London, Edinburgh, Dublin and Belfast Talks 2025

Offering workshops and public talks on workers' inquiry, The American Worker pamphlet, CLR James, and the contemporary labor movement in the US this November to be held in London, Edinburgh, Dublin and Belfast.

Take a read of our workers' inquiry on the cafe sector in the United States published by Notes from Below and my "Searching for the American Worker" available online at New Politics.

EVENTS SCHEDULE

• London: Saturday, November 8 at 10:00 as part of the Historical Material Conference: Workers’ Inquiry in the United States: Immigrant Service Workers, Café, Care, and Nonprofit Workers (Panel)

• London: Monday, November 10 at 19:00—MayDay Rooms: Searching for the American Worker (Talk)—Register here.

• Edinburgh: Thursday, November 13 at 18:30—Trade Union Hub: Using Workers’ Inquiry to Organise and Fight the Boss (Workshop)

• Dublin: Wednesday, November 19 at 18:00—Peadar Browns Pub: Workers’ Inquiry: Views from Ireland, Germany, England, and the United States (Panel)

• Dublin: Thursday, November 20 at 15:30-16:30—University College Dublin: CLR James, the Irish Question, and the Black Liberation Struggle (Talk)

• Belfast: Saturday, November 22 at Time TBD as part of the Radical Book Fair: Workers’ Inquiry: Views from Ireland, Germany, England, and the United States (Panel)

EVENT DESCRIPTIONS

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

Workers’ inquiry—by and for “the class to whom the future belongs!” 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 power to take on fascism. Andrew Osborne will speak about a recent study with immigrant service workers. Alex Pyne, president of the Blue Bottle Independent Union will speak about their organizing efforts against Nestlé and the recently published “Class Composition in the Café Sector” with Notes from Below. Anastasia Wilson, who has been investigating care industries will address launching an inquiry with these workers. Kevin Van Meter will address the history of workers’ inquiry in the US, recent nonprofit and café workers’ inquires, and moderate the panel.

Searching for the American Worker

Beginning with the 1947 publication of The American Worker pamphlet a new form of “proletarian literature”—first-person narratives of work and workers’ inquiries—emerged from the automotive factories and corners of Marxian movements in the United States. First-person narratives and workers’ inquiries are strategic interventions to grasp power in the workplace, informal work groups and divisions within the class, forms of mutual aid and working-class self-activity, and can aid emerging organizing efforts. This talk will discuss how the pamphlet aided in the circulation of struggles while furthering workers’ own self-understanding and development of class consciousness, contextualize the pamphlet within the American labor movement and changing regimes of work, and argue that first-person narratives of work and workers’ inquiries offer political possibilities today. The ability of workers to govern their own unions, workplaces and communities can only be expressed with a political project that makes such governing possible. At present, at least in the United States, this project begins with inquiry and a return to The American Worker.

Using Workers’ Inquiry to Organise and Fight the Boss

Workers are on the move—fighting bosses and organizing unions, demanding control over housing, speaking about their working lives, and demanding workplace and real democracy. One of the tools to understand and amply these struggles is workers’ inquiry. Workers’ inquiries are strategic interventions to grasp power in the workplace, informal work groups and divisions within the class, forms of mutual aid and informal organization, “organic” leadership, and can aid organising efforts and develop workers’ own class consciousness. In this workshop participants will learn about various strategies and tactics for developing, implementing, and circulating worker’s inquiries grounded in historical and contemporary examples; partake in large group reading and listening exercises; and craft a sample plan to use workers’ inquiry in an organising context.

CLR James, the Irish Question, and the Black Liberation Struggle

When Trinidadian Marxist author of The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, CLR James was asked to reflect on his own political development he reportedly said that “he didn’t really understand what it meant to be revolutionary until he went to Ireland.” As it was the “Irish revolutionaries who ‘really understood armed struggle and revolutionary conflict.’” James would triumphantly argue for the autonomy of the Black liberation struggle, as James Connolly had argued for the Irish liberation struggle. This talk will meander through history, recite primary texts, investigate the Irish and Black “Questions,” examine James’s thinking on the meaning of autonomy, and ask what these and neighboring “Questions” have to tell us today.

Workers’ Inquiry: Views from Ireland, Germany, England, and the United States

Workers’ inquiry—for “the class to whom the future belongs!” Workers are on the move—refusing current regimes of work, fighting bosses and organizing unions, demanding control over housing, speaking about their working lives and demanding workplace democracy. Recently immigrant workers, agricultural, cafe and grocery, digital platform, arts and culture, and education workers, and others in Ireland, Germany, England, and the United States have shared their struggles through workers’ inquiries. A Workers’ inquiry is a strategic intervention to grasp power in the workplace, informal work groups and divisions within the class, forms of mutual aid and informal organization, “organic” leadership, and can aid organizing efforts and develop workers’ own class consciousness. Beginning with a historical overview of Marx’s “A Workers’ Inquiry” from 1880 and a new form of “proletarian literature” that emerged in 1947 as The American Worker pamphlet, our discussion will examine recent workers inquires and what workers are thinking and doing while at work. Participants will have the opportunity to explore the “how” and “why” of workers’ inquiry, current class composition, 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 efforts across the planet toward building class consciousness and working-class power to take on bosses and landlords.

• Dublin Speakers include Jack Edmunds-Bergin (CATU), Emma Rebekka Petersen, Clark McAllister and Dante Philp (Notes from Below), and Kevin Van Meter

• Belfast Speakers include Clark McAllister (Notes from Below) and Kevin Van Meter