Preliminary programme:

Date: Sunday, Apr 26, 2015 – Friday, May 1, 2015

Time: 6:00AM – 5:00AM

WUK, Vienna, Austria

 

In today’s society there is a strong tie between labor (employment) and growth. Constant growth is needed to outbalance the increase of economic productivity and to keep the „redundant“ laborforce occupied. In public discourse workplace is one of the strongest agruments to keep dirty economies, such as the coal industry, running. But why keep this wheel of destruction turning?

In a society which is not dedicated to growth also the concept of work has to be reassessed. Althought full employment cannot be the goal anymore there will be tasks in society that have to be taken care of, such as food production, care work, construction work, logistics etc. In a degrowth society this will have to be organized differently. It will have to be discussed which work is needed in society, what should be produced and how, if specialists are wanted or all-rounders or both, what is seen as important and meaningful work and how this is valued…

In this course we want to have a critival look at contemporary working conditions (precarity, gender roles, migration) and learn about social struggles aginst them. We aim to understand and question the connection between employment and growth. For that we want to deconstruct the common concept of labor and review alternative concepts and ideas of how work could be organized.

Finally, we want to develop our own and a collective vision of what and how we want to work in the future.

The course will end at the 1st of May – laborday – on which we will take part at the Mayday Vienna, a pan-European grassroot demonstration that broaches the issue of precarity, right to the city and a good life for all (http://mayday-wien.org).

The course is organised by: ATTAC Austria

26.04.14 27.04.14 28.04.14 29.04.14 30.04.14 01.05.14
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri
09:00-10:00 Welcome and get-to-know-each-other Reflection / Evaluation Reflection / Evaluation Reflection / Evaluation Presentation of Group work and Political Action
10:00-13:00 Degrowth Walk Workshop: „normal work“ – deconstructing the concept, criticism from feminist economy Workshop: critical perspectives on labour: the history of labour conflicts, marxist theory… Workshop: prospecting the future, utopia of work in a solidary degrowth society
lunch lunch lunch lunch lunch
15:00-18:00 – Welcome
– Introduction to the place and the organizer
– Introduction to degrowth
– Introduction to the growl project and the network
– logistics
– Education in a solidary degrowth-society: How do we want to learn?
– Education-evaluation: reflecting this course
Workshop: critical perspectives on labour: Social-ecological perspectives and the connection to the degrowth discourse Walk through the „Red Vienna“ TTT
– Presentation styles (Maike und Olivia?)
– Introduction to the growl network and platform
– Group work: Preparation of a course / a method as a trainer
Reflection / Evaluation
dinner dinner dinner dinner dinner
evening program 19:30 Public event: „Frohes Schaffen“ with discussion panel (Konstantin Faigle, Franz Schandl, Claudia Paiha; Moderation: Julianna Fehlinger) Visiting an initaitive Preparation of group work and political action