The American Labor Movement: Crisis and Creativity

Event Date: 

Friday, April 25, 2014 - 12:00am
Saturday, April 26, 2014 - 12:00am

Event Location: 

  • Student Resource Building
  • Multipurpose Room

A conference on the state of the American labor movement, the implications of its decline, and the prospects for its revitalization. Prominent organizers and intellectuals of U.S. labor attended to discuss the past and present of worker organization. Panels discussed the importance of the global and the local, complications of bringing theory into praxis, and bright spots on the horizon in a changing labor landscape. 

Larry Cohen, President of Communications Workers of America, opened the conference. William P. Jones, History Professor at UW-Madison gave the keynote address on labor's prominent role in the March on Washington. Academics and activists alike reflected on teacher unionism under neoliberalism, Obamacare's significance as a labor issue, the changes immigration has on the face of labor, and broader shifts in the place of labor in the U.S. 

The event was co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy, the National Union of Healthcare Workers, and the popular new magazine Jacobin. Video of the conference is available on the Jacobin website!