Uploaded January 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 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.
Donna Murch is associate professor of history at Rutgers University and is president of the Rutgers AAUP AFT New Brunswick chapter and a charter member of Scholars for a New Deal in Higher Education.
https://history.rutgers.edu/faculty-directory/249-murch-donna
Todd Wolfson is associate professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University.
https://comminfo.rutgers.edu/wolfson-todd
Justine Modica is a PhD candidate in U.S. History at Stanford University, and a PhD minor in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
https://history.stanford.edu/people/justine-modica
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.
Donna Murch is associate professor of history at Rutgers University and is president of the Rutgers AAUP AFT New Brunswick chapter and a charter member of Scholars for a New Deal in Higher Education.
https://history.rutgers.edu/faculty-directory/249-murch-donna
Todd Wolfson is associate professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University.
https://comminfo.rutgers.edu/wolfson-todd
Justine Modica is a PhD candidate in U.S. History at Stanford University, and a PhD minor in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
https://history.stanford.edu/people/justine-modica
