Uploaded January 2022 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
The commodification of knowledge and the gradual privatization of higher education from the last quarter of the 20th Century onward have radically transformed the academic employment relations. As a result of decreased public funding, contingent employment has become the norm in the academic sector on a global scale. In the meantime, pervasive job insecurity has kicked off waves of academic labor activism over the course of the last two decades. Especially in the leading scientific countries of the Global North, mobilizations of precarious academics have increased significantly despite the obstacles for collectivity and organization posed by precarious employment. Protests against Covid-19-related layoffs at several universities in the UK and the US and the latest academic strike wave that swept the UK and France in late 2019/early 2020 represent some of the more recent examples. But prolonged unionized struggles or unionization attempts, wildcat strikes, campus protests, and campaigns against fixed-term academic employment organized by advocacy groups and solidarity networks have been going on and off for some time now in several countries, including the US, the UK, Canada, France, Italy, Denmark, Spain, Switzerland, and Germany.
In view of this rather surprising and encouraging uproar, this online workshop on December 11, 2021 brings together academic labor activists from the US and Europe. The main aim is to contribute to an extended exchange of activist know-how among various academic labor movements. It is planned as a virtual-only, one-day event, featuring only invited speakers but open to public upon registration. Workshop language is English. The event is organized jointly with the Global Affairs Committee of the Labor and Working-Class History Association, supported by Bard College Berlin, and funded by the Philipp-Schwartz-Initiative of the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation.
Speakers:
Theresa O’Keefe is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at University College Cork where she directs the MA in Sociology of Sustainability and Global Changes.
http://research.ucc.ie/profiles/A024/theresa.okeefe@ucc.ie
Aline Courtois is a senior lecturer in the Department of Education at the University of Bath.
researchportal.bath.ac.uk/en/persons/aline-courtois
Eleonora Priori is a Ph.D. student in Economics and Complex Systems at the University of Turin (Italy).
phdpareto.carloalberto.org/eleonora-priori
Peter Ullrich is a sociologist and senior researcher in the research unit “Social Movements, Technology, Conflicts” at the Technical University Berlin and fellow at the Institute for Protest and Social Movement Studies and the Center for Research on Antisemitism. He works as a consultant for the scholarship department of Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.
tu-berlin.de/ztg/menue/team/mitarbeiterinnen/ullrich_peter_dr_dr
The commodification of knowledge and the gradual privatization of higher education from the last quarter of the 20th Century onward have radically transformed the academic employment relations. As a result of decreased public funding, contingent employment has become the norm in the academic sector on a global scale. In the meantime, pervasive job insecurity has kicked off waves of academic labor activism over the course of the last two decades. Especially in the leading scientific countries of the Global North, mobilizations of precarious academics have increased significantly despite the obstacles for collectivity and organization posed by precarious employment. Protests against Covid-19-related layoffs at several universities in the UK and the US and the latest academic strike wave that swept the UK and France in late 2019/early 2020 represent some of the more recent examples. But prolonged unionized struggles or unionization attempts, wildcat strikes, campus protests, and campaigns against fixed-term academic employment organized by advocacy groups and solidarity networks have been going on and off for some time now in several countries, including the US, the UK, Canada, France, Italy, Denmark, Spain, Switzerland, and Germany.
In view of this rather surprising and encouraging uproar, this online workshop on December 11, 2021 brings together academic labor activists from the US and Europe. The main aim is to contribute to an extended exchange of activist know-how among various academic labor movements. It is planned as a virtual-only, one-day event, featuring only invited speakers but open to public upon registration. Workshop language is English. The event is organized jointly with the Global Affairs Committee of the Labor and Working-Class History Association, supported by Bard College Berlin, and funded by the Philipp-Schwartz-Initiative of the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation.
Speakers:
Theresa O’Keefe is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at University College Cork where she directs the MA in Sociology of Sustainability and Global Changes.
http://research.ucc.ie/profiles/A024/theresa.okeefe@ucc.ie
Aline Courtois is a senior lecturer in the Department of Education at the University of Bath.
researchportal.bath.ac.uk/en/persons/aline-courtois
Eleonora Priori is a Ph.D. student in Economics and Complex Systems at the University of Turin (Italy).
phdpareto.carloalberto.org/eleonora-priori
Peter Ullrich is a sociologist and senior researcher in the research unit “Social Movements, Technology, Conflicts” at the Technical University Berlin and fellow at the Institute for Protest and Social Movement Studies and the Center for Research on Antisemitism. He works as a consultant for the scholarship department of Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.
tu-berlin.de/ztg/menue/team/mitarbeiterinnen/ullrich_peter_dr_dr
