We would like to remind everyone about our exciting mini-conference in August and the upcoming deadline (Feb 15th) to submit abstracts.  Below is the full Call for Papers and description of the event. We’d really like to get a large number of submissions to make for a lively and engaging conference.

So please, submit your abstract today and please also share the announcement and submission request with your students, colleagues and wider networks.

Looking forward to seeing you all in NYC.

Best,

Steve McKay – smckay@ucsc.edu
Carolina Bank Munoz – carolinabm75@gmail.com
David Fasenfest – critical.sociology@gmail.com

CFP: Mini-Conference:
Labor and Global Solidarity – The US, China and Beyond
The Labor & Labor Movements Section of the ASA and the Society for the Study of Social Problems are pleased to announce a Mini-conference entitled Labor and Global Solidarity – The US, China and Beyond to be held concurrently with the ASA and SSSP meetings in New York City on Monday, August 12th, 2013.  The conference will be held at the Joseph A. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies, City University of New York (18th Floor, 25 West 43rd Street).
The conference is co-sponsored by: the Asia and Asian American Section of ASA; the Labor Studies Section of SSSP; the Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies at CUNY; the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education; the Manhattan College Labor Studies Program; Critical Sociology; the Labour Movements Research Committee (RC44) of the International Sociological Association; and the China Association of Work and Labor of the Chinese Sociological Association.
The one-day mini-conference will bring together scholars and practitioners to address the changing landscapes of work and labor organizing at multiple scales, from the local to the transnational.  Facing the global re-organization of production chains, the expansion of precarious work, hostile political climates, and the continued world-wide economic malaise, workers and their allies nonetheless continue to act, from escalating unrest across China, to new models of organizing in NYC, to greater cross-border solidarity, North-South and South-South.
To engage these developments and spark discussion, the conference will include panels on both local, global and transnational labor issues and organizing strategies.  We also seek a mix of activists and academics.  Finally, the mini-conference is an opportunity for international exchange as five labor scholars from China will be participating throughout the event and across the different panels.  Papers including the U.S. and China are especially welcome, but topics and evidence from all over the world are appropriate.
We invite submissions of abstracts (min. 300 words) or full papers on a broad range of topics related to local and global labor, but are particularly interested in submissions that address the following themes of the conference:

• Labor in China
• Insurgency and Institutions
• Organizing (im)migrants – here, there and in the diaspora
• South–South Solidarity
• Transnational Labor Organizing – How & When does it Work
• Informal work, informal worker organizing
• Monitoring international supply chains from the shop floor(s)
• Responses to global economic crisis

To submit an abstract or paper, please send it to the conference co-organizers:  Carolina Bank Munoz (carolinabm75@gmail.com), David Fasenfest (critical.sociology@gmail.com), and Steve McKay (smckay@ucsc.edu).  Abstracts or papers are due February 15, 2013.  If submitting an abstract, full drafts of accepted papers are due June 30th, 2013.  Papers presented at the conference will also be considered for publication in a planned special issue of the journal Critical Sociology and/or in a separate edited book.  Conference participants will be responsible for covering their own travel and lodging expenses (though meals for participants on the program will be provided).  The conference will be free and open to the public.