Workers’ Inquiry in the United States: Immigrant Service Workers, Cafe Workers, Care and Nonprofit Workers

Immigrant Service Workers, Cafe Workers, Care and Nonprofit Workers are on the move—refusing current regimes of work, fighting bosses and organizing unions, speaking about their working lives and demanding workplace democracy. Beginning with a historical overview of workers’ inquiry and first-person narratives of work from 1947 to the present, our roundtable discussion will examine three recent workers inquires with café, care, and nonprofit workers in the US. With each inquiry at different stages—circulating, completed, and about to be launched—we will have the opportunity to explore the “how” and “why” of workers’ inquiry, current class composition in the US and the changing regimes of work in these industries. Finally, workers’ inquiry not only aids the circulate of struggles in these industries but supplements current Left labor efforts in the US toward building class consciousness and working-class…