Reorganizing the Workplace: Call for Submissions

Reposted from Briarpatch:

Queries due July 2, 2010
How can we reorganize our work - the means by which we sustain ourselves - to be more fulfilling, empowering and socially beneficial? What would a workplace that reflected our deepest values actually look like?
Briarpatch’s annual labour issue, “Reorganizing the Workplace” (Nov/Dec 2010), will explore alternative models for structuring workplaces. This theme is timely indeed, as Briarpatch itself is presently undergoing a shift to participatory economics and balanced job complexes in an effort to organize our workplace in a way that reflects our values of solidarity, self-management, cooperation and equality.
Especially at a time of economic uncertainty and ecological catastrophe, how are people within and beyond the labour movement responding in creative ways that change not just the balance of power in the workplace, but the nature of work itself?
If you’ve got something to contribute to this discussion, then we want to hear from you. We are looking for articles, essays, investigative reportage, news briefs, project profiles, interviews with luminary thinkers, reviews, poetry, humour, artwork & photography that shed light on issues related to workplace organization and activism. We are particularly interested in contributions informed by an anti-capitalist and anti-oppression analysis of labour and the workplace.
We also invite unions and other organizations who could use this issue of Briarpatch as an organizing/educational tool to get in touch to discuss opportunities for shared distribution, bulk issue orders and possible in-kind exchanges.
Possible topics include (but are no means limited to):

• Case studies or profiles of alternative models for workplace organization, either locally or internationally;
• Creative responses to the recession, both within and outside the organized labour movement;
• Experiments in extricating ourselves from the capitalist economy through skill-sharing, mutual aid, bartering, local currencies, etc.;
• The non-profit industrial complex: the role of non-profits and service provision in social movements and the politics of working in these sectors;
• Organizing among migrant and undocumented workers, exclusion of migrant workers from Canadian labour laws and barriers to unionization;
• The crisis of child care in Canada;
• Challenges facing the labour movement, efforts to reinvigorate traditional approaches to labour organizing;
• The role of the labour movement in fostering international solidarity;
• Reviews of relevant books that tackle these or other related issues.

Queries are due July 2. If your query is accepted, first drafts are due August 6. Your query should outline what ground your contribution will cover, give an estimated word count, and indicate your relevant experience or background in writing about the issue. If you haven’t written for Briarpatch before, please provide a brief writing sample.
Please review our submission guidelines before submitting. Send your queries/submissions to editor AT briarpatchmagazine D0T com.
We reserve the right to edit your work (with your active involvement), and cannot guarantee publication.