The Labour Transfer School (LabourTransfer) is an independent, not for profit, international initiative of global labour scholars interested in collaborations, synergies and knowledge exchange between academia and social organizations, aiming at producing emancipatory knowledge on labour and social issues. LabourTransfer gives participants a chance to exchange their research interests with academics, labour activists, artists, journalists and trade unionists from all over the world. LabourTransfer is not a traditional academic summer school or a training centre for trade unionists but a networking place for labour activism and social justice.
The learning objectives of LabourTransfer are threefold:
to provide a new and sui generis learning environment for labour activists and organisers and for postdoctoral, doctoral and master students specialising in labour studies from different disciplines.
to create a global network of students, scholars, institutions, unions, activists, artists and journalists committed to the advancing of knowledge about society and economy from a labour perspective.
to raise public awareness and debate on the centrality of labour within our societies
LabourTransfer is attracting growing enthusiasm and support in the international community of labour scholars and activists. We started in 2022 with a three-day event with 30 participants, to double this number in 2023 over a four-day school and have hosted 120 participants over five days in the third edition of the school in June 2024 (see programmes and pictures in our webpage; www.labourtransfer.org). This growth can be seen in the new themes and topics added every year to the school and in the support different university institutions and labour-oriented foundations have been granting us.
The following are the themes we are aiming to discuss this year, in both plenary and participants led workshop sessions: work in the food and textile commodity chains; slave labour and anti-modern slavery campaigns; ecology, capitalism and the working class; workers' self-management and alternative local economies; activism and organization in the video games industry; social reproduction and decolonial/feminist methodologies; global/transnational trade unions action; logistics/Amazon; Labour conflict and organization, Labour law and activism, Health at work and labour activism, Gramsci’s Meridionalism and the Global South; Art and labour; Investigative Labour Journalism; Global labour History; Workers’ co-research
Confirmed speakers for this year’s edition include:
Mark Anner, Rutgers University
Jamie Woodcock, King’s College London
Alessandra Mezzadri, SOAS University of London
Dario Azzellini, ILR School, Cornell University
Eleanor Kirk, University of Glasgow
Maurizio Atzeni, Universidad Alberto Hurtado & Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Laborales CONICET
Patrick Neveling, Bournemouth University
Stefano Bellucci, International Institute of Social History
Francesca Congiu & Piera Loi, University of Cagliari
Henrique Tahan Novaes, UNESP Marília
Julia Soul, Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Laborales CONICET
Fausto Durante, CGIL Sarda
Pablo Jimenez & Jonas Seifert, freelance journalists
Peter Thomas, Brunel University
Katja Praznick, University at Buffalo
Paolo Marinaro, Solidarity Centre Mexico
Romin Khan, Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft
Vera Weghmann, Public Services International & University of Greenwich
Bujumannu (Simone Pireddu), reggae musician and land artist
Stephen Bouquin, Université Paris-Saclay
The idea of the school is that of conjugating knowledge exchange, research and relax. Buggerru, where the school is located, is a small lovely place by the sea in Sardinia. However, Buggerru is also symbolically important for labour history. It was a mining city where workers organised a boycott to demand better working conditions. In response, the army was sent in and three workers were killed while many others injured. That Sunday 4 September 1904 is still remembered today because The Buggerru Massacre sparked the first general strike of Italian history.