European Labour History Network Conference

Labour History

EUROPEAN LABOUR HISTORY NETWORK CONFERENCE

First ELHN Conference – Turin, 14-16 December 2015

“Factory Level Analysis: A Methodological Exploration”

ELHN website: http://socialhistory.org/en/news/european-labour-history-network

Although among different types of work, industrial work has received the utmost attention by labour historians, studies focusing on a single factory are very few. Factory as a site of both industrial production and social relations of production is often taken as given and treated as the backdrop for the real action. The ELHN Factory History Working Group (FHWG) calls for a reconsideration of this particular workplace as the site of one of the most important relationships in society that between worker and employer with the insights gained from the new social history.

This reconsideration could be carried out on a number of lines some of which are as follows. To begin with, the study of a single factory is based on a complex weave of history, economics, culture, labour, industry, production, and ideology. As such, the history of a single factory lies at the intersection of different disciplines, sub-disciplines and methodological approaches: social history, economic history, business history, urban history, Marxist social theory, sociological inquiry, discourse analysis and micro-level analysis. A complete study of factory history would have to look at a number of social phenomena related to its actual physical existence (such as its relation to urban space, to ecology etc.), as well as its economic, political and social functions. Thus, factory level analysis could put labour history in a dialogue with other historical fields of study resulting in a rich array of details on the experience of industrial work.

The study of the relations in production at the factory level allows the historian to depict the connections between the labour process and the changes in workers’ consciousness and their individual and collective political behaviour could be depicted. Also, factory level analysis makes the divisions within the labour force most visible. Documenting this heterogeneity could also be helpful in understanding different types and levels of militancy, shop loyalty, alienation, and competition among workers. Moreover, a systematic study of factory files could bring the hidden, and isolated instances of resistance to surface. Focusing our attention on the level of factory not only enriches the historical details of that process, it also allows the historian to depict the dense and non-deterministic web of interrelationships at the point of production. Studying a single factory requires that the management is also given special attention. The analysis of the shaping and reshaping of the form and content of the managerial practices in relation to workers’ resistance practices paves the way for a more dynamic depiction of the relations between management ideologies and practices and workers’ reactions to these. Similarly, analysing the changes in the ownership patterns could shed light on their effects on labour relations.

The FHWG invites scholars to explore the methodological possibilities of factory level analysis. Both individual paper proposals and session proposals are welcome.

Please send your proposal (200 words max. for single papers, 8000 words in total max. for sessions) to both coordinators until June 30th 2015.

Görkem Akgöz, Hacettepe University, gorkemakgoz@yahoo.com

Nicola Pizzolato, Middlesex University, N.Pizzolato@mdx.ac.uk

 

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/european-labour-history-conference-factory-history-cfp

***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.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

 

The Chartists Were Right

THE CHARTISTS WERE RIGHT

A Socialist History Society Public Meeting

The Chartists Were Right: On George Julian Harney’s Late Journalism, 1890-97

Speaker David Goodway

Author of London Chartism and editor of GEORGE JULIAN HARNEY: THE CHARTISTS WERE RIGHT among other works

Venue: Red Lion Tenants Hall, Red Lion Square, WC1R 4PD Entrance via iron gates, Lambs Conduit Passage, nr. Conway Hall

Saturday 25th April 2015 at 2.00pm

Free entry – all welcome

For more details see http://www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk

Or contact

morganshs@hotmail.com

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/a-socialist-history-society-public-meeting-london-april-25

 

See also:

The promotional video, ‘1839: The Chartist Insurrection’ (which is also excellent for history teachers and students) can be viewed at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JydjP23QAVc

Music to the film was by David Black. It was produced by Go Canny Films.

 

1839:  The Chartist Insurrection
David Black and Chris Ford
Unkant Publishing

ISBN:  978-0-9568176-6-2
Published:  April 2012, 268pp

‘This book assists us greatly in understanding the potential for future challenges to the system’ — John McDonnell MP

‘In retrieving the suppressed history of the Chartist Insurrection, David Black and Chris Ford have produced a revolutionary handbook’ — Ben Watson

 

**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.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

History After Hobsbawm

Eric Hobsbawm

HISTORY AFTER HOBSBAWM

A conference on the current trajectories of history

Starts: April 29, 2014 05:00 PM

Finishes: May 01, 2014 06:00 PM

Location: Senate House, London

A major international conference, with plenary speakers and large parallel sessions, exploring where the study of history is currently heading. The conference draws inspiration from the capacious legacy of the late Eric Hobsbawm, but is not a memorial event. We aim, rather, to bring together discussion about what we are currently doing as socially-committed historians, where we are headed, and what it means to be an historian in the twenty-first century.

Please download a copy of the draft programme here.

To register, visit https://www2.bbk.ac.uk/history/hobsbawm.

Please note that the conference fee includes refreshments, lunches, and a drinks reception, but does NOT include accommodation which you will need to arrange separately.

 

Plenary Session Speakers

Mark Mazower (Columbia)
Gareth Stedman Jones (Queen Mary)
Catherine Hall (UCL)
Chris Wickham (Oxford)
Maxine Berg (Warwick)
Rana Mitter (Oxford)
Geoff Eley (Michigan)

Panels

Capitalism

Emma Rothschild (Harvard/Cambridge)
Prasannan Parthasarathi (Boston)
Donald Sassoon (Queen Mary)
Frank Trentmann (Birkbeck)

Frameworks of historical explanation

Peter Burke (Cambridge)
Joanna Innes (Oxford)
Renaud Morieux (Cambridge)
Filippo de Vivo (Birkbeck)

The Crisis of the 17th Century

Sanjay Subrahmanyam (UCLA)
Geoffrey Parker (Ohio State)
John Elliott (Oxford)
Mike Braddick (Sheffield)

History of political conflict

Lucy Riall (EUI/Birkbeck)
François Jarrige (Bourgogne)
Steve Smith (Exeter)
Illaria Favretto (Kingston)

Britain, Empire, Europe

Antoinette Burton (Illinois)
Maya Jasanoff (Harvard)
Jan Rüger (Birkbeck)

What happened to class?

John Tosh (Roehampton)
Sonya Rose (Michigan/Birkbeck)
Marjorie Levine-Clark (Colorado)
Sean Brady (Birkbeck)

Global environmental history

Harriet Ritvo (MIT)
Paul Warde (UEA)
Christof Mauch (Munich)
Sunil Amrith (Birkbeck)

Latin America

Alan Knight (Oxford)
Paulo Drinot (UCL)
Joan Martinez Alier (ICTA, Barcelona)

Marxist and post-Marxist social history

Andy Wood (Durham)
Jane Whittle (Exeter)
Lucy Robinson (Sussex)

Nationalisms

Stefan Berger (Bochum)
Bill Schwarz (Queen Mary)
John Breuilly (LSE)

Further details will be available closer to the conference dates.

The conference is organised by Birkbeck, University of London, where Eric Hobsbawm taught most of his life, and by Past & Present, which he co-founded. We are grateful for the support offered by the Birkbeck Institute of the Humanities and the Institute of Historical Research.

**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 

 

Work and Compulsion

Work

WORK AND COMPULSION

Call for Papers

Work and Compulsion: Coerced Labour in Domestic, Service, Agricultural, Factory and Sex Work, ca. 1850-2000s

The International Conference of Labour and Social History (ITH), Austria, announces the 50th Linz Conference, 25-28 Sept. 2014.

Preparatory group:

Prof. em. Dirk Hoerder (Salzburg, Austria)
Prof. Marcel van der Linden (International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam)
Dr. Magaly Rodríguez García (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
Dr. Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk (Wageningen University)
For the ITH: Univ.-Doz. Dr. Berthold Unfried (Institute of Economic and Social History, University of Vienna), Mag. Eva Himmelstoss

Objectives

The conference focuses on the exploitation of human labour in the range of forced labour and debt bondage, which contrary to chattel slavery, have received little scholarly attention. In spite of the gradual abolition of slavery (understood as the legal ownership of humans) in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, other forms of coerced labour persisted in most regions of the world. Indeed, while most nations increasingly condemned the maintenance of slavery and slave trade, they tolerated labour relationships that involved violent control, economic exploitation through the appropriation of labour power, restriction of workers’ freedom of movement and fraudulent debt obligations. Hence the conference deals with historical situations of coerced labour worldwide.

The aims of this conference are five-fold:

 1.  To write a global and comparative history of the political-institutional and gender structures, the economics of and working conditions within coerced labour, as well as the evolution of forced labour (internal or cross-border) migration of male and female workers and the role played by intermediaries. In short, the whole praxis of coerced labour in colonized segments of the world, core countries, post-imperial states, new industrial economies and other low-income countries.
 2.  To problematize (the increasing) forced labour and labour mobility in colonial territories, in Africa and Asia in particular, and to relate them to developments in intra-European labour regulation and regimentation and to the expansion of North Atlantic capital across the world.
 3.  To deal with the twentieth-century forms of coerced labour, whether through confinement to labour camps or debt bondage of individual production and service workers to creditors (for the costs of the voyage) or to individual employers (for the duration of their stay).
 4.  To question whether the application of the forced-labour model to systemic employer-employee relations under constraining circumstances is justified, or whether the ILO’s differentiation between forced labour and sub-standard or exploitative working conditions can/should be maintained. These issues are related to the naming and conceptualization of “force”, “coercion” and “consent”, as well as to the utility of the notions of “human trafficking” and “modern-day slavery”.
 5.  To explore the experiences and aspects of human agency or resistance by forced/bonded workers, organizing initiatives and the silence or activity of non-state actors such as trade unions and NGOs.

Programme structure and themes

Keynotes:

 1.  Agency of men and women under coercion.
 2.  A historical overview of the definitions of “slavery”, “forced labour”, “trafficking” and “modern slavery”, and their evolution within the realm of international governmental and non-governmental organisations.

Section I – Coerced labour in the colonial and non-colonial world (ca. 1850-1940):
Working conditions, employee-employer relationships and migration patterns (who was transported in which direction) within systems of indentured labour, debt bondage, peonage, servitude, compulsory labour and so on. Examples are the twentieth-century credit-ticket migrations from Southern China; the British (and other) empire-imposed indentured labour involving long-distance migration in the macro-regions of the Indian Ocean and the Plantation Belt from the 1830s to the 1930s; European forced-labour regimes imposed on men, women and children within particular colonies; forced labour migration from the colonies to Europe during the First World War (the so-called “colonial auxiliaries”); and forms of involuntary (child) servitude in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the United States.

Section II – Politically imposed labour on home territories: The labour relations, working conditions and agency of workers sent to concentration camps, remote labour colonies or industrial camps under Fascism or Stalinism, in Japan during the Second World War, as prisoners or under peonage in the (southern) United States, in communist China, in Cuba, or as persecuted minorities like the Roma as well as, in the present, use of forced labour from political and other prisoners from dictatorial or authoritarian regimes by Western companies, require further study.

Section III – Coerced labour since the end of the Second World War: The phenomenon of coerced labour – often called “modern slavery” since the last decades – concerns questions of global divisions of labour, economic, gender and racial inequality. While numbers and definitions are contested by academic, UN and ILO experts, official and unofficial data range from 17 to 27 million women, men and children worldwide. This section aims to include papers with empirical information on the extent to which debt, power relationships and poverty lead to the virtual “enslavement” of people through systematic recruitment by means of intimidation or threat of violence, aggressive control by labour intermediaries such as “coyotes”, “snakes” or procurers, and/or brutal enforcement of debt collection after arrival. The experiences and resistance strategies of the workers concerned will be fundamental to better understand the degree of labour constraints and/or the consent to so-called “3D jobs” (dirty, dangerous and demeaning).

Concluding discussion:
General debate on the accuracy of the current definitions used by state and non-state actors, the impact that new research can have on policies and the development or adjustment of analytical methods that can further the knowledge of coerced labour from past and present.

Call for Papers

Proposed papers need to address the conference topics mentioned above in section I, II or III and should include:

 *   An abstract (max. 300 words)
 *   The targeted thematic section
 *   A biographical note (max. 200 words)
 *   Full address and email-address

Sessions will be reserved for ongoing research on the level of doctoral dissertations and of postdoctoral research (depending on high-quality abstracts being submitted).
A special effort will be made to include paper presenters from all regions of the world and both senior and beginning researchers. The conference language will be English.

The organizers will not be able to reimburse costs for travel or hotel accommodation. However, we will establish a limited fund to which scholars with insufficient means of their own may write a motivated application for (partial) reimbursement of travel costs. Grants will be contingent on sufficient funding.

The conference fee includes accommodation (in shared double rooms provided by the ITH) and meals. Participants taking responsibility for their own accommodation will pay a reduced fee.

Proposals to be sent to Magaly Rodríguez García: mrodrigu@vub.ac.be

Time schedule:

Deadline for submission of proposals: 1 November 2013
Notification of acceptance: 1 December 2013
Deadline for full papers: 1 August 2014

A publication of selected conference papers is planned; final manuscripts due 1 April 2015.

 

First published in: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-work-and-compulsion-coerced-labour-in-domestic-service-agricultural-factory-and-sex-work-ca.-1850-2000s

 

**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

Labour History Conference – Edmonton

Labour

LABOUR HISTORY CONFERENCE – EDMONTON

Labour History Conference — Edmonton, June 2014

Call for Papers

The Labour Movement has a long history of working alongside or against a wide variety of other social and political movements: from the anti-Fascist popular front to the Latin American solidarity campaigns of the 1970s and 1980s, from the women’s movement to LGBTQ movement today, from anti-nukes to environmental movements, from human rights campaigns in the 1940s and 1950s to Idle No More today. The Alberta Labour History Institute (ALHI) conference of 18-21 June, 2014, wants to investigate this past, present and future of labour’s interaction with other social movements in Canada and beyond.

ALHI seeks to share academic and people’s own histories with the broader community. It draws its members from organised labour, activist communities and the academy, and its conferences seek to build links between academic and non-academic history. Panels featuring “traditional” academic papers will be interspersed with group oral histories featuring people on-stage and in the audience telling their own stories. All of the presentations are filmed in high definition video and transcribed for archival purposes, with low-res versions uploaded onto our YouTube channel (search “Alberta Labour
History” on YouTube).

Our last conference included a concert by Maria Dunn and friends, a film festival, museum displays and keynote addresses from both historians and labour leaders. About one third of the conference participants were academics, and two thirds current and retired trade unionists and other activists. The 2014 conference will be similarly structured and seek a similar audience.

We are looking for people or groups interested in taking part in one of four categories on the theme labour’s interaction with other social movements, past, present and future. We encourage papers and presentations from any perspective, including those that may be critical of labour in the past or present.

We also encourage potential presenters to take a broad view of social movements, defining them as you like.
1)      Academic presentations of 15-20 minutes of length by students, established academics or others.
2)      Oral history participants who want to tell their own story on the theme in 10 minutes.
3)      Films up to 20 minutes in length.
4)      Museum-style displays that can be shipped to Edmonton and put up for public display during the length of the conference.
Interested presenters should send a statement of interest or abstract and brief bio or c.v. to <ALHI@labourhistory.ca> by 15 Ocotober, 2013 (to be considered for any possible travel funding) or by 15 November, 2013 for inclusion in the programme. All proposals will be peer-reviewed by a panel of academics and labour activists, and selected presenters will be informed by either the end of September or the end of November.

In the past we received grants and donations sufficient to subsidise many of our presenters. We will be fundraising again, but cannot promise support at this time

First published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-labour-history-conference-edmonton-june-2014

*****END*****

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo (new remix, and new video, 2012)  

‘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

Workers’ Internationalism Before 1914

Karl & Jenny Marx

WORKERS’ INTERNATIONALISM BEFORE 1914

Conference: “Workers’ Internationalism before 1914”
15-16 February 2014, School of History, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK

Call for Papers
2014 is the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the International Working Men’s Association in 1864. It is also the 125th anniversary of the foundation of the Socialist International in 1889, and the centenary of the outbreak of the war which precipitated the collapse of that International.

To mark these anniversaries, UEA School of History, in conjunction with the journal Socialist History and the Institute of Working Class History (Chicago) are organising a conference on “Workers’ internationalism before 1914”. We are inviting proposals for papers on any aspect of the subject.

Themes might include:
• the historical experience of the internationals and their affiliated organisations
• cross-border labour organisation
• resistance to nationalist politics in multi-national states
• transnational and international solidarity
• migration and the transplantation of labour movement culture
• international causes celèbres
• political asylum and revolutionary exile
• speaking tours of socialist leaders

We are seeking papers of 5000 to 10000 words on various experiences or aspects of workers’ internationalism before 1914, to be presented at the seminar. Selected papers will be published in 2014 in a special issue of Socialist History devoted to the subject.

Queries and proposals for papers should be submitted by 1 October 2013 to internationalism1914@gmail.com. Attendance at the conference will be free of charge.

 

First published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-workers2019-internationalism-before-1914-uea-15-16-february

 

**END**

 

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo (new remix, and new video, 2012)  

‘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

Labor and Working-Class History Seminar

Economics

LABOR AND WORKING-CLASS HISTORY SEMINAR

CALL FOR PAPERS

2013–2014 Academic Year
Call for Papers

The Labor and Working-Class History Seminar at Roosevelt House, Hunter College, City University of New York seeks proposals for seminar papers that explore the rich and diverse spectrum of labor history and working-class life. Essays may focus on workers’ agency, culture, and lived experiences; class dynamics as informed by other social categories and identities; changes in political economy and their effects on workers’ lives; the expansion and reduction of governmental policies promoting economic security and other forms of social welfare; and other related topics.

The Labor and Working-Class History Seminar will be an on-going colloquium for a broad academic audience, including graduate students, faculty members, and independent scholars. We will meet at the historic Roosevelt House twice a semester during the 2013–2014 academic year, on selected Tuesdays from 6:00–8:00 p.m. At each meeting, an invited presenter will offer an overview of a scholarly work, pre-circulated electronically to all participants, and a commentator will provide constructive feedback. The exchange between the presenter and commentator will be followed by a discussion among all seminar attendees.

The Labor and Working-Class History seminar, while focused on history, welcomes scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including human rights studies, public policy studies, sociology, anthropology, literature, law, and environmental studies. We encourage cross-disciplinary discussion, and invite proposals from diverse subject areas and approaches.

Interested scholars who would like to present a portion of their current research on labor and/or class should submit a one page abstract and a brief cv to: Donna Haverty-Stacke and Eduardo Contreras at laborsem@hunter.cuny.edu by August 1, 2013. Decisions will be communicated by September 1, 2013 to all those who have submitted abstracts.

We have a limited fund to support regional travel but are unable to provide funding for long-distance travel or lodging. If you would like to be placed on the email list to receive announcements of upcoming presentations, please write to: laborsem@hunter.cuny.edu.

 

First published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-labor-and-working-class-history-seminar-at-roosevelt-house-hunter-college-cuny

 

**END**

 

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo (new remix, and new video, 2012)  

‘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

Matchwomen’s Strike 2013 Festival

The Match Women

MATCHWOMEN’S STRIKE 2013 FESTIVAL

Bishopsgate Institute

London

6^th July 2013

11.00am – 11.00pm

Admission Free (but register for tickets)

Family Friendly

Celebrate the 125^th anniversary of the Matchwomen’s victory, and the beginning of the modern labour movement

125 years ago the Matchwomen’s gallant struggle and victory against all the odds led to the new union movement. For far too long they have been unsung heroes in the pages of history. Celebrate the 125^th anniversary of the Matchwomen’s victory and the beginning of the modern labour movement!

The festival will be the kind of ‘knees- up’ the Matchwomen themselves would have enjoyed – there will be bands, comedians and actors, choirs, stalls, and great food and drink.

In July 1888, several hundred women walked out of an East London match factory – and changed the world. The strike was a reaction to management bullying and terrible conditions, and it should have failed. Bryant & May were powerful and prosperous, with friends in government. The women were mere ‘factory girls’, and even worse, mostly Irish. But their courage, solidarity and refusal to back down impressed all who saw it. What they revealed about conditions inside the factory, including the horrors of the industrial disease ‘phossy jaw’, shamed Bryant & May, and their shareholders, many of whom were MP’s and clergymen. In just two weeks, the women won better rates of pay and conditions, and the right to form the largest union of women in the country.

Their victory was remarkable, but until now, rarely acknowledged as the beginning of the modern trade union movement. Following the Matchwomen’s victory a wave of strikes, including the 1889 Great London Dock Strike, swept the nation. Multitudes of the most exploited workers formed new unions, sowing the seeds of the modern labour movement, and Labour Party. The Dock Strikers never denied the Matchwomen’s influence. In the throes of the Dock Strike, leader John Burns urged a mass meeting of tens of thousands to ‘stand shoulder to shoulder.

Remember the Matchwomen, who won their fight and formed a union.

Speakers & Performers include: Tony Benn, Owen Jones, Lindsey German, Robb Johnson, Anna Davin, Professor Jane Martin, Michael Rosen, The Socialist Choir and many more, with lots of events for children and young people.

Website and Registration for Tickets: http://www.matchwomensfestival.com/

Bryant & May

**END**

 

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales); and at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo (new remix, and new video, 2012)

‘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

The Match Women’s Strike

Centre for the Study of Education and Work: Update 18th February 2013

Educating from Marx

CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EDUCATION AND WORK: UPDATE 18th FEBRUARY 2013

EVENTS

COLLABORACTION: BUILDING BLOCKS LEARNING EXCHANGE

Wednesday, March 20, 2013
12:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Toronto Reference Library
789 Yonge St.

Promote civic engagement and participation of diverse, low income communities in the Greater Toronto Area.

Participatory workshops will focus on:

– Imperative of engagement in diverse low income communities
– Building civic movements and leaders
– Web-based methodologies for community organizing
– Models for mobilizing diverse low income communities
     
This will be a lively learning exchange. We’ll showcase local leadership success stories and give you plenty of opportunities to connect with and learn from others. You’ll leave with ideas and practical information to build civic literacy and promote engagement and participation in your community.

Register online: http://colaboractionmarch202013.eventbrite.com/#

Sponsored by The Maytree Foundation.

+++++

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND BRITISH COLUMBIA’S WORKING CLASS

A Community Workshop organized by the Canadian Committee on Labour History

Sunday, June 2, 1-5pm
Legacy Art Gallery
630 Yates Street, Victoria, BC
Coffee house/social to follow @ 5pm

Fresh on the heels of the BC provincial election, this workshop brings together activists and academics to consider the past, present and future of social democracy and BC’s working class. It seeks to provide context to current debates and strategies over labour laws, social programs and the balance of power in the workplace and communities.

Featuring:
– Jim Sinclair, British Columbia Federation of Labour
– Tara Ehrcke, Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association
– Ingo Schmidt, author of Social Democracy after the Cold War

Sponsored by the Canadian Committee on Labour History, University of Victoria Social Justice Studies Program and the Society for Socialist Studies.

To register, contact CCLH secretary Ben Isitt: isitt@uvic.ca  Registration fee $20, waived for students and the unwaged.

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LEADERSHIP, HIGHER AND ADULT EDUCATION (OISE-UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO) RESEARCH SMORGASBORD + SOCIAL

February 27
12-2pm
OISE, Room 12-199
252 Bloor St. West, Toronto

Come hear faculty from Adult Ed/Community Development, Ed Admin and Higher Ed programs present the findings from research in which they are engaged and have published, or are in the process of publishing. Social to follow. Light refreshments will be served.

– Peter Dietsche: “A perfect storm: public policy, access and student success in ontario colleges”
– Glen Jones: “Academic careers and national systems of higher education”
– Linda Muzzin: “Mapping curriculum and equity in Canada’s community colleges”
– Shahrzad Mojab: “Re-organization of educational services and social services in response to policy mandates emphasizing the security and securitization of youth”
– Jean-Paul Restoule: “Deepening knowledge and enhancing instruction through incorporation of indigenous worldviews in initial teacher education program at OISE”
– Kiran Mirchandani: “Phone clones: Identity, learning and work in the international call centre system with special attention to India”
– Jim Ryan: “The micropolitics of social justice leadership in organizations”
– Joe Flessa: “Streaming in Ontario schools”
– Carol Campbell: “Leading with evidence for educational improvement through education system change, professional capacity and student learning”

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FORUM: CLASS STRUGGLES IN CRISIS: FROM WALMART TO THE STATE

Friday February 22, 7 pm
Oakham House
Ryerson University Student Centre
63 Gould St, Toronto, at Church St.
Dundas St Subway.

A Socialist Register event

Please join for a panel discussion introduced and moderated by SR editors, Greg Albo, Vivek Chibber and Leo Panitch

“Class Struggles in Crisis: from Walmart to the State”
with Kevin Doogan, Arun Gupta, Jane Hardy, and Charles Post.

– Kevin Doogan is professor in the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol.
– Arun Gupta is a co-founder of The Indypendent and The Occupied Wall Street Journal.
– Jane Hardy is a professor in the Business School at the University of Hertfordshire
– Charles Post is a professor of Sociology at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York (CUNY).

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BOOK LAUNCH: BOOM, BUST AND CRISIS
Labour, Corporate Power and Politics in Canada

Edited by John Peters

Wednesday, February 27, 2013
7:30 pm
Centre for Social Innovation, Main Floor Café, 720 Bathurst Street (South of Bloor), Toronto

This is a free event. Everyone is welcome.

Published by Fernwood Publishing. Co-sponsored by the Centre for Social Justice.

For more information: http://www.socialjustice.org/community/#e836 or call Nancy Malek 902-857-1388

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GREATER TORONTO WORKERS’ ASSEMBLY (GTWA) GENERAL MEMBERS MEETING

Sunday, February 24
2 – 4 PM
Steelworkers’ Hall, 25 Cecil St.
Toronto

We will be having a discussion with Gautam Mody, General Secretary of the New Trade Union Initiative (http://ntui.org.in/), an exciting union in India which in two decades has built a democratic organization that now represents around 1.5 million workers with a special emphasis on informal workers.

You can read a delegates’ report on their founding convention here: http://labornotes.org/print/214

An interview with Mody can be read at: http://www.amrc.org.hk/alu_article/interview_with_gautam_mody_secretary_new_trade_union_initiative

Join the Greater Toronto Workers’ Assembly and please bring friends.

We will also be discussing the GTWA’s Public Sector Committee and its project to develop workplace and community power right here in Toronto.

Visit the GTWA website: http://www.workersassembly.ca

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NEWS & VIEWS

CAMPUS FIGHTBACKS IN THE AGE OF AUSTERITY: LEARNING FROM QUEBEC STUDENTS

by Xavier Lafrance and Alan Sears, The Bullet

The 2012 Quebec student strikes delivered one of the few victories we have seen in anti-austerity struggles in the Canadian state. The mobilization, which at its high point saw over 300,000 students on limited or unlimited strike, and demonstrations of hundreds of thousands, was a crucial highpoint
that has a great deal to teach radicals. The attempted clampdown by the Jean Charest government through Bill 78 that attempted to outlaw the movement, unleashed a new and innovative round of resistance including the casseroles night marches.

Read more: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/771.php

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“WHOSE STREETS? OUR STREETS!”: REFLECTIONS ON THE WORLD’S LARGEST DEMONSTRATION, TEN YEARS LATER

by Sarah Grey and Leo Zeilig, MRzine

February 15, 2003, Sarah, New York:

The wind that whips down the avenues is bitterly cold, but that doesn’t stop us from protesting the drive to war in Iraq.  People from all over the city and the Northeast — young and old, hardened activists and first-time protestors — have converged on Manhattan, where the wounds of 9/11 are
still gaping, to tell our unelected president NO to war on Iraq. 

Read more: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/gz150213.html

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VIDEO – BOOK LAUNCH: TOWARD THE UNITED FRONT
Proceedings of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, 1922

Toronto — 3 February 2013.

Moderated by Abbie Bakan. Panel discussion with:

– John Riddell is the translator and editor of this book. He maintains a blog at http://www.johnriddell.wordpress.com
– David McNally teaches Political Science at York University, Toronto, and is the author of “Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism”
– Greg Albo teaches Political Economy at the Department of Political Science, York University. He is the co-editor of “Empire’s Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan”
– Suzanne Weiss is a Toronto writer, active in Palestinian, Latin American solidarity and work for climate justice
– Paul Kellogg teaches Political Economy at Athabasca University

The book is published by Haymarket Books and can be ordered here: http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Toward-the-United-Front

Watch the video: http://www.socialistproject.ca/leftstreamed/ls161.php

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SUBMIT TO UPPING THE ANTI (UTA) ISSUE 15!

Upping The Anti: A Journal of Theory and Action is a radical journal published twice a year by a pan-Canadian collective of activists and organizers. We are dedicated to publishing radical theory and analysis about struggles against capitalism, imperialism, and all forms of oppression.

Upping The Anti believes that praxis – the dialectical combination of theory and practice – is integral to the building of strong revolutionary movements. We work with activists and thinkers in these movements to distil the lessons learned from struggle. We prioritize reflection which leads to political clarification, summation, and synthesis.

We are currently looking for story ideas for ISSUE FIFTEEN, which will be released in June 2013. If you have an idea for a story you would like to see published in our journal, please send us a one-page pitch by Thursday, February 28, 2013. In addition to the pitch, please submit a short writing sample (max 1,000 words).

In your pitch, please provide a brief description of the topic of your proposed investigation, your main questions, an account of how you will address these questions, as well as a brief biographical note.

Before submitting a pitch, we encourage you to read back issues in order to familiarize yourself with the kind of writing that we publish. We also encourage you to have a look at the Upping The Anti submission guide, which can be downloaded at http://uppingtheanti.org.

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ONTARIO WORKERS NEED URGENT PROTECTION FROM THE MINISTRY OF LABOUR

from the Workers’ Action Centre

New Minister of Labour, Yasir Naqvi, has an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of thousands of Ontario workers by taking immediate action to address wage theft.

In December 2012, people from across Ontario responded to our call for action for better conditions for workers.  Over 12 days, more than 500 messages were sent to the Minister of Labour calling for stronger protections for workers in Ontario.

We’ve already outlined 5 priorities for action:

1. Increase the minimum wage
2. Target employers that violate employment standards
3. Ensure adequate resources for proactive enforcement of employment standards
4. Update the ESA to create good jobs
5. Equal protections for temporary foreign workers

Read more: http://www.workersactioncentre.org/updates/ontario-workers-need-urgent-protection-from-the-ministry-of-labour/

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WORKING WITHOUT A CONTRACT: A STRATEGY WHOSE TIME HAS COME?

by Robert M. Schwartz, Labor Notes
   
Some unions have changed their policy from “no contract, no work” to “no contract, no peace,” and are using the advantages of working without a contract in order to get a contract.

Read more: http://www.labornotes.org/2013/02/working-without-contract-strategy-whose-time-has-come

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JOBS/INTERNSHIPS

CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK (CUNY) NEW YORK UNION SEMESTER

NY Union Semester offers a mentored internship for graduates and undergraduates at a labor union or worker organization, in addition to 4 outstanding classes.

Interns receive:

– A weekly stipend and unlimited Metro Card
– In-state tuition rates and a scholarship for 4 labor studies courses
– 12 graduate or 16 undergraduate credits

Interested students in the New York area can attend Open Houses March 18, April 17.

Others can contact laurie.kellogg@mail.cuny.edu, call 212-642-2055, or visit The Murphy Institute website:  http://www.sps.cuny.edu/institutes/jsmi

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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=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales); and at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo (new remix, and new video, 2012)  

‘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 30th September 2012

Education Crisis

CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EDUCATION AND WORK: UPDATE 30th SEPTEMBER 2012

EVENTS

First Annual Min Sook Lee Labour Arts Awards

The First Annual Min Sook Labour Arts Award will be given out at the Mayworks Gala on December 1st, 2012 at the Steelworkers Hall.

How can your local and/or organization help us?

1. Please discuss the Min Sook Lee award categories for potential nominees from your local/council/organization. Awards are granted in three categories, to local unions, union activists and to artists. Please send your nomination in by October 12.
2. Plan to attend the Mayworks Gala on Saturday, December 1st at the Steelworkers Hall where the awards will be given out. Tickets are $50 each and $25 for students, unemployed/ underemployed. A delicious East African dinner and fabulous entertainment is included in the cost of the ticket.
Reserve your table(s)/ticket(s) today! If you are unable to attend, please consider buying a couple of tickets so that we can offer them to our low income supporters.
3. Share this email with your e-list or include in your next newsletter.

We are very excited about what will be the talked-about event this fall. We appreciate your time and look forward to hearing from you soon!!

For information about the Awards and/or Gala, please call 416.561.3163 or
email minsookleeawards@gmail.com.

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Labour Education Centre 25th Anniversary

Thursday November 1st, 2012
4:30pm to 7:00pm
Labour Education Centre
15 Gervais Drive, Suite 100
(1 Block east of Don Mills Rd. on Eglinton Ave. East)
Free parking available next to building          

RSVP to lec25@laboureducation.org

Please feel free to forward to others who may wish to attend.

25 Years of Serving Workers 1987 – 2012

http://www.laboureducation.org  

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32nd Meeting of The Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education/Association Canadienne pour l’ étude de l’éducation des adultes
(CASAE)

A conference to be held in conjunction with CSSE and CSSHE
University of Victoria, Victoria BC, Canada
June 3-5, 2013

Call for Proposals – EXTENDED DEADLINE!

Deadline for receipt of proposals via email is now November 1, 2012. Submit by email to: Maureen Coady, mjcoady@stfx.ca.

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Lessons from Quebec’s Student Strike: A cross-Canada speaking tour

Saturday, September 29 – Friday, October 5, 2012
Various locations

A cross-Canada speaking tour, featuring:

-Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, former spokesperson for CLASSE
-Cloé Zawadzki-Turcotte, a former member of CLASSE’s executive and a key organizer behind the strike
-Ethan Cox, rabble.ca’s Quebec correspondent and a former student organizer

This special tour will address what happened in Quebec, but also how the hard-earned lessons of the longest student strike in Canadian history can be applied to organizing across the country. We hope to be able to build bridges of solidarity with movements in other parts of Canada, ties that are critical to mounting a truly national movement against Stephen Harper and austerity.

For more info: http://rabble.ca/whatsup/spreading-maple-spring-lessons-quebecs-student-strike

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ILPC 2013 Call for Papers

Rutgers University
18-20 March 2013

The 2013 International Labour Process will take place at the Rutgers University <http://smlr.rutgers.edu/2013-ILPC> in New Brunswick, New Jersey less than an hour by train from New York City. The deadline for submissions of proposals for abstracts and symposia is 31st October 2011.

The full Call is available here:
http://www.ilpc.org.uk/Portals/56/ilpc2013-docs/ilpc2013-callforpapers.pdf.
Proposals for abstracts and symposia can be submitted through the conference website (http://www.ilpc.org.uk/).

The website also contains full details of the special streams <http://www.ilpc.org.uk/ILPC2013/StreamInformation.aspx> that will supplement the general conference.

If you have any questions please contact hmckay@work.rutgers.edu. We look forward to seeing you at Rutgers University.

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International Webinar at CAPLA Conference

October 21–23, 2012
Westin Nova Scotian Hotel
Halifax, Nova Scotia

Don’t miss the Early Bird registration deadline on October 4th for CAPLA’s conference in Halifax, NS !

The Canadian Association for Prior Learning Assessment (CAPLA) presents Recognizing Learning, Skills and Competencies: Strengthening today’s workplace for a better tomorrow on October 21–23, 2012 at the Westin Nova Scotian Hotel in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

To register and for up-to-date information on pre-conference sessions, keynote speakers, concurrent workshops and other on-site events, visit http://www.capla.ca or call 1-877-731-1333.

For those who cannot attend the Halifax conference, take advantage of the joint International PLA Network workshop/webinar taking place on Monday, October 22. Click here for registration details:
http://reg.agendamanagers.ca/Registrant/Register/659580

Conference participants are responsible for their own accommodation. Please contact the Westin Nova Scotian Hotel directly at 1-888-679-3784 to book your room.  Reference “CAPLA” to take advantage of the preferred conference rate of $139 which will expire on September 27.

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NEWS & VIEWS

There’s Something Happening Here
by Steven Ashby, Chicago Tribune

Teachers go on strike in Chicago and Lake Forest. Chicago symphony musicians walk out. Machinists walk picket lines in Joliet, and Wal-Mart warehouse workers stop working in Elwood. Gov. Pat Quinn gets chased from the state fair by angry government workers, and talk of a state workers strike is
rumbling.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-perspec-0927-labor-20120927,0,3709084.story

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Striking Greeks Retake Streets: ‘No to Troika’s Austerity!’

by Common Dreams

Hundreds of thousands of anti-austerity protesters took to the streets of Greece on Wednesday as the country was paralysed by a general strike in the first mass confrontation with Athens’s three-month-old coalition government.

Read more: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/09/26

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How Chicago Teachers Fought and Won

by Peter Brogan, rabble.ca

On Tuesday, September 18, 2012 the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) House of Delegates voted overwhelmingly to suspend their first strike in 25 years, begun on the previous Monday, September 10 at 12:01am.

Many commentators from both left alternative publications and in the corporate press have observed that in an era of austerity when seemingly no unions in the United States — and I would add Canada — are fighting back against layoffs, budget cuts, wage freezes and the like, the CTU has stood up to a city government that was seeking massive concessions.

Read more: http://rabble.ca/news/2012/09/seven-days-shook-chicago-how-teachers-fought-and-won

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Culture of Concessions Has Gutted Organized Labour

by Sam Gindin, the Bullet

At the end of the 1970s, just before the era of concessions began, the U.S. section of the United Auto Workers included some 700,000 members at the Big Three (GM, Ford and Chrysler). In each subsequent round of bargaining, the union accepted concessions in exchange for the promise of ‘job security.’ Today, after three decades of this charade – sold by the union as well as the companies – there are 110,000 UAW members left at these companies, a stunning loss of almost 85 per cent of the jobs.

Read more: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/702.php

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Analysis of Saskatchewan’s Renewal of Labour Legislation

Unions in a Democratic Society: A Response to the Consultation Paper on the Renewal of Labour Legislation in Saskatchewan, a new CCPA report by Christopher Schenk, critically reviews the contemplated changes to labour legislation proposed by the Saskatchewan government in their Consultation Paper on the Renewal of Labour Legislation in Saskatchewan. Despite claims by the government that the proposed changes merely seek to “modernize” labour legislation in the province, this report illustrates how the proposed changes will have the perverse effect of lowering wages, undermining workplace democracy and contributing to worsening inequality in Saskatchewan.

Read more: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/unions-democratic-society

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New Book from CSEW’s Work and Lifelong Learning Network – Teacher Learning and Power in the Knowledge Society

Editors: Rosemary Clark, Ontario Teachers’ Federation, Canada; D.W. Livingstone, University of Toronto, Canada; Harry Smaller, York University, Canada

The rise of knowledge workers has been widely heralded but there has been little research on their actual learning practices. This book provides the first systematic comparative study of the formal and informal learning of different professional groups, with a particular focus on teachers.

Drawing on unique large-scale national surveys of working conditions and learning practices in Canada, teachers are compared with doctors and lawyers, nurses, engineers and computer programmers, as well as other professionals. The class positions of professionals (self-employed, employers, managers or employees) and their different collective bargaining and organizational decision-making powers are found to have significant effects on their formal learning and professional development (PD).

Promising alternative forms of integrating teachers’ work and their professional learning are illustrated. Teacher empowerment appears to be an effective means to ensure more integrated professional learning as well as to aid fuller realization of knowledge societies and knowledge economies.

Paperback ISBN 978-94-6091-971-8 Hardback ISBN 978-94-6091-972-5
Now with 20% conference discount

For more information: https://www.sensepublishers.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=&products_id=1487&osCsid=3deb287ce2d5edb3759fd76ab9190ea2

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JOBS

rabble.ca Seeking Editorial Interns and a Labour Beat Reporter

If you’re looking for a job that offers a wonderful work environment and a chance to put your activist ethics and skills to work, you’ve found the right place!

rabble.ca is seeking new editorial interns and a labour beat reporter — please visit the link below to find out more about these positions:

Editorial internships: http://rabble.ca/sites/rabble/files/fall_2012_editorial_internships.pdf

Co-op position: Labour Beat Reporter: http://rabble.ca/sites/rabble/files/labour_coop_position_caw_rabble.pdf

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Director of Labour Relations, SGEU

Saskatoon, Permanent Full-Time

The Saskatchewan Government and General Employees’ Union (SGEU) is “a membership driven, democratic union that strives for healthy productive work environments as we provide quality public services and representation for all interest groups.” We value respect, learning, cooperation, dignity, equality, justice and diversity. Headquartered in Regina, the SGEU has offices in Saskatoon and Prince Albert where qualified and competent staff provide a wide range of services to over 21,000 members.

Position Role:
A member of the senior management team, reporting to the Director of Human Resources, the Director of Labour Relations (DLR) manages and provides leadership, guidance, mentoring to the labour relations staff working in the Saskatoon and Prince Albert offices. The DLR plans, develops and ensures labour relation functions are timely, responsive, accurate and efficient.

For more information: http://www.sgeu.org/union-resources/jobs-at-sgeu/director-labour-relations-saskatoon-permanent-full-time

*******

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**

 

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

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

 

New Perspectives on Global Labour History

Labour

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON GLOBAL LABOUR HISTORY

International Journal on Strikes and Social Conflicts

Special Issue: “NEW PERSPECTIVES ON GLOBAL LABOUR HISTORY”

Guest Editor of the Special Issue: Christian G. De Vito

Call for Articles

 

This call for articles for a special issue of the journal Workers of the World  (http://www.workeroftheworldjournal.net/) on New Perspectives on Global labour history is open to PhD-, young- and senior researchers from all over the world.

The originals may be submitted in Spanish, French, English, Italian and Portuguese. However, the article in its final form will be published in English, so – once approved for publication – the author is responsible for its translation within two months.

 

On Global Labour History

First conceived at the International Institute of Social History (IISH) at the end of the 1980s as a response to the crisis of labour and social history, Global labour history (GLH) is by now a truly global “area of interest” involving scholars from a broad range of countries all over the world. Debate is open within its ever extending borders on all key-issues in contemporary historiography. However, three fundamental features have marked Global labour history since its inception:

1.    In Global labour history, the field of labour history is stretched beyond institutional and top-down histories. Labour relations and conditions, individual and collective identities and conflicts of all kind of (male and female) workers are taken into account.

2.    In Global labour history, the chronology of labour history is expanded beyond the divide of the First Industrial Revolution, at least so far as to include the origins of merchant capitalism.

3.    Global labour history covers the whole world and refuses any Eurocentric perspective as well as any approach that takes the nation-state as its exclusive point of reference.

Because of this, on the one hand, traditional categories in labour history are questioned, such as proletarianization, peripheral labour, etc., while all forms of labour relations involved in the process of commodification of labour are explored, e.g. slavery, wage labour, serfdom, indentured labour, etc.

On the other hand, new methodologies are used in order to address interconnections exchanges and fluxes between different places and across the global and local levels. Among others: histoire croisée, microhistory, history of the everyday life, the concepts of translocality and teleconnections, the practices of “following the traces” and following the production and consumption chains.

 

For more detailed information on Global labour history, you might want to see:

·       Marcel van der Linden, Jan Lucassen, Prolegomena for a Global Labour History, IISH, Amsterdam, 1999 (See also: http://www.iisg.nl/publications/prolegom.pdf)

·       Jan Lucassen (ed.), Global Labour History. A State of the Art, Peter Lang, Bern, 2006.

·       Marcel van der Linden, Workers of the World. Essays Toward a Global Labour History, Brill, Leiden, 2008.

·       Christian G. De Vito (ed.), Global Labour History. La storia del lavoro al tempo della “globalizzazione”, Ombre Corte, Verona, 2012.

 

On the  Special Issue on Global Labour History

The special issue of the journal Workers of the World seeks to explore the potentialities of Global labour history further, both applying new methodological approaches to themes that have been already investigated and proceeding along new thematic and methodological directions.

In the selection of articles, therefore, priority will be given to contributions presenting one or more among the following features:

a.    A particular focus on methods and concepts that stress connections, exchanges, fluxes and jeux d’échelles between places and between the local and global (or micro and macro) scales.

This approach will transcend nationally-based and Eurocentric perspectives and also mere trans-national comparisons. The consequences – advantages and disadvantages – of this methodological shift on the analysis of concepts and issues will be explicitly addressed.

 

b.    A particular focus on long-term approach.

Various periods (e.g. early modern and modern; medieval and early modern; ancient, medieval and early modern) will be integrated and the consequences produced by the long-term perspective in the observation of specific phenomena, in the use of concepts and sources, etc. will be explicitly addressed.

 

c.     A particular focus on the historicization of the concept of “work” (and related terms).

What did “work” mean within specific historical contexts? And what was the (individual and/or collective) perception of work by workers, non-workers and employers?

 

d.    A particular focus on one or more among the following issues:

·      The relationship between “free” and “unfree” labour, with further focus on intermediate forms of labour relations and on the use of the categories of “free” and “unfree” labour as such.

·      The relationship between workers, non-workers, household and communities.

·      The social world of the (individual and organized) employers, in relationship to the social world of the (individual and organized) workers.

·      The relationship between gender and work.

·      The relationship between labour and politics, in the double sense of the relationships between work and political regime and political and union organizations and political regime.

·      The relationship between the everyday experience of work and the organization of socio-political conflicts.

 

Rather than addressing the methodological and theoretical issues in Global labour history in an abstract way, articles will present the results of empirical research on work and social conflicts and then, building on these, they will address the meaning of “doing” Global labour history, the advantages and disadvantages of taking such a perspective and the differences with other approaches.

 

Calendar

·      Article submission by the author: 1st September – 10th December 2012

·      Selection of the articles by the editor: 10th December 2012 – 1st January 2013

·      Peer-review process: 1st January – 15th February 2013

·      Notification of acceptance by the reviewers: 15th February 2013

·      Definitive article submission by the author: 15th February – 15th April 2013

·      Final revision by the editor: 15th April – 15th May 2013

·      Publication on line: 15th May 2013

Please note: No articles sent by the authors after the above mentioned deadlines will be accepted.

 

Submission of Articles

All articles should be sent to this email address: christian.devito@gmail.com (Christian G. De Vito) with cc to workersoftheworld2012@yahoo.co.uk.

The originals may be submitted in Spanish, French, English, Italian and Portuguese. However, the article in its final form will be published in English, so – once approved for publication – the author is responsible for its translation within two months.

Articles should be no longer than 5,000 words (including spaces and footnotes) in Times new roman, 12, line space 1,5.

Rules for submission of contributions can be found at the following link:

http://www.workeroftheworldjournal.net/index.php/autor-guidelines/english-version

 

Selection and Peer-review of the Articles

Articles are first selected by the editor of the special issue on the basis of the requirements indicated in this call for articles.

A total of twenty articles are anonymously submitted to the referees. Each article is submitted to two referees.

On the basis of the feedbacks provided by the referees, the editor further selects the ten

articles that will be published.

For any further information, please contact the editor of the special issue at: christian.devito@gmail.com.

 

First published at: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/call-for-articles-workers-of-the-world-special-issue-new-perspectives-on-global-labour-history

 

**END**

 

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

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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 25th September 2012

Education Crisis

CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EDUCATION AND WORK: UPDATE 25th SEPTEMBER 2012

 

EVENTS

Film – Revolucion

Tuesday Sept. 25, 7pm
OISE (252 Bloor St.W. Toronto) Room 2279
PRICE: Pay What You Can

Toronto the Better movie series kicks off on Sept.25th with an original movie from Toronto teacher and union activist Paul Bocking. Revolucion tells the stories of Mexicans impacted by The North American Free Trade Agreement. More bust than boom, they tell us. And they are fighting back. Join us in solidarity with our Mexican brothers and sisters in the “free trade” barrel.

This movie is part of our “Learning with Latin America” series and will be followed in October by Marmato: Manger of Gold.

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The State of Labour, Past and Present

Wednesday, September 26, 8 – 11 p.m.
Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen Street West (near Dufferin)

Ever wonder how we got the weekend, vacation pay, workman’s compensation and many other things that we take for granted? These were the hard won spoils of the labour movement. The “Voice of Industry”, an early labor newspaper published by the first union for working women in the United States, was an early emblem of that movement. And we’re reviving the conversations that took place in its pages. The Voice of Industry was a weekly American labour newspaper that ran from 1845-1848, published by the first union of working women in the U.S. In its pages, working women published articles and poetry about a range of issues related to the social changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution. While their world was very different from our own, much of their criticism remains as powerful and relevant today as it was over a hundred years ago. In 2008 the paper was recovered in its entirety and made freely available online. This year, a substantial redesign of the site was undertaken, with a view of making the sentiments, criticism and moral vision of these workers accessible to a broader audience. To celebrate the redesign, we will be holding an evening of speakers and performances on September 26th at the Gladstone Hotel.

SPEAKERS:
* Jim Stanford – Chief Economist, Canadian Auto Workers Union
* Bryan Palmer – Professor of Labour History, Trent University
* Fay Farady – Labour, Human Rights and Constitutional Lawyer

PERFORMANCES:
* Sean Morley Dixon
* the Voice of Industry Choir
* and others.

voiceofindustry.com | https://www.facebook.com/events/393136110753762

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Toronto Socialist Action Presents Rebel Films: Students in Revolt – Chile, Mexico and Quebec
2012. 54 minutes (total)

Friday, September 28 – 7 p.m.
OISE, 252 Bloor St. West, Room 2-212 (at the St. George Subway Station)
Everyone welcome. $4 donation requested.
Please visit: http://www.socialistaction.ca or call 416 461-6942.

Co-sponsored by Youth for Socialist Action. Three short documentaries are joined together by Rebel Films to show the rise of students and youths around the world in action against the corporate agenda.  It depicts street protests challenging reactionary education ‘reforms’ in Chile, electoral fraud (once again) in Mexico, and the university fees hikes and repressive legislation in Quebec.  This event is co-sponsored by Youth for Socialist Action. YSA leaders Tyler Mackinnon and Evan Engering will lead off the open discussion following the screening.

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Dispatches From the Global Labour Movement: A Speaker Series at York University

A collaboration of:
* Centre for Research on Work & Society
* Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political Economy
* Canada Research Chair in the Political Economy of Gender & Work
* Work & Labour Studies Program, LAPS

All are welcome.
For more info, contact: crws@yorku.ca

1. Lessons from the 2012 Quebec Student Strike: A Panel Discussion
Wed. September 26th
Ross S701 2:30-4:30pm

2. Developments in Collective Bargaining & Gender Equity in Australia
Sue Wiilliamson, University of Sydney
Tuesday October 30th
Ross S701 2:30-4:30pm

3. The Political Economy of the New Attack on Canadian Unions
Andrew Jackson, Packer Visiting Professor in Social Justice
York University
Monday December 3rd
Ross S674 (Verney Room) 2:30-4:30pm

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NEWS & VIEWS

Chicago Teachers Raise the Bar

by Theresa Moran, Labor Notes

The Chicago Teachers Union has done the seemingly impossible. At a time when teachers are pilloried in the press and attacked by Democrats and Republicans alike, Chicago teachers walked out for seven days in a strike that challenged every tenet of the corporate agenda for overhauling education.

Read more: http://labornotes.org/2012/09/chicago-teachers-raise-bar

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Voter equality for a healthy democracy

by the Maytree Foundation

If we told you that voters in some Ontario ridings have twice the influence in Parliament as voters in Oak Ridges-Markham, what would your response be? In the latest Maytree Opinion, Alan Broadbent discusses how our democracy is healthy only when Parliament represents people in all parts of the country equally. Currently, we’re a bit ill.

Read this month’s Maytree Opinion: http://maytree.com/spotlight/voter-equality-for-a-healthy-democracy.html

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Progressives Must Move Beyond Occupy

by Cynthia Alvarez, Common Dreams   

Average citizens evaluate political organizations based on how those organizations actually function. They know a political organization is a microcosm of the society it wishes to create. So after ten months of heavy involvement in Occupy, I have this question for Occupiers: would you honestly want to live in a society that is organized like Occupy and functions like Occupy? Do you want a society that claims to be “leaderless” while its true leaders remain hidden and unelected? Do you want a society with no written rules? Do you really expect the general public to support an organization that would extend this model to the rest of society?

Read more: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/09/17

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Abuse of migrant workers ‘endemic’ in Canada, new study says

by Toronto Star

The moment Liliane arrived in Toronto from Uganda as a live-in caregiver, her boss seized her work permit and passport. For two years of work, she was only paid a total of $2,100.

Senthil Thevar was promised $15 an hour by a recruiter in India to work as a chef in a Toronto restaurant. Instead, he only earned $8 hourly, sharing accommodation in a cold basement, with no vacation and holidays.

On paper, Tanzanian taxidermist Juma was supposed to make $16.08 an hour to make animal specimens in Canada. His boss wrote him a $3,168 paycheque each month, but Juma must immediately withdraw the money and pay it back as “my taxes.”

It might seem these migrant workers just happened to be struck by bad luck — and unscrupulous employers. But a new report released Monday by the Metcalf Foundation says Canada’s current immigration and labour laws virtually doom temporary migrant workers to mistreatment.

Read more: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1257536–abuse-of-migrant-workers-endemic-in-canada-new-study-says

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Book – Researching the Social Economy

Edited by Laurie Mook, Jack Quarter, and Sherida Ryan
University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division © 2010

Researching the Social Economy is one of the first comprehensive research collections on the social economy in Canada. While the term “social economy” is used widely is Western Europe and Quebec, it has had minimal currency in English Canada, where the differences between the public and private sectors and among nonprofits, co-operatives, social enterprises, and community economic development organizations have been emphasized.

The contributions to this volume, flowing from an inter-regional and international network of scholars and community organizations, analyze how the social economy, in its many manifestations, interacts with and shares commonalities with organizations in the other sectors of the economy. Taken as a whole, Researching the Social Economy enriches our understanding of how this important cluster of organizations contributes to Canadian society in both economic and social terms, and lays the groundwork for future study.

Read more: http://www.utppublishing.com/Researching-the-Social-Economy.html

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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**

 

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

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

 

Glenn Rikowski’s paper, Critical Pedagogy and the Constitution of Capitalist Society has been published at Heathwood Press as a Monthly Guest Article for September 2012, online at:

http://www.heathwoodpress.com/monthly-guest-article-august-critical-pedagogy-and-the-constitution-of-capitalist-society-by-glenn-rikowski/

 

Heathwood Press: http://www.heathwoodpress.com