“New Challenges for Labor”
Organizer: Barry Eidlin, McGill University
As most labor scholars today acknowledge, the past three decades have posed stark new challenges for labor movements; deregulation combined with changing labor processes and an increasingly global economy have weakened unions in much of the world, both in terms of protecting union members and representing broader community interests. This panel invites papers that examine labor’s new challenges across sectors and contexts, and discussing activists’ varied responses to those challenges.
“New Strategies for Labor”
Organizer: Jeff Rothstein, Grand Valley State University
Over the past decade, labor activists around the world have pursued new strategies for mobilizing and representing workers. This panel seeks papers that describe new organizing strategies for labor, whether in sectors or communities lacking well-established unions, where previously-established unions have been prompted to explore new strategies, or in places where workers lack the right to form their own unions. From workers’ centers and minimum wage campaigns, to efforts to mobilize broad community support “for the common good” and to otherwise gain a voice for workers in the workplace and the economy, the panel will highlight and explore innovative labor strategies in the 21st century.
Labor Roundtables
Organizer: Gay Seidman, University of Wisconsin-Madison