[Forwarded from IWCE via Wakefield Socialist History group - highlighting added]
This is a participatory conference for change-makers (academics, trade unionists and community activists) on working-class/trade union education, politics and organising.
Critical Labour Studies is hosting a two-day conference on 7-8 July 2018 in London looking at working class and activists’ political education. It is doing so in partnership with the Ella Baker School of Transformative Organising and supported by Unite the union. By political education, we do not mean teaching people to recite political dogma, or to adopt a particular line, but rather equipping people with the ability to analyse, for themselves, the politics of any given situation that they are experiencing or seeking to change.
In the light of the political polarisation taking place across advanced industrial economies there has quite simply never been a time when literacy on political economy is more necessary for working class activists. Unfortunately, we have seen a long-term decline in that political education. Trade unions, once the ‘universities’ of the working class, have been in sharp decline for decades and few now prioritise working class education – even the ‘skills based’ training on representation and advocacy is now under threat as a result of funding cuts.
But to effectively change a system, the labour movement needs to equip people to analyse its strengths and weakness, and develop strategic initiatives designed to maximise the opportunities for success. It also needs to be able to counter those dominant narratives that demobilise people, where people believe that nothing can be done, or that poor people are feckless, or that immigrants are to blame for the ills of society.
The conference will be made up of practitioner and academic speakers and workshops and will explore what we can do, as a working-class movement, to create a new wave of radical education to genuinely equip people to become leaders in their trade unions and communities.
The combination of Britain’s largest trade union, the Ella Baker School, and the rigour of academia, as well as (we hope) numerous groups who are in the front line of change making today, means this will be no ordinary conference. It will combine a series of plenary sessions with speakers from different but complimentary backgrounds. It will involve workshops and breakout sessions and it will be an opportunity to showcase some of the new educational materials developed by the Ella Baker School, which are already becoming a popular open source resource.
A number of themes have already emerged, but we are open to further suggestions (see below):
• The rich history of independent working-class education
From the very early stirring s of the working-class movement, even before mass literacy, papers like the [Chartists'] Northern Star were focal points of organisation and consciousness raising. Formal study groups gave rise to institutions such as the Workers Education Association and Ruskin College who are still with us today, but now highly dependent on (some would say beholden to) state funding. But how did they, and others such as the Plebs League emerge, reach an audience and sustain themselves?
• Is there a working-class pedagogy (theory of learning)?
As state education of our children becomes increasingly preoccupied with rote learning and testing, the ideas of Paulo Friere, with the focus on the classroom as being a place to create knowledge rather than merely transfer it, are finding a new audience. But what is the essence of student centred and experiential learning? To what extent is Friere’s vision being ritualised rather than [practised]? How do you create a culture of co-operative learning, and more importantly how can we develop programmes that can be effectively cascaded by volunteer educators? Finally, what is the relationship between classroom learning and direct experience of change making?
• Intersectionality, the missing link in working class education?
For many years Marxism was criticised for being blind to anything but class exploitation. Oppression in the form of racism, sexism, etc. was seen primarily as capital’s way to divide and rule and to create opportunities for super-exploitation. With the publication of Beyond the Fragments in 1979, the idea that there might be a specifically female experience of oppression and exploitation under capitalism found a wide resonance within an emerging socialist feminist movement and complemented the many contributions of Pan-African Marxists. Intersectionality, the theory that in an oppressive and exploitative society, various elements of our given identity, such as class, race, sexual orientation, disability and gender, are complexly interwoven, and that consideration of the nature of those complex inter-relationships are essential to an understanding of our lived experience, should not be controversial. So how can we constructively engage with the insights of both Marxism and intersectionality?
• Trade unions and political education
In 1972, the Government implemented the Donovan Commission’s recommendations on industrial relations reform. The Commission’s stated objective was to reduce unofficial action and restrictive practices, many would argue its real objective was to rebalance power away from working-class communities. It led to the first enactment of unfair dismissal law, and, for the first time, state funding for trade union education (soon amended to a requirement that the training was skills-based rather than political). The introduction of regulatory norms reduced the necessity for militant trade unionism to protect workers from victimisation (reducing the political education that arose from direct experience) and reduced the level of political analysis taught by trade unions (traditionally the universities of the working class). This accompanied with the deindustrialisation that has occurred over the same period has weakened, objectively and subjectively, the traditional base of working-class militancy and political education.
• Political education and community-based organising
Most community-based organising includes a commitment to training, including ‘power mapping’, but given the high level of dependence on both charitable and state funding in this sector, how easy is it for them to really ‘speak truth to power’? Meanwhile, Jane McAlevey has recently argued that the reliance on the ‘Alinsky Model’ (underplaying the insights of both militant trade unionism and the African American Freedom movement) and his opposition to ‘ideologies’ has undermined the ability of community organising initiatives to deal effectively with power. Is she right, and if so, is there any wriggle room? And finally, what can we learn from (and indeed, what can we offer) the new wave of activist groups such as Sisters Uncut, and Black Lives Matter?
• Understanding what resources exist, exploring what is missing and how do we ‘get to scale’
Over the last 40 years, the opportunities for working class communities to engage in political education have dwindled. But the need for working-class people to develop the ability to independently analyse the world around them has never been greater. Some trade unions still run political schools, but their reach is limited. A few, often small, voluntary-led organisations do focus on working class history and politics, but are not always well-networked, which means there are probably more gaps than there is coverage. So, what does need to be done to return individual political analysis (and agency) to working-class communities? And to what extent do the numerous ‘community organising’ projects develop their members’ political analyses?
We are inviting contributions from academics, educators and activists from trade unions and community groups
We need your help to make this event a success. We want historical analysis, current insights and specific action plans. We are therefore looking for potential contributors with suggestions for round table discussions, themed sessions and workshops.
If you would like to suggest a session, or to contribute to one of the above, then please email Jane Holgate setting out what you would like to do: j.holgate@leeds.ac.uk
Attendance/registration details
There is a sliding scale of registration fees: if your employer is paying, or you are sponsored by your trade union or other group, then the cost is £75. If you are self-paying then the cost is £37.50. If you are unemployed or on a low income, then you can still attend, as we have reserved a number of places for those who cannot afford to pay.
The registration fee includes, tea/coffee/biscuits during both Saturday and Sunday. Lunch on Saturday, and dinner as part of an evening social on Saturday. The conference begins on Saturday 10am-6pm and finishes at 1pm on the Sunday. You will be responsible for organising your own accommodation, but if you are unemployed, on low income we may be able to help source a room for you.
To register for the two-day conference (7-8 July 2018 at Unite the Union, Theobald’s Road, Holborn, London) visit: https://goo.gl/forms/
Registration will be on a first come, first served basis and there is a maximum of 100 places.
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Professor Jane Holgate
Professor of Work and Employment Relations
Work and Employment Relations Division
Leeds University Business School
31 Lyddon Terrace (room 2.05)
University of Leeds LS2 9JT
email: j.holgate@leeds.ac.uk
Mobile: 07960 798399
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| Yale 2010 (first edition 2001) |
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| Tables from above book |
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