Labnet: Conf. Ann: History of Labor Intermediation. Institutions and Individual Ways of Finding Employment (19th and Early 20th Centuries) - Vienna 11/09

[labnet at lists.labourhistory.net]

[Cross-posted, with thanks, from H-Soz-u-kult. AB]

From:    Irina Vana <irina.vana at univie.ac.at> 

Conf. Ann: History of Labor Intermediation. Institutions and Individual Ways of Finding Employment (19th and Early 20th Centuries) - Vienna 11/09
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Concept & Organization by The Production of Work-Team: Dr. Thomas
Buchner, Dr. Alexander Mejstrik, Dipl. Sozwiss. Jessica Richter, MSc,
Mag. Irina Vana, Mag. Márton Villányi, Dr. Sigrid Wadauer, Vienna
27.11.2009-28.11.2009, University of Vienna, Dr.-Karl-Lueger-Ring 1 ,
1010 Vienna, Marietta Blau Saal

Questions of labor market and labor intermediation have been a political
concern in most European countries as well as the USA and Canada since
the late 19th century. In contemporary debates, public labor exchanges
have been depicted as a tool to cope with the confusing complexity of
labor markets and to match the supply and demand of labor more
effectively.

Up to now, only a few studies have asked how public labor exchange
contributed to the emergence and differentiation of nationalized labor
markets. However, public labor exchange did not just coordinate or
regulate a given labor market but also contributed to the historical
creation of labor and the segregation of labor markets. By defining
regular employment, it helped to impose a particular distinction between
formal and informal (or casual) work, between "real" economy and a
shadow economy. It established formal criteria of classifying
occupational skills and employability. Finally it aimed at
distinguishing those willing and able to work from those deemed
"work-shy".

Previous research has mostly focused on the political aims and formal
regulations of labor intermediation. By contrast, we know little about
how labor exchanges functioned practically and what it meant to be
subjected to those practices. Moreover, it seems necessary to reflect on
the practical impact of public labor exchange on looking for jobs and
discuss it in the context of the variety of all forms of intermediation.
Public labor offices have always been only one of many possible ways of
finding employment or employees, but they have not necessarily been the
most commonly used one. According to contemporary and recent estimates,
informal practices of finding employment by help of kin or other social
networks, newspaper ads or direct inquiries have been important job
search practices. Job placement by commercial mediation, charitable
organizations, trade unions or associations has been quite common as
well.

The workshop will compare practices of labor intermediation and ways of
finding employment in the 19th and 20th centuries across a variety of
countries.


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Friday, 27.11.

Chair: Thomas Buchner and Sigrid Wadauer

9.00-9.30 	Sigrid Wadauer (University of Vienna) & Thomas Buchner
(University of Linz): Welcome and Introduction

9.30-10.30	Ad Knotter (Sociaal Historisch Centrum voor
Limburg/Maastricht University): Mediation, allocation, control: the
changing faces of labour exchanges in Belgium and the Netherlands (late
19th/early 20th centuries)

10.30-10.50	Coffee break

10.50-11.50	Malcolm Mansfield (Université de Paris 3): The Very Idea of
Labour Intermediation: the Bourses du Travail in Turn of the Century
France 

11.50-12.50	Irina Vana (University of Vienna): Public labour offices and
the hierarchies between different forms of unemployment and employment
(1918-1938)

12.50-14.20	Lunch break

Chair: Jessica Richter
14.20-15.20 	Verena Pawlowsky & Harald Wendelin (University of Vienna):
The Austrian Employment Agency for Disabled Veterans during the First
World War 

15.20-16.20	David Meskill (Dowling College): Between Labor Market
Constituencies: The Struggles to Establish Vocational Counseling in
Weimar Germany

16.20-16.40	Coffee break 

16.40-17.40	Tamara Stazic-Wendt (University of Trier): Labour
intermediation and welfare practices in rural areas (Rhine Province,
1910-1935) 


Saturday, 28.11.2009

Chair: Irina Vana

9.00 - 10.00	Jan Lucassen (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam/International
Institute of Social Science): Labour mediation among seasonal workers,
in particular
the Lippe brick makers c. 1650-1900

10.00-11.00	Amit Kumar Mishra (University of Hyderabad): Sardars,
Kanganies and Maistries: Intermediaries in Indian Labour Diaspora 

11.00-11.20	Coffee break

11.20-12.20	M. Erdem Kabadayi (Istanbul Bilgi University): Petitioning
as a way to find and regain employment at state industrial enterprises
in the Ottoman Empire in the late nineteenth century

12.20-13.50	Lunch break


Chair: Alexander Mejstrik

13.50-14.40	Anna G. Piotrowska (Jagiellonian University): Individual
strategies of labour intermediation among early 20th century American
and European composers

14.40-15.00	Coffee break

15.00-16.00	Jessica Richter (University of Vienna): Between service,
labour and subsistence: Self-sustainment and perceptions of changes of
employment (Austria, 1918-1938)

16.00-16.30	Conclusion


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Production of Work-Team

Maria-Theresien-Straße 9/4, A-1090 Vienna
Department of Economic and Social History
+43 +1 +4277/41337

pow.wiso at univie.ac.at 

Homepage <http://pow.univie.ac.at> 

URL zur Zitation dieses Beitrages
<http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/termine/id=12669>