Events Calendar

Leading advocates for workers in a variety of formal and informal sectors – from care work and construction to digital platforms and the arts – compare the challenges they see to the future of work and organizing in their respective fields and global contexts.

In the guise of entrepreneurialism and individual freedom the gig-economy was once hailed as the solution to the ills of the degrading work relationships that formed the backbone of the capitalist economy. Legal scholar and activist Veena Dubal considers how organized workers have helped dispel this myth by speaking out about the darker side of the gig-economy. In conversation with legal labor historian William Forbath, Dubal will discuss these i

Please join us for this first public watch party of the “Electric Dreams” episode, Autofac, which we will discuss with celebrated cyberpunk writer and UT graduate Bruce Sterling on June 2 at 6:30 pm.

Sarita Gupta, nationally recognized leader on labor and economic justice, will present a keynote lecture, followed by a conversation with representatives of each of our five research clusters.

Please join us for this second public watch party of the “Electric Dreams” episode, Autofac, immediately preceding our 6:30 pm discussion with celebrated cyberpunk writer and UT graduate Bruce Sterling.

A pivotal dimension of COVID-19 has been the classification of certain work(ers) as essential. In dialogue with Sara Stevano, lead author of “Essential for What? A Global Social Reproduction View on the Re-organisation of Work during the COVID-19 Pandemic,” respondents will discuss their own research on essential work.

Building from their work on public health, care work, and racial capitalism, the panelists discuss the lengthy and ongoing crisis in caring labor that has only been exacerbated by the current pandemic.

Faculty from the University of Texas and the University of Cape Town are beginning a collaboration on the drivers of the past, present, and future of work in South Africa. In this panel, leading South African economists set the stage for this project to generate much-needed responses to the many economic, legal, and political crises exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Participants reflect and share their work on transforming the caring crisis that has been shaping up over the decades, and heightened by COVID-19.

The movement of peoples across the globe for work, livelihoods, trade, and cultural exchange has been a constant in human history. This panel explores comparative forms of labor migration across several geographies—South Asia, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Panelists will think critically through the cultural designation of low-waged migrant laborers as the “heroes” of the contemporary global South and their role in the global economy

The predominance of informal forms of work and means of making a living across the global South requires a critical intervention into current debates around the future of work. This moderated conversation foregrounds the complexities and challenges for people laboring in the informal sector in the South Asian and Latin American contexts.

Focusing on the non-economic and public benefits of the arts and humanities on campuses and in the community, we raise questions about the future of this work.