The conference will be held at the University of Melbourne on 21-22 June 2006, as a joint initiative of the Melbourne Branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History and the Australian Centre at the University of Melbourne.

We invite proposals for papers around themes such as:
• Histories of working life and domestic amenity and parenting;
• Wage labour and social identity;
• Representation and celebration of skilled labour; and
• Shorter hours and civic engagement.

In general, we are looking for proposals that will bring to life the continuing efforts of working people to gain control over their modes of employment, the labour process and to assert their role as active agents in a more egalitarian economy and democratic polity.

This event is part of a series of exhibitions, events and conferences to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Melbourne Stonemasons’ establishment of the ‘8 Hour System’, which have been planned for the first half of 2006.

Proposals, with abstracts of 250 words are due by 1 March 2006 and full papers (5,000 word maximum) by 20 May 2006. They can be sent to Peter Love at either pjlove@infoxchange.net.au or plove@swin.edu.au Time for the presentation of papers will be strictly limited to 20 minutes.

Further information about the conference will be posted on the Labour History website at http://www.asslh.com/ ; the Australian Centre site at http://www.australian.unimelb.edu.au/ and on the Eight Hour Day website at http://www.8hourday.org.au/

The ‘Working to Live’ conference will be run in conjunction with, and followed by, the ‘New Standards for the New Times’ conference on 22-23 June 2005 at RMIT, organised by Iain Campbell (Iain.Campbell@rmit.edu.au) and Cathy Brigden (Cathy.Brigden@rmit.edu.au) from the Centre for Applied Social Research, RMIT. Iain or Cathy can provide further information on this conference, which explores contemporary work/life issues.