Notice Board

Fighting For Life: Class, Community and Care in Labour History. The 17th biennial conference of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History will be held 5–8 December 2021 in Bendigo, Victoria, with the support of LaTrobe University. The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic has prompted the conference convenors to call for an examination of the meaning and historical context of labour, health and community. The current crisis has brought the reality of these intersections starkly into view. Health workers have become frontline heroes combating the impact of disease and sustaining life, while statistics show their susceptibility to infection and its transmission to communities. Revelations about the breadth and depth of precarity, mobility, even wage theft, across many sectors of the workforce expose threats to communities from decades of neoliberal policies, practices of workplace management, and declining union power. What have been the experiences and relationships between health, community, and labour over time? Can a crisis be an opportunity for strengthening community networks and increasing political organisation for change? For more information, visit www.labourhistory.org.au/2021-conference/.

Deindustrialisation and the Politics of Our Time. Trump, Brexit, and the rise of right-wing populism have raised questions about the relationship between populism and those left behind by deindustrialisation. Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council recently funded a $2.5 million partnership proposal focused on the politics of deindustrialisation in North America and Western Europe. The project, led by Steven High, a labour historian at Concordia University and a member of Labour History's International Advisory Board, includes researchers at more than 20 universities across Italy, France, Germany, the UK, the USA, and Canada, as well as trade unions, labour archives, industrial museums, and other partners. Over the next seven years, there will be regular online panels as well as (once Covid allows) annual summer institutes for emerging scholars and regular thematic conferences that will result in publication. The main outcomes include a new book series, a transnational exhibition, and artistic outcomes. You can follow the project on Twitter: @deindustrialpol.