Below I have posted the call for "Fighting Inequality," a joint conference of the Labor and Working Class History Association and the Working Class Studies Association to be held at the end of May at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Together these two groups have led the struggle to defend labor studies programs, labor history programs, and labor education generally, programs which have been targeted by rightwing governors, state legislatures, and university administrators. Both of these associations seek to bring together both educators and activists and working people engaged in daily struggles under our system.
Norman Markowitz
FIGHTING INEQUALITY
Joint Conference of the Labor and Working-Class History Association
and the Working-Class Studies Association
May 28-31, 2015
Georgetown University, Washington, DC
Please join us for 4 days of presentations, conversations, and arts events on the central issue of our time: Fighting Inequality.
For more information and to register, see: http://fightinginequality.org
Economic inequality, while always a challenge for working-class people, has grown and become increasingly central in public life. It has been a theme in struggles for justice for low-wage workers and has shaped policies related to education, housing, health care, and the right to organize. Fifty years after the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, even access to the most basic democratic right faces new threats. We see concern with inequality growing in religious institutions, and it has been a theme in the media and the arts, as well -- in spoken-word poetry about the link between mass incarceration and slavery, in documentaries about individuals and communities struggling to “recover” from economic restructuring, and in a variety of commentaries and reflections. Fighting Inequality will bring together scholars, activists, and artists to explore some core questions about economic inequality and strategies for resistance, both historically and in the current moment:
• What forces – social, political, economic, and cultural – have contributed to inequality and influence
people’s responses to it?
• How do working-class people gain power within democracy when access and rights are limited by
policy and ideology?
• How have the complex relationships among class, race, and power sometimes enabled and
sometimes constrained working-class resistance?
You can register for the special discount conference rate at the Georgetown Holiday Inn until March 31. In addition, we have a limited number of affordable dormitory housing units on campus for $37.50 to $75 per night, for graduate students or others with limited travel budgets. To reserve those, please email: conference@fightinginequality.org with the subject line “Conference Housing Request.”
Hope to see you there!
Nancy MacLean
President, LAWCHA
