Should be interesting, havent read from Paul Mason so should be interesting hear what he as to say
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WLRI Trade Union Seminar Series 2008
*Organising Vulnerable Workers - past & present*
Paul Mason, Author ‘Live Working or Die Fighting’ & BBC Newsnight
correspondent
Donna Reeve, Migrant Worker Support Unit, & Andy Gilchrist, Union
Learning Organiser, Unite (T&G)
Wed 16 April 2008, 5-7pm
Download the flier as pdf from here:
http://tinyurl.com/2gedc6
Paul Mason, with Donna Reeve and her colleague Andy Gilchrist from UNITE
the Union (T&G section), will talk about past and present struggles to
organise vulnerable workers. Donna and Andy will introduce their latest
work organising Migrant workers in UNITE the Union, and report on the
successful use of Union Learning and ESOL as a tool for organising in
the Learning for Organising Migrant Workers Project. Paul Mason, BBC
Newsnight’s Business and Industry Correspondent, will draw some
historical parallels to the struggle for unionising vulnerable workers,
introducing his book ‘Live Working or Die Fighting.’
INTRO TO LIVE WORKING OR DIE FIGHTING: ‘A Chinese woman pushes her way
to the front of a hiring queue outside a factory in Shenzhen......A
group of Somali cleaners files into an investment bank in London's
Canary Wharf...Globalisation has created a whole new working class — and
they are reliving stories that were first played out a century ago. In
"Live Working or Die Fighting", Paul Mason tells the story of this new
working class alongside the epic history of the global labour movement,
from its formation in the factories of the 1800s to its near destruction
by fascism in the 1930s. Blending exhilarating historical narrative with
reportage from today's front line, he links the lives of 19th-century
factory girls with the lives of teenagers in a giant Chinese mobile
phone factory; he tells the story of how mass trade unions were born in
London's Docklands - and how they're being reinvented by the migrant
cleaners in skyscrapers that stand on the very same spot. "Live Working
or Die Fighting" celebrates a common history of defiance, idealism and
self-sacrifice, one as alive and active today as it was two hundred
years ago. It is a unique and inspirational book.’
Walden Bello, author of Dilemmas of Domination: the Unmaking of the
American Empire: "...reveals the profound continuity in the conditions,
hopes, and challenges of the international working
class...Micro-historical writing at its best."
Greg Palast, Author of ARMED MADHOUSE: “If you haven't read Mason's
book, you know nothing… breathtaking, fascinating, perceptive... Damn, I
wish I'd written this”
WLRI: London Metropolitan University, 31 Jewry St, London EC3N 2EY 5-7pm
in Room JS2-73
This event is free, open to all, and there is no need to register.
Contact Max Watson in JS2-77 for further enquiries:
0207 320 3042 / m.watson@londonmet.ac.uk
