Article Date: December 1st, 2010
Category: Education
When Unions Matter Most: Opportunities for Collaboration and Solidarity
Pacific Northwest Labour History Association’s 43rd Annual Conference (Vancouver, BC) – 6/17-19/2011
Proposal deadline: 1/14/2011
The labor movement goes far beyond unionized workers. Significant struggles for workers’ rights have always involved non-union sectors, both locally and internationally. Some collaborations have been highly successful, others have left lingering distrust.
This conference seeks to find the best historical models for organizing, strategic alliances and coalitions, and to connect these models with contemporary actions to consider how the labour movement can strengthen for the future.
We invite proposals for academic research, panels, individual presentations, interactive workshops, drama, music, art, memorabilia displays and other forms of presentation. Interactive sessions are preferred and the reading of papers is discouraged.
We welcome submissions that address:
• Guilds to Cyber-organizing: from traditional organizing by craft to new forms of membership and association
• Don’t Mourn…Organize: past and present lessons in (re)building the union movement
• Links in the Chain: solidarity with civil rights, women’s liberation, immigrant workers, environmentalists and other struggles
• Exclusion, Segregation, Racism, and Liberation: the labour movement’s record, and its impact on unionization
• Labour and Faith: intersections, allies and conflicts
• The Arts: musical, literary and visual arts reflections
• Politics, Parties and Unions
• Global Supply Chains: Starting Point for a New Labour Internationalism?
• Diversity of Tactics, Diversity of Ends: Labour and anarchism, past and present
• New Boundaries: outreach, raids, splits and mergers
• Other topics that further understanding of workers’ heritage and social change
Proposal deadline is January 14, 2011. Please send a short summary and list of all presenters to Ms. Joey Hartman, PNLHA BC Vice President, pnlha@shaw.ca. For further information contact Joey Hartman at 604-456-7043. For updates, check www.pnlha.org.
