LAWCHA (http://lawcha.org)
LaborOnline (http://lawcha.org/LaborOnline)
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Digital newsletter for Monday, December 9th 2013.
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* Message from LAWCHA
Dear Friends,
Read one of the articles below by one of our authors? Please leave a comment thanking them for their contribution!
Authors appreciate knowing that their work is read, and even a short thank you will contribute to LaborOnline's continuing article quality!
Ryan M. Poe
Executive Assistant
LAWCHA
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Recent Posts
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* WCSA Conference, How Class Works
Ryan Poe
http://lawcha.org/wordpress/2013/12/09/wsa-conference-class-works/
June 5-7, 2014, SUNY Stony Brook. The conference seeks to explore ways in which an explicit recognition of class helps to understand the social world in which we live, and ways in which analysis of society can deepen our understanding of class as a social relationship.
* Bay Area: The Great Migration and Motown Ryan Poe http://lawcha.org/wordpress/2013/12/02/bay-area-great-migration-motown/
Thursday, December 19: The Rockin' Solidarity Labor Chorus presents The Great Migration and Motown. Diego Rivera Theater, San Francisco City College, Ocean Campus (Phelan & Ocean), San Francisco. 7pm, free.
* Add Your Signature to a Letter from LAWCHA Members against Weakened Farmworker Protection in the Farm Bill Ryan Poe http://lawcha.org/wordpress/2013/11/22/add-signature-letter-lawcha-memb…
Section 10008 would add to the discrimination against farmworkers in labor law by requiring the Department of Labor (DOL) to consult with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) when it seeks to enforce wage and hour protections for farmworkers.
* LRAN New Scholars Research Grants (Deadline: December 15) Ryan Poe http://lawcha.org/wordpress/2013/11/21/lran-new-scholars-research-grant…
The Labor Research and Action Network (LRAN) connects workers' rights organizations, academics and students with the shared goal of building workplace and economic power for working people in the United States. One of the organization's key objectives is to help develop the next generation of labor academics and scholars.
* MLWCH CFP Deadline Extension and Conference Date Change Ryan Poe http://lawcha.org/wordpress/2013/11/14/mlwch-cfp-deadline-extension-con…
* A Bright Light in Dark Times: CTU struggle explored in Labor Randi Storch http://lawcha.org/wordpress/2013/11/14/bright-light-dark-times-ctu-stru…
State University of New York employees are reeling from the union contract negotiated between the faculty union (the United University Professions) and the Governor's office. Behind closed doors and in the post-Scott Walker anti-public employee environment of the day, the union's negotiations team took a beating. In the end, the largest union that represents faculty in higher education agreed to furlough days (or in Governor Cuomo speak, Deficit Reduction Leave) and a significantly higher individual and family cost to health care. Continue reading →
* Colombian Trade Unionist Murdered, Others Face Immediate Risk Ryan Poe http://lawcha.org/wordpress/2013/11/13/colombian-trade-unionist-murdere…
Oscar López Triviño was murdered on November 9 in the Colombian city of Bugalagrande a day after he and other members of his union, SINALTRAINAL, received death threats from paramilitaries. The union had been on hunger strike at Nestlé beginning November 5.
* Race, Class, Labor, and the (Not So) Incognito Controversy Clarence Lang http://lawcha.org/wordpress/2013/11/12/race-class-labor-incognito-contr…
I've long appreciated how athletics mirror and shape broader social relations (Consider, for instance, C.L.R. James's Beyond a Boundary, which famously approached cricket as a metonym for colonialism.) From this standpoint, the recent NFL controversy involving Miami Dolphins offensive tackle Jonathan Martin and Dolphins guard Richie Incognito presents an entanglement of racial, class, gender, and work dynamics.
* "The Nature of Work": 36th Annual North American Labor History Conference Ryan Poe http://lawcha.org/wordpress/2013/11/11/nature-work-36th-annual-north-am…
October 16-18, 2014, Wayne State University (Detroit, Michigan) The Program Committee of the NALHC, an international conference with global perspectives, invites proposals for papers, panels, roundtables, etc. on the theme of "The Nature of Work" for our thirty-sixth annual meeting. Other thematically related proposals will be considered, especially if part of a full panel or roundtable.
* Let's Call Tuesday a Victory for the Labor Movement As Well Elizabeth Shermer http://lawcha.org/wordpress/2013/11/10/lets-call-tuesday-victory-labor-…
Labor rights were not on the line during this off-year election cycle, at least in the traditional sense. But there were still some union victories. Bill de Blasio, of course, seems to symbolize a repudiation of Michael Bloomberg's attempts to destroy the last vestiges of the working-class ethos that defined postwar New York.
* Letter of Support for Mexican Intellectual Edur Velasco Arregui Ryan Poe http://lawcha.org/wordpress/2013/11/05/letter-support-mexican-intellect…
Please see the following call to action passed along to us by Richard Roman and LAWCHA member Manny Ness.
Dear Colleague,
I am writing to ask you to sign a letter of support for my colleague and co-researcher, Mexican intellectual and trade union activist, Edur Velasco Arregui, who has been expelled for political reasons from the SNI (National System of Researchers) in Mexico.
* Jobs With Justice: 25 years of trying to transform Gompersism in the labor movement Paul Buhle http://lawcha.org/wordpress/2013/10/31/jobs-justice-25-years-trying-tra…
These days, successful labor activity among the unorganized seems to depend, in ever greater degree, upon "faith based organizing," union efforts interfacing with the constituencies of churches and the occasional synagogue. If this is a major trend, it surely begins with the story of Jobs with Justice.
* Bracero Guestworkers, Unpaid
Adam Goodman
http://lawcha.org/wordpress/2013/10/30/bracero-guestworkers-unpaid/
This article was originally published in Jacobin.
Every Tuesday, 76-year-old Miguel Díaz spends the better part of the day outside the House of Representatives in Mexico City. Díaz went to the United States in 1960s as a bracero, a contracted guestworker.
* Back to the Cooperative Commonwealth?
Jonathan Kissam
http://lawcha.org/wordpress/2013/10/26/back-cooperative-commonwealth/
I think a lot about the problems of building a labor movement for the 21st century. And, as a long-time labor activist who now finds himself a member of a worker-owned cooperative (I work at Webskillet Cooperative, which is both a worker coop and a UE union shop), I struggle with reconciling the militant traditions that have shaped my outlook with the sometimes overly optimistic approach of the cooperative movement.
* Graphic History Collective, “Dreaming of What Might Be: The Knights of Labor in Canada, 1880-1900″ Ryan Poe http://lawcha.org/wordpress/2013/10/23/graphic-history-collective-dream…
Dreaming of What Might Be is the first comic book to be published as part of the larger initiative known as The Graphic History Project. The GHC believes that comics can be used to tell important stories about the past in ways that can inspire new struggles and spark much-needed conversations about how to change the world.
[Cross-posted, with thanks, from H-Labor]