Dear Labor Section,
I hope you are all having a great summer. As we prepare for ASA in Denver we are already thinking about our goal of reaching 400 members by Sept 30, 2012.
We have had an exciting year. The new website is up and running, the Facebook page is active, and we are busy setting up our graduate student mentoring program for Denver. We have funding for a first-ever exchange program with our counterpart organization of Chinese sociologists, starting with a small delegation of US sociologists to China in December, and following up with a Chinese delegation to the 2013 meetings in New York, with a mini-conference around global labor issues.
In the meantime, Denver promises to be exciting, with sessions on Labor and Transnational Capital and US Labor and Politics, along with a great lineup of thematic Real Utopias sessions, many of which touch on labor and workplace themes. Unfortunately, our membership is at 329, short of the 400 we need to go beyond 2 sessions.
In order to reach 400 we need your help. We did extensive outreach to lapsed members in March, and brought back dozens of members. Now we need YOU to reach out to graduate students and colleagues who could benefit from participating in the labor section. If each of you can contact 5-10 people individually, we will definitely hit the target. We have pasted a suggested wording below, but of course personalization makes outreach more effective (some faculty members have been known to offer to cover the $5 membership fee for students). We attaching the list of recently lapsed members (2 tabs, one is people who left the section but stayed in ASA, the other is people who also left ASA; please check these lists first to see if you know anybody!) _and_ the most up-to-date membership roster, if you want to check whether a colleague _not_ on the recently lapsed list is already a member. (The list is not attached here, you can email the webmaster at [email protected] for a copy.)
We are trying to reach our goal of 400 well before the September 30 deadline, ideally in time for ASA in August so that we can plan for an expanded 2013 program at our business meeting! Please reach out. Thanks.
The Membership Committee and the Section Council
SUGGESTED WORDING
Dear XXX,
I'm writing to urge you to join the ASA Labor and Labor Movements Section. It's an exciting time for the Labor section. Denver will feature Friday sessions on Labor and Transnational Capital and US Labor and Politics, as well as a kaleidoscopic set of roundtables. As we often do, we are holding a reception offsite featuring local labor activists (last year's reception with the Culinary Workers who have led grassroots organizing efforts among multi-ethnic casino workers was inspiring). One great feature of the Labor Section is that we maintain close ties with the labor and community movements that are taking up workplace issues.
We also have funding for a first-ever exchange program with our counterpart organization of Chinese sociologists, starting with a small delegation of US sociologists to China in December, and following up with a Chinese delegation to the 2013 meetings in New York, with a mini-conference around global labor issues. For graduate students, we have a mentoring program that matches up students with senior scholars at the meetings to get research and career advice.
Joining the section is a bargain, still only $10 for faculty and $5 for students (you must be a member of ASA). Just log in to ASA, and under Join/Renew, click on Join a Section.
I find the Labor and Labor Movements Section a valuable space for discussion of labor and workplace issues. I hope you will join!
Best,
Chris
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Hi Labor Section members,
In my earlier email, I forgot to mention that the ASA's Member-Get-a-Member promotion means that you can get $10 reductions in your dues for each full-freight member you sign up _for ASA_ (i.e. not just for the section). (Plus they will enter you in a drawing for a Kindle Fire.) Details pasted below.
I have been finding that a number of people have responded that they will join, or rejoin, once the new fiscal year starts on July 1. So it actually seems like a particularly good time to contact people.
Thanks,
Chris