Keynote Address by Sarita Gupta: Workers at the Center

Description

Sarita Gupta, nationally recognized leader on labor and economic justice, presents a keynote lecture, followed by a conversation with UT Austin faculty representatives of each of our five research clusters.

Key moments

0:00 Introduction
0:50 Panel begins
07:11 – 19:22 Sarita Gupta says that the “future of work” should be centered on working people rather than the industries they uphold. Sarita then expands on how the future for workers is threatened by globalization, climate change, technology, and demographic shifts.
19:23 – 28:37 Sarita Gupta details her vision for the future: that workers, regardless of status, will experience economic security, dignity in the workplace, and greater opportunities for themselves and future generations. This could be achieved through three main innovations: modernizing the social contract, reimagining capital flows/markets, and fostering responsible innovation/technology.
50:18 – 54:45 Sharmila Rudrappa, speaking on behalf of the Care Work cluster, discusses how the current crisis of care work is not just a recent issue, but has been ongoing since the beginnings of capitalism. A focus on the crisis of care work since the 1970s challenges us to look beyond waged care work, and encourages us to tackle the crisis as transnational, as unwaged, and affective.
55:20 – 1:00:34 Mechele Dickerson, speaking on behalf of the Essential Work cluster, describes the experiences of essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. She says we can no longer ignore previously invisible workers who have been characterized as essential, particularly frontline workers, who are often marginalized and facing a lifetime of precarity.
1:01:17 – 1:08:20 Kamran Asdar Ali, speaking on behalf of the Work Across the Global South cluster, discusses how the management of women’s reproductive choices has historically been at the center of development efforts in the Global South, and how this has shifted as women from the Global South have become transnational migrant workers. Kamran prompts us to advocate for the workers of the Global South, while also recognizing that efforts to bust unionization there have historically been supported by organized labor in the Global North.
1:18:35 – 1:24:20 Anne Lewis, representing the Artistic Labor and the Humanities cluster, advocates for the right to autonomous organizing efforts by workers. She also discusses how the pandemic has highlighted ongoing problems for workers in the arts and humanities, including chronic unemployment, a lack of social safety nets, and being overworked and underpaid.

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