"Changing Labor Relations in the 20th and 21st Centuries"

Friday, September 19, 2014 - 9:00am

9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Where: Walnut Room, IMU

 

The IU History Department Presents:

From Proletariat to Precariat: Changing Labor Relations

in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries

 

How do we understand the rapid and radical transformation of global labor relations over the last half-century? The advent of so-called "neoliberal" policies, including privatization, flexibilization, and rationalization have dramatically changed the interactions between labor, management, and the state in different arenas around the world. This workshop will explore questions related to the increasingly precarious existence of workers as formerly stable employment experiences a steady erosion of benefits and protections. What do we mean when we use a term like "neoliberalization"? Does the concept of a "proletariat" still have significance in today’s world? How do we understand the effects of the general deterioration of contractual employment and material security? Scholars from around the country and IU will address these and other questions over the course of a full-day conversation about the state of labor in today’s world, how we got to this point, and where we might be headed from here.

 

Participants:

Leon Fink, Professor of History, University of Illinois-Chicago

David Ost, Professor of Political Science, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Eli Friedman, Professor of International and Comparative Labor, Cornell University

Jennifer Hart, Professor of History, Wayne State University

John French, Professor of History, Duke University

Jeff Gould, Professor of History, Indiana University

Ilana Gershon, Professor of Communications and Culture, Indiana University

Joseph Varga, Professor of Labor Studies, Indiana University

Alex Lichtenstein, Professor of History, Indiana University

Sara Friedman, Professor of Anthropology, Indiana University

Daniel James, Professor of History, Indiana University

 

For more information, contact: ebrudney@indiana.edu

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