Eileen Boris, Professor of History and Feminist Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Nelson Lichtenstein, Professor of History and Director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy also at UC-Santa Barbara, are visiting the Twin Cities and have offered to lead a conversation about the past, present, and future of labor history at the East Side Freedom Library.  For decades, they have produced path-breaking studies which highlight the ways that employment, work, the workforce, and the labor movement have changed in the past and are changing now.  Their work has provided a series of vantage points from which to consider the development of strategies and campaigns to reshape the labor movement of the future.

Eileen’s publications have included HOME TO WORK: MOTHERHOOD AND THE POLITICS OF INDUSTRIAL HOMEWORK IN THE U.S. (Cambridge University Press, 1995); HOMEWORKERS IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE (with Elisabeth Prugl, Routledge, 1996); INTIMATE LABORS: CARE, SEX, AND DOMESTIC WORK (with Rachel Salazar Parranas, Stanford, 2010); and CARING FOR AMERICA: HOME HEALTH WORKERS IN THE SHADOW OF THE WELFARE STATE (with Jennifer Klein, Oxford University Press, 2012).

Nelson’s publications have included LABOR’S WAR AT HOME: THE CIO IN WW II (Temple University Press, 2003 reprint); WALTER REUTHER: THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN DETROIT (University of Illinois, 1997); THE RETAIL REVOLUTION: HOW WALMART CREATED A BRAVE NEW WORLD OF BUSINESS (Metropolitan Books, 2009); and A CONTEST OF IDEAS: CAPITAL, POLITICS, AND LABOR (University of Illinois Press, 2013).  You can find an interesting recent article of his at www.dissentmagazine.org/article/two-roads-forward-for-labor-the-afl-cios-new-agenda.