Clarence Lang, Forum Organizer: Since the late 1970s, neoliberalism has emerged as the main political-economic organizing principle in the United States and globally. Characterized by deregulation, privatization, and economic austerity, neoliberal policies have promoted the devaluation of labor and the
The 2013 LAWCHA national conference ended with a closing session held at Cooper Union Hall on Saturday, June 4th at 4:30. The closing plenary, entitled “Looking Forward: New Directions and Strategies for Labor,” featured activists, labor leaders, and academics who
The New York conference in June marked an important threshold for LAWCHA. The programmatic diversity and stimulus to membership the conference created invites some rethinking of LAWCHA’s identity as an organization and future directions.
School safety is on the chopping block in Philadelphia. On June 7th, the school district announced the layoff of 1,202 school safety staff. Today, a group of Philadelphia school parents and lunchroom staff responded in an incredibly inspiring way, launching
How have working people developed solidarity and power to confront employers and the state, to struggle with each over and within their communities, to enhance rights and extend the arc of justice? How do we as scholars, educators, and labor
Shortly after Howard Zinn’s death in January 2010, the Occupy movement took to the streets, many of its most vocal proponents brandishing his People’s History of the United States. They seized upon his work as both a legitimization of their
Editors Note: Duke University Press allows us free access to one selected journal article or forum published in each issue of Labor: Working Class History of the Americas. This issue had a roundtable forum on the popular show The Wire.
The battle against teachers and their unions seemed to crescendo last year during Chicago’s teacher strike. The mainstream media had a field day blaming those “lazy teachers” and their “big unions” for the problems facing Chicago’s public school system, the
As I write this it’s Workers’ Memorial Day, an event that barely gets a blip on the media screens. But it brought to my mind one of the first union demonstrations I ever participated in, one that protested the decline
The AFL-CIO has formed a committee of labor historians to prepare a document to help them think about the future of organized labor. Confirmed coommittee members include: Julie Greene, University of Maryland; Michael Kazin, Georgetown University; Nelson Lichtenstein, UC Santa