Hostility to trade unionism on the part of American conservatives has been a feature of this country’s political landscape for decades. That animosity will likely be at the forefront over the next few months as Congress begins debate on the Employee Free Choice Act, the first major effort to reform U.S. labor law in more than 60 years.

In anticipation of that legislative fight, a group of historians, economists, sociologists and legal scholars will gather at UCSB for a conference titled “The American Right and U.S. Labor: Politics, Ideology and Imagination.” According to conference director Nelson Lichtenstein, participants will explore the legal, rhetorical, economic and political resources that political conservatives have deployed to marginalize and delegitimize self-organization among American workers today and over the last century.

The conference will take place Jan. 16-17 in the McCune Conference Room, 6020 Humanities and Social Sciences Building. It is open to the public.

The conference is sponsored by UCSB’s Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy, as well as the campus’ Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, Department of History, College of Letters and Sciences, and Hull Chair in Feminist Studies; UCLA’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment; and the University of Pennsylvania Press.

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