About Us
LAWCHA is an organization of scholars, teachers, students, labor educators, and activists who seek to promote public and scholarly awareness of labor and working-class history through research, writing, and organizing.
News & Alerts
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Herbert G. Gutman Prize for an Outstanding Dissertation: Deadline December 2
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Aaron Goings on his new book: The Port of Missing Men
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United Campus Workers of South Carolina
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Who should “rule at home”?
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East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte: Interview with author and editors
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Ryan Pettengill on his new book, Communists and Community . . .in Detroit
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Alexandra Finley on Her New Book, An Intimate Economy
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Nate Holdren responds: Roundtable on Injury Impoverished
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Company Doctors and Working-Class Unrest: Roundtable on Nate Holdren’s Injury Impoverished
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Injustice, Aggregated: Considering Nate Holdren’s Injury Impoverished
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Workers’ Worth: Considering Nate Holdren’s Injury Impoverished
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A Roundtable Nate Holdren’s Injury Impoverished : Workplace Accidents, Capitalism, and Law in the Progressive Era
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“The pandemic has revealed to many that care work is vital work”: A Conversation with Memphis Advocates for Radical Childcare (M.A.R.CH.) co-founder Phuong Nguyen
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The Irony of Essential Work: COVID-19’s Impact on Campus Workers
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“Everything you do as a grad student is a gamble”: The graduate student employee COVID-19 experience
Upcoming Events
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LAWCHA Pandemic Book Talk :Robert Chase, We Are Not Slaves: State Violence, Coerced Labor, and Prisoners Rights in Postwar America
November 19, 2020•via Zoom
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LAWCHA’s Pandemic Book Talks feature talks by LAWCHA members whose books launched in the midst of (or just before) the pandemic. Book talks will feature a presentation and discussion. Join us November 19 for Robert Chase, We Are Not Slaves: State Violence, Coerced Labor, and Prisoners Rights in Postwar America (University of North Carolina Press, 2020). -
Workers on the Front Lines :LAWCHA 2021 Annual Conference
May 26-28, 2021•Chicago, IllinoisBe it in pandemics, natural disasters, industrial “accidents,” or wars, workers always have been and remain on the front lines. The coronavirus crisis has put many workers in harm’s way. Too many are deemed “essential” and then underpaid while workers better paid and sheltering in place also suffer during the COVID-19 pandemic. Globally, precarious workers take home poverty wages while forced by employers to undergo new bodily policing procedures and risk their health and safety and that of their communities. This crisis has widened and deepened when it intersected with protests exploding in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. The pre-existing conditions of racism and police brutality—combined with COVID-19—further exposed the problems of a capitalist society designed to put profits above workers at all costs. Collectively, these intertwined crises reveal the deep significance of labor and working-class history to understanding our current moment. In 2021, LAWCHA seeks presentations that explore the experiences of workers on the front lines, interrogating the meanings of “essential” and “front line” across time and place, examining the stories of workers at the forefront of movements for democracy, sovereignty, rights, and freedoms, and what those histories mean for us today. Truly, there is no better place to hold this conference than Chicago.
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In Memoriam
Remembering Our Friend and Colleague, Professor David H. Bensman
Remembering Our Friend and Colleague, Professor David H. Bensman A champion for workers, Bensman mentored two generations of future labor activists, organizers, and scholars during a 42-year career at Rutgers.
Aaron Goings on his new book: The Port of Missing Men
In his fascinating new book, Aaron Goings interrogates the legend of Billy Gohl (1873-1927), a union official accused of dozens of murders. He seeks to bring light to the accusations that have made Gohl a true-crime figure in local popular culture. In doing so, he reaches into the world of the union culture and brutish conditions in the Grays Harbor near Aberdeen, Washington. I interviewed him about some of his findings. Read more →
East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte: Interview with author and editors
