- This event has passed.
Poverty Wages, Not Lovin’ It: The Rise of a New Global Labor Movement
October 16, 2018 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Prof. Annelise Orleck in conversation with Prof. Stephanie Luce
This talk will trace a new global labor movement, an uprising against poverty wages, created and sustained by low-wage workers in the U.S. and every continent on earth: farm workers and small farmers, fast food and retail workers, garment workers, home health care aides, hotel housekeepers and adjunct professors. Theirs is largely a women’s movement, sparked by demands for wage equity, maternity leave and against sexual violence in the workplace, sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination.
It is also a young people’s movement, waged in large part by people in their 20s and 30s who are seeking not just a living wage and and an end to deadly working conditions, but dignity and respect, and a return to the public services that have disappeared in the last thirty years: subsidized energy and health care, education and drinkable water. This is a narrative of the damages wrought by neoliberalism (as seen through workers’ eyes) but also a story of resistance, rebellion and resilience.
Annelise Orleck is Professor of History, Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies and Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College. She is the author of five previous books: Common Sense and a Little Fire: Women and Working Class Politics in the U.S., Soviet Jewish Americans, Storming Caesars’ Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty, and Rethinking American Women’s Activism. She lives in Thetford Center, Vermont with her partner Alexis. She has two grown children and an ever-changing cast of cats.
Proud Talk Sponsors: Center for Human Environments, Critical Social Psychology, Environmental Psychology, Sociology Department at the GC, Public Science Project, The Center for the Study of Women and Society, Murphy Institute
