Special Issue of Labor Studies Journal
In conjunction with the 2019 United Association for Labor Education Annual Conference
April 2-5, 2019, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Across America and the globe, teachers – from K-12 to graduate students to college faculty – appear to be the new vanguard of an angry labor movement.
American public school teachers roared in 2018 as statewide teacher mass protests and strikes erupted in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Colorado, Arizona, and North Carolina (so far). Following the example of the Chicago Teachers Union, whose militant leadership elected in 2010 led a successful 2012 strike and a 2016 one-day walk-out, educators wear red shirts to show their solidarity and chant “red for ed” as they strike and march by the tens of thousands in state after state.
Prior to recent protests, Wisconsin teachers held mass “sick outs” to join daily mass demonstrations in Madison initiated by the graduate employees’ union protesting the anti-labor Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill in February 2011; Washington state teachers held rolling one-day strikes in 2015; and Detroit teachers walked out in 2016.
And in recent years teachers have been holding mass protests and strikes across the globe, from Mexico to Columbia to France to Great Britain to Tunisia to Algeria.
Graduate students are organizing unions and striking across America. Leaders from the Service Employees International Union, the United Auto Workers, American Federation of Teachers, and UNITE HERE announced on March 14, 2018 the formation of a new coalition to organize graduate student workers at private universities.
Adjunct faculty and non-tenure track faculty have galvanized the movement on college campuses. Between 2013 and 2016, at least 35 private colleges and universities saw their adjunct faculty form unions. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) reports that non-tenure-track positions (part-time and full-time) account for more than three-quarters of all higher education instructional staff, with 40% being adjunct instructors paid low wages and usually receiving no benefits.
This call for papers seeks manuscripts examining teacher issues and protests, whether K-12 teachers, graduate student unions, adjunct faculty unions, or full-time faculty organizing. Case studies, such as analysis of how the West Virginia or Arizona teachers so rapidly organized in anti-union “right-work states, are welcome. Papers dissecting teacher protests in specific countries are welcome.
We encourage submissions from the perspectives of multiple disciplines, including but not limited to labor studies, economics, sociology, political science, labor and employment law, and industrial relations. Manuscripts are welcome that include analysis of teacher issues and protests in a historical, gender, race, and/or class framework.
The Labor Studies Journal (LSJ) is the official journal of the United Association for Labor Education, whose annual conferences bring together union, community, and university educators working to promote collective bargaining and worker justice. Published quarterly, LSJ is a multi-disciplinary journal covering issues related to work, workers, labor organizations, and labor studies and worker education in the US and internationally. The journal publishes articles which use a wide range of research methods, both qualitative and quantitative, and is a must-read for union, university, and community-based labor educators, labor activists, and scholars from across the social sciences and humanities.
Interested authors should submit an abstract of 500 words, along with full contact information to Professor Steven Ashby at skashby@illinois.edu at the University of Illinois Labor Education Program. Any questions about submissions should be directed to skashby@illinois.edu. Proposals should be submitted no later than November 30, 2018. Abstracts will be reviewed by the editor. If you plan to submit an abstract, please send a couple sentence description to Steven as soon as you are able, and he will send reminders prior to the deadline to submit the paper abstract.
Acceptance of proposals is conditional upon authors presenting their papers at the UALE Conference in April 2019 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Only papers accepted for presentation at the 2019 UALE Conference will be eligible to be submitted to a peer reviewed process for possible publication in a special conference issue of the Labor Studies Journal.