"ORGANIZING AGAINST THE WIND: Historical and Current Perspectives," the 30th Annual conference of the Southwest Labor Studies Association will meet in Tucson at the University of Arizona from April 29-May 1, 2004.

The Conference will focus on labor organizing during difficult times, past and present. Arizona is a right-to-work (for less) state whose state government puts out brochures on workers’ rights telling them they don’t have any! Yet Southern Arizona, with its militant labor history and ongoing union struggles, is a good setting for such a discussion and exchange.

Labor activists, labor educators and historians, students, and others interested in worker empowerment are invited to submit proposals for papers, presentations and panels on the general conference theme, and on related issues. We welcome all proposals, especially those that deal with:

• building labor-community coalitions, including union-environmentalist alliances
• border migration issues
• organizing roles of women and “minorities”
• international perspectives on work and labor, labor culture, and worker empowerment
• worker empowerment on and off the job, in and out of unions.

Individual paper proposals are welcome. Proposals for complete panels or roundtables of three or four presenters, 1-3/4 hours in length, are encouraged. PLEASE SUBMIT PROPOSALS NO LATER THAN DECEMBER 15, 2003. Include your name, organization or institution, address, home and work, phone and fax numbers, email address, working title of paper or presentation, and a brief description of the content. Where possible, please submit proposals via e-mail.