Bob Bussel Labor History Lecture

Thursday, April 24th | 6-7:30pm

Knight Law Center room 175

This event is free to the public at no charge.

Essential Workers: Public Employment and the Dignity of Labor

The COVID 19 pandemic highlighted a longstanding contradiction; that workers who address our most essential needs, including health care, child and elderly care, sanitation and transportation, are among the most poorly paid and least empowered workers in the United States. In this talk, William P. Jones traces the roots of that contradiction to the Progressive era, and explains why the devaluing of essential labor shaped histories of race, gender and labor over the past century.

William P. Jones is Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of History, University of Minnesota. Professor Jones is past president of the Labor and Working-Class History Association, and President of the Twin Cities University of Minnesota Chapter of the American Association of University Professors.

Professor Jones is the author of two books:  The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights and The Tribe of Black Ulysses: African American Lumber Workers in the Jim Crow South, along with numerous articles on labor and working-class history. He holds a PhD in history from the University of North Carolina.

Cosponsored by:

Labor Education & Research Center

Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics

UO Department of History

Lane County Education Workers

This year the Pacific Northwest Labor History Association will hold a conference in Portland, OR on April 25^th and 26^th. The theme of the conference is, “Workers and Unions in a Hostile Political Climate—What Can Labor History Tell Us?” Subtopics at the conference may include:

The Immigration Act of 1924 in Historical Perspective

Young Workers Organizing Today

Labor and the Environment

Race and Labor in the PNW

Labor History of PNW industries

Specific details about the conference will come later. In the meantime, please visit the PNLHA website for more information about their work and what they do.