WITH A CAUSE FILM FESTIVAL AT YORK UNIVERSITY

Tuesday, October 22- Friday, October 25, 2013
York University
4700 Keele St., Toronto

The Rebels with a Cause Film Festival is brought to the York U community by artists and activists who seek the delicate balance between both creative and political work. We believe that film should not pacify or be escapist, but politicize and give us the courage to transform ourselves and our communities. The films selected are artistic reflections on social justice issues and critical documentations of unsung community work. Located within a university context, Rebels engages in dialogue outside the classroom through conversations after screenings. We hope that the communal act of viewing and sharing our ideas about films will strengthen our community and empower our work on York campus and beyond.

For more info: http://rebelsfilmfest.wordpress.com/

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FROM INDUSTRIAL FOOD TO WORLD FOOD: A BOOK LAUNCH AND PANEL DISCUSSION ON WORLD FOOD DAY

Wednesday, Oct 16
6pm – 8pm
FoodShare Toronto
90 Croatia Street, Toronto

Contact: Robyn Shyllit – 416.363.6441 x282 – robyn@foodshare.net

The event is FREE and snacks will be provided. Books will be available for sale and signing. Wheelchair accessible.

Celebrate World Food Day on October 16, with a special book launch and panel discussion featuring author of The Industrial Diet Anthony Winson, No Nonsense Guide to World Food, Second Edition author Wayne Roberts, FoodShare Executive Director Debbie Field, and Executive Director of Marin Organic in California Jeffrey Westman.

Plus, meet the author’s of FoodShare’s first cookbook, Marion Kane and Adrienne De Francesco, and purchase your own signed copy of share: Delicious Dishes from FoodShare and Friends.

For more info: http://www.foodshare.net/events/from-industrial-food-to-world-food-a-book-launch-and-panel-discussion/

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GETTING IN & STAYING IN: LABOUR MARKET CHALLENGES FACING YOUTH

Monday, 4 November 2013
9:00 AM to 4:00 PM
Toronto Central YMCA Centre
20 Grosvenor Street, Toronto

Youth are experiencing unprecedented barriers to entering the workforce and are resorting to creative, and sometimes unpaid, outlets to gain meaningful experiences, network and secure stable employment. Join Social Planning Toronto, Toronto Workforce Innovation Group and McMaster University’s School of Labour Studies as we explore overall trends in youth unemployment in Canada and Ontario; the rise in unpaid internships; the debate around skills mismatch; youth & unions; youth in self-employment; and the public policy options and promising practices available to support youth in these difficult times.

For more info: http://bit.ly/17elObc

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WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH – OCTOBER 2013

In 1992, October was proclaimed Women’s History Month to acknowledge and celebrate the achievements of women throughout Canadian history. October was chosen to coincide with anniversary of the Persons Case, which on October 18, 1929 – through the courage and determination of the Famous Five, the five Canadian women who launched the case – established once and for all that women were “persons” when the Privy Council overturned a Supreme Court of Canada decision and ruled that women were indeed persons, and could become Senators. The ruling not only opened the political doors for Canadian women. It also clearly asserted that women’s equality rights in Canada were fundamental.

What the law allows is one thing, but what opportunity allows is another. For millions of Canadian women, their opportunity to fully use their talents and vision continues to be limited by access to affordable and accessible quality child care. In Canada, women’s share of unpaid work, including childcare, remains double to that of men; so the lack of quality, affordable child care falls particularly hard on women and their access to work outside the home.

Women’s History in Canada deserves to be celebrated and acknowledged. It is a time to look back, but also to commit to a future  where a lack of quality, affordable child care is a historical footnote  — and where no woman is limited by an uncaring government. Add your voice to make that future happen. UFCW Canada members, activist and allies are also encouraged to download and share a special poster to commemorate Women’s History Month.

Take action on child care: http://www.ufcw.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3664&Itemid=358&lang=en

Download the poster: http://www.ufcw.ca/templates/ufcwcanada/images/media/posters/Women-History-Month/2013/WoHistyMo_oct2013_EN_8x11_email.pdf

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FEAST FOR FAIRNESS

Join us at a Feast for Fairness at Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market!  Help us win a minimum wage increase for all workers!

Saturday October 12
10:30am to 12pm
St. Lawrence Market
Meet at the corner of Front St. E and Jarvis.
(1 block south of King St. E) Toronto

This Thanksgiving weekend, many low-wage workers are resorting to food banks in order to get by and restaurant workers continue to see their wages stagnate. Many migrant workers are excluded from minimum wage laws altogether.

Join the Campaign to Raise the Minimum Wage and Migrant Workers Alliance for Change as we demand an immediate increase to the minimum wage to $14 and ending minimum wage exemptions for all workers!

Under the banner of “Poverty Wages? NO THANKS!” this event will be just one of many province-wide actions taking place around the Thanksgiving weekend calling for a $14 minimum wage, and in alliance with the Raise the Rates Week of Action from Oct. 14-20.

Find out more here: http://raisetheminimumwage.ca/updates/look-whos-putting-food-on-your-table/

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NEWS & VIEWS

VIDEO – “MADE IN THE USA” DOCUMENTARY CRITIQUES HUDAK’S PLANS FOR A LOW-WAGE ONTARIO

In June 2012, Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak published a “white paper” outlining the changes his party would like to make to the province’s labour laws. Hudak and the Tories say employees in unionized workplaces should be allowed to receive the benefits of union representation without paying the dues that make those benefits possible. While this proposal would violate current Ontario law and an historic legal ruling by Supreme Court Justice Ivan Rand, such “free rider” laws are used to suppress union activity in 24 U.S. states, where they are commonly referred to as “right to work” laws.

In June 2013, veteran journalist Bill Gillespie climbed in a van with a camera crew and headed south to get the real story about “right to work.” His documentary film, Made in the USA: Tim Hudak’s plan to cut your wages, is the result.

“There is a lot of great research out there about the dangers of ‘right to work’ laws,” says Gillespie. “Our goal in making this film was to present that research in a way that was accessible to a wide audience. By presenting the facts through the stories of people who have personal experience with right-to-work laws, I think we’ve succeeded in doing that.”

Made in the USA was financed by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.

Watch the video: http://www.madeinusamovie.ca/

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CALL FOR ABSTRACTS! GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

Gender, Work and Organization
8th Biennial International Interdisciplinary Conference
24th – 26th June, 2014, Keele University, UK

As a central theme in social science research in the field of work and organisation, the study of gender has achieved contemporary significance beyond the confines of early discussions of women at work. Launched in 1994, Gender, Work and Organization was the first journal to provide an arena dedicated to debate and analysis of gender relations, the organisation of gender and the gendering of organisations. The Gender, Work and Organization conference provides an international forum for debate and analysis of a variety of issues in relation to gender studies. The 2012 conference at Keele University attracted approximately 380 international scholars from over 30 nations. The Conference will be held at Keele University, Staffordshire, in Central England, the UK’s largest integrated campus
university.

For more info: http://labouringfutures.com/network/stream-for-gender-work-and-organization-2014/

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SOCIAL PLANNING TORONTO (SPT) DEPUTATION TO ONTARIO MINIMUM WAGE PANEL

On Sept. 6, 2013, Social Planning Toronto presented its deputation to the Ontario Minimum Wage Advisory Panel. Part of SPT’s mission is to be actively involved in highlighting the impact of poverty and income inequality on Toronto residents. With nearly half of Canadian workers living paycheque to paycheque, SPT strongly believes the Ontario government has a key role and responsibility to ensure that its labour force is not working for poverty level wages.

Read more: http://www.socialplanningtoronto.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/SPTDeputation.OntMinimumWagePanel.13.09.061.pdf

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PROSPECTS FOR A CONTINENTAL WORKERS’ MOVEMENT: A FRIENDLY DEBATE

From The Bullet

The two articles that follow are part of a debate on the prospects and problems of building international working-class solidarity and struggle. They focus on these issues for the case of North America, a continent bound together through NAFTA, continental economic integration, overlapping labour markets, and U.S.-Canadian unions. Dan La Botz’ article presents a very positive but critical commentary on Richard Roman and Edur Velasco Arregui’s book, Continental Crucible: Big Business, Workers, and Unions in the Transformation of North America. La Botz questions what he sees as an overly optimistic analysis of prospects for the working class movement in North America. The reply by Roman and Velasco Arregui argues for a cautious optimism, an optimism based both on characteristics of the present moment of globalized capitalism and the historical ties between the working classes of North America. This debate seeks to contribute to both the rebuilding of the Left and the building of a class-wide, continent-wide and eventually international, fight against capitalism, two tasks that are inseparably intertwined.

Read more: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/885.php

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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS – MAYWORKS FESTIVAL 2014

The Mayworks Festival – Toronto is pleased to invite submissions for its 29th festival season. Applications are accepted from groups and individuals in a range of disciplines, including: visual art, music/ poetry, film, video, interdisciplinary, and theatre. We also welcome unions and art organizations to propose panel presentations, forums, and screenings, and to sponsor or co-sponsor events.

Mayworks Festival is a multi-disciplinary arts festival that celebrates cultural production working class culture. We seek to showcase high calibre art by artists at all stages in their careers that are politically and socially engaged with labour realities.  Mayworks Festival is especially committed to providing a platform to support the underrepresented labor of indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, migrants, women, queer-identified people, people of color, and youth.

Submissions will not be accepted after the deadline date: Nov. 1, 2013.
Proposals selected will be notified by email by December 2013. The festival dates (TBD) will be in early May 2014.

For more info: http://www.mayworks.ca

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JOB POSTINGS

CO-ORDINATOR, CENTRE FOR RESEARCH ON LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN (CERLAC), YORK UNIVERSITY

Please note: The Centre Coordinator is required to speak, read and write Spanish fluently.

The Centre Coordinator supports the Centre Director for the overall operation of Centre-related activities, including providing support to financial activities; program administration and secretarial support to the Centre Director and projects.

Education:
Completion of university degree in a related field such as Humanities, Development Studies and any related field in the Social or Environmental Sciences.

Experience:
2-3 years of related work experience in an academic or related research focused unit or NGO environment providing administrative support. Experience with, or demonstrable knowledge and awareness of, issues related to critical social science research, international development, and social justice and Latin American and Caribbean region and/or communities. Experience in Latin America and the Caribbean and/or with Latin American and Caribbean communities is an asset.

For more info: http://webapps.yorku.ca/nonacademicpostings/summary.jsp?postingnumber=8577

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HEAD OFFICE SECRETARY– BILINGUAL, CANADIAN LABOUR CONGRESS

The Canadian Labour Congress requires a bilingual Head Office Secretary. The primary role of the Head Office Secretary is to proofread and format French and English documents.

Duties:
– use word processing software to produce correspondence, memos, reports, briefs, bulletins, letters and documents;
– proofread and format existing documents including memos, reports, briefs and letters;
– use desktop publishing software to format and/or draft layout design for publications;
– enter information in databases;
– act as relief and assume responsibilities of other secretarial positions;
– ensure correct filing of electronic and physical documents;
– register participants for conferences;
– draft routine correspondence and reply to email enquiries;
– provide switchboard relief;
– post information on the intranet and CLC websites.

Qualifications:
– 2 years office experience performing similar tasks;
– oral and written fluency in English and French;
– excellent proofreading and formatting skills in French and English;
– ability to work as part of a team;
– completion of post-secondary office administration training is preferred.

For more info:
https://charityvillage.com/jobs/search-results/job-detail.aspx?id=281857&l=2

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PUBLIC SERVICE ALLIANCE CANADA: REGIONAL EDUCATION OFFICER (BILINGUAL) – ATLANTIC

Under the direction of the Regional Coordinator and as part of a regional team that includes other regional office staff, the Regional Council, the Regional Education Committee, and other regional union bodies such as the Alliance Facilitators’ Network, the Regional Education Officer builds the union and fosters membership solidarity by coordinating the development and delivery of a quality program of membership education and empowerment in the region. The Regional Education Officer closely collaborates with other Regional Education Officers and with the staff of the Education Section in
Ottawa to maintain a core Program of PSAC Membership Education that is relevant, comprehensive, innovative and dynamic.

For more info: https://charityvillage.com/jobs/search-results/job-detail.aspx?id=281800&l=2

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ABOUT CSEW (CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EDUCATION & WORK, OISE/UT):

Head: Peter Sawchuk
Co-ordinator: D’Arcy Martin

The Centre for the Study of Education and Work (CSEW) brings together educators from university, union, and community settings to understand and enrich the often-undervalued informal and formal learning of working people. We develop research and teaching programs at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (UofT) that strengthen feminist, anti-racist, labour movement, and working-class perspectives on learning and work.

Our major project is APCOL: Anti-Poverty Community Organizing and Learning. This five-year project (2009-2013), funded by SSHRC-CURA, brings academics and activists together in a collaborative effort to evaluate how organizations approach issues and campaigns and use popular education. For more information about this project, visit http://www.apcol.ca

For more information about CSEW, visit: http://www.csew.ca

**END**

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Educating from Marx