UALE Conference Special Issue of Labor Studies Journal

Announcing a Special Issue of Labor Studies Journal in conjunction with the 2016 United Association for Labor Education Conference in Washington, D.C., April 12 to 15, 2016.

 
The Labor Studies Journal invites paper proposals for presentation at the 2016 UALE Conference on “Labor and Racial Justice.” This special issue is co-edited by Robert Bruno, Ph.D., University of Illinois and Alethia Jones, Ph.D. 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East.  
 
In the wake Michael Brown’s killing in Ferguson, MO at the hands of a police officer, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka stated that, “Our brother killed our sister’s son.” Indeed, a white union member slayed the teenage son of an African American union member, embodying labor’s historic role enacting and enforcing racial oppression. But labor also has unique achievements in promoting racial solidarity and justice and the potential to do even  more. Like the Occupy movement before it, #BlackLivesMatter has captured the imagination and activism of groups within the labor movement but thus far has had limited impact on labor’s overall strategic direction. The killing of Blacks by police reminds us that white supremacy permeates our society. While  the national conversation is defined most consistently by the African American experience, racial oppression in North America always extended itself beyond the Black / White dichotomy as it intersected with the politics of national origin, skin color, gender, class, sexuality, and health to create hierarchies of worth and privilege. 

Our vigilance against racism must not degenerate into a color-blind anti-racism but must account for the ways in which racism is embodied and opposed. This special issue invites examinations of the intertwined nature of racism and work to illuminate the distortions in worker solidarity as well as reveal bold experiments and approaches to transform the system by wrestling with, rather than avoiding, categories of difference.
 
Racism is at the heart of the American political economy. The historic 1964 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom married the fight against capitalist exploitation with the fight against racism. In the wake of recent events, both the AFL-CIO and SEIU have established commissions and task forces on racial justice. As organized labor confronts deepening economic inequality, threats to our democracy and related political attacks that jeopardize the very viability of unions and collective bargaining, it is imperative that as a community of scholars we address the intersection of racial justice and worker justice.  Labor Studies Journal invites paper proposals on the theme of racial justice and labor for presentation at the 2016 UALE conference.  
 
An incomplete list of examples of appropriate paper subjects would include the following:

•  Historical and contemporary examinations of workers’ challenges to and success at building “beloved community” both in and outside of unions. How has labor been a transformative force? How and why has it failed to be? 

• Studies of internal union conflicts over racial integration

• Analyses of how unions address racial issues within larger community struggles

• Explorations of the intersection of race with class, gender and/or sexuality in the collective action of workers and worker organizations

• Case studies on union campaigns to address immigration policy—past and present

• Critical analysis of whiteness theory and its relationship to work and labor

• Contemporary examples of how racial identity influences workplace relations and status within particular industries

• Explorations of how racial identity operates as a source of liberation and justice, countering oppressive and exploitative structures

• Analysis that captures the role of colonization and immigration in shaping the culture of labor

• Examples of cross-racial collaboration and tension among workers from different sectors and industries.

• Explorations of how the informal sphere of "unregulated" work – such as taxi drivers, car washers, restaurant workers – heavily populated by people of color and immigrants, became a site of many "alternative" labor struggles. How has race and racial identity impacted low-wage campaigns?”

• Studies regarding the dynamics of race and national origin on union organizing success.  

• Examinations of the relationship between public safety unions and the African-American and other racialized communities.

• Impact of the prison industrial complex, mass incarceration, and the new “Jim Crow” on working-class economic and political fortunes.

• How does migration and the diversity of Black ethnicity impact worker organizing?  In addition, how does national and migration diversity within Asian and Latino communities influence racial justice and worker organizing? 

• The leadership of many unions fail to reflect the reality of a large Black membership or other racialized groups.  How do unions take proactive steps to support and allow the cultivation of new union leaders from the membership?"

• Analytic approaches that attend explicitly to racialization as a social and political process where groups become racialized as a result of specific choices and actions.

We welcome papers from all methodological approaches, including ethnographies, quantitative analysis, case studies from a contemporary and/or historical vantage point, and more in-depth qualitative studies.  Purely theoretical analyses of the subject are also welcome.
 
Interested authors should submit an abstract of 500 words, along with full contact information to Professor Bob Bruno at [email protected].  Any questions about the submission should be directed to Professor Bruno.  

Proposals should be submitted by October 31, 2015. Abstracts will be reviewed by both editors. 

Acceptance of proposals is conditional upon authors expecting to present their papers at the 2016 UALE Conference. Only papers accepted for presentation at the 2016 Conference will be eligible to be submitted to a peer reviewed process for possible publication in a LSJ-UALE-Special Conference Issue.