​POST-DOCTORAL SCHOLAR, CENTER FOR GLOBAL WORKERS' RIGHTS, PENN STATE

Review of applications will begin on March 15, 2018, and continue until the position is filled. To apply, go to: https://psu.jobs/job/76059

The School of Labor and Employment Relations at The Pennsylvania State University invites applications for the position of Post-Doctoral Scholar with the Center for Global Workers’ Rights. This is a twelve-month position that begins on August 15, 2018. The Center for Global Workers’ Rights was established in the fall of 2012 with the goal of promoting scholarly research and scholar-practitioner exchanges on issues related to workers’ rights. It has a broad focus that includes, but is not limited to, sweatshops, precarious work, labor standards, international labor and employment law, worker organizing, and workers’ rights in global supply chains. Candidates must possess a Ph.D. in a relevant discipline, or a J.D., earned in the last five years, as well as evidence of an emerging research program relevant to the Center’s interests. Scholars will receive salary, benefits, and a research/travel fund to support their work. Scholars will be expected to mentor students on their summer capstone project and to teach one course. This may include teaching for the School’s Labor and Global Workers’ Right MPS program, which is part of the Global Labour University network (http://www.global-labour-university.org/). Upload a letter of application, curriculum vitae, and a writing sample here. Please also arrange to have three letters of recommendation sent directly by letter writers to Mark Ivicic, mci104@psu.edu. If you have additional questions, please contact Center Director, Mark Anner, at msa10@psu.edu. 

The 2018 Labor Research and Action Network (LRAN) national conference will be held Thursday, May 31st and Friday, June 1st at Vanderbilt University. 
 
Scholars, labor practitioners, and activists from across the country will convene in Nashville, TN to share new ideas and lessons learned, and connect around research and campaign work. We hope this conference is an opportunity to develop an offensive strategy in the changed political climate nationwide, and to learn from the unique challenges faced by organizers and researchers in the South and in right to work states, including from active campaigns in the Nashville area. LRAN invites those interested to submit ideas that fit within at least one of the following tracks. We encourage proposals that illustrate the role of research in illuminating these issues and informing campaigns. We also encourage a range of speakers, including those directly impacted by the issues raised in the tracks. A wide range of formats is accepted, including panels, workshops, training's, film showings and strategy sessions.

Workshop submissions are due by Friday March 16th.
Proposals are being collected through this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1_8JNrji3dfnWNN8HKCtypt6n9glNlQm4bcSq49XMVw4/edit. 
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1369604926478435/
LRAN Website:
https://lranetwork.org/2017/10/16/save-the-date-for-lran-conference-in-nashville-tn-may-31-june-1st/

Distinguished Scholarly Book Award DEADLINE: 2/1/2018

The LLM’s section's book award goes to what the Book Award Committee judges "the best book published in the sociology of work, the labor process, the working class, labor unions, or working class movements, based on original research." To qualify, the book must have been published between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2017, and the author must be a section member at the time of nomination. No more than one book nomination per person. Please send your nomination to the committee chair, Joshua Bloom at jbloom@pitt.edu, no later than February 1, 2018. Upon receipt of your email nomination, you will be provided with the mailing addresses of the award committee members. Nominators/Nominees/Publishers will have until March 1, 2018 to send hard-copies to the seven (7) committee members.

 

Distinguished Scholarly Article Award DEADLINE: 3/01/2018

The LLM section is sponsoring the Distinguished Scholarly Article Award for outstanding scholarship for the best article published between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2017. The article is open to both qualitative and quantitative orientations and can reflect work that is U.S.-based or global in scope. Section members are strongly urged to nominate articles for the prize. Self-nominations are welcome. In order to be considered by the committee, the author (or authors) must join or be members of the Labor section.  Nominations must include an electronic copy of (or link to) the article, and all nominations must be received no later than March 1, 2018. Please send all nominations to the chair of the award committee, Penny Lewis, at penny.lewis@cuny.edu.

 

Distinguished Student Paper Award DEADLINE: 3/01/2018

The LLM section’s Distinguished Student Paper Award goes to the best paper written by a graduate student between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2017. All methodological orientations and substantive topics related to labor and/or labor movements are welcome. Published papers, papers under review, and unpublished article-length manuscripts are eligible. Authors must be enrolled students at the time the paper was written and cannot have won the student paper award in the previous 3 years. In addition, authors must be members of the LLM section at the time of submission. The winner receives $150. Section members may self-nominate, and faculty should encourage graduate students to submit promising work. Nominations must include an electronic copy of the paper and must be sent no later than March 1, 2018 to the Distinguished Student Paper Award committee chair, Jasmine Kerrissey, at jasmine@soc.umass.edu.

Carré, Françoise, Tilly, Chris. (2017) Where Bad Jobs Are Better: Retail Jobs across Countries and Companies, Russel Sage Foundation.

“Retail is now the largest employer in the United States. For the most part, retail jobs are ‘bad jobs’ characterized by low wages, unpredictable work schedules, and few opportunities for advancement. However, labor experts Françoise Carré and Chris Tilly show that these conditions are not inevitable. In Where Bad Jobs Are Better, they investigate retail work across different industries and seven countries to demonstrate that better retail jobs are not just possible but already exist. By carefully analyzing the factors that lead to more desirable retail jobs, Where Bad Jobs Are Better charts a path to improving job quality for all low-wage jobs.” (Excerpt from Publisher’s abstract) 


Hui, Elaine.  (2018) Hegemonic Transformation: the State, Law, and Labor Relations in China, Publisher: Palgrave Mcmallian, New York.

“This book contends that the Chinese economic reform inaugurated since 1978 has been a top-down passive revolution, in Gramsci’s term, and that after three decades of reform the role of the Chinese state has been changing from steering the passive revolution through coercive tactics to establishing capitalist hegemony. It illustrates that the labour law system is a crucial vehicle through which the Chinese party-state seeks to secure the working class’s consent to the capitalist class’s ethno-political leadership. The labour law system has exercised a double hegemonic effect with regards to the capital-labour relations and state-labour relations through four major mechanisms. However, these effects have influenced the Chinese migrant workers in an uneven manner. The affirmative workers have granted active consent to the ruling class leadership; the indifferent, ambiguous and critical workers have only rendered passive consent while the radical workers has refused to give any consent at all.” (Publisher Abstract)

Post-Doctoral Position: The School of Labor and Employment Relations at The Pennsylvania State University invites applications for the position of Post-Doctoral Scholar with the Center for Global Workers’ Rights. This is a twelve-month position that begins on August 15, 2018. The Center for Global Workers’ Rights was established in the fall of 2012 with the goal of promoting scholarly research and scholar-practitioner exchanges on issues related to workers’ rights. It has a broad focus that includes, but is not limited to, sweatshops, precarious work, labor standards, international labor and employment law, worker organizing, and workers’ rights in global supply chains.https://psu.jobs/job/76059
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If you know of any members interested in joining one of the Status Committees, please share the following with them: ASA is currently looking for volunteers to serve on each of its four important Status Committees—the Committee on the Status of LGBTQ Persons in Sociology, the Committee on the Status of Persons with Disabilities in Sociology, the Committee on the Status of Women in Sociology, and the Committee on the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in Sociology. ASA is looking for individual members who care about each of these populations within the discipline and are interested in providing advice to ASA Council on the needs of sociologists who belong to each group.


For more information on how to volunteer, visit the following link (please note: the deadline has been extended past the original November 30 deadline): http://www.asanet.org/news-events/footnotes/sep-oct-2017/whats-new/call-volunteers-asa-status-committee-membership.  Please contact Jean H. Shin, Director of Minority and Student Affairs, at shin@asanet.org with questions.