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