ABSTRACT: Current forms of labor organization have so far proven inadequate. In addressing the real and growing labor market problems that face our students, this paper argues that we can and should modernize academic guilds and use their power to bargain with employers and workers to create and secure reliable pathways to successful careers.

To make this argument, I suggest that universities may fruitfully be understood as a set of guild relationships based upon specific disciplines. These disciplinary guilds are generally organized nationally or internationally and effectuate policies through a decentralized network of local departments stationed within various institutions. As they stand now, their emphasis is almost entirely upon quality scholarship with scarce attempts to produce labor solidarity among present and future guild members.

The idea of the university as “Hiring Hall” challenges the industrial union conceptualization of wall-to-wall academic organizing within a single bargaining unit. The hiring hall concept develops the idea that graduate education is a formal apprenticeship subject to standard collective good problems whose solution necessitates an appropriately designed regulatory mechanism. Seen in this light, the swelling tide of contingent academic employment may best be understood as the outcome of an unsuccessfully regulated guild or hiring hall.

FORMAT: Jacoby's paper will be circulated to the attendees a week in advance of the workshare. Participants are expected to read the paper before the meeting and be prepared for a discussion. Please feel free to bring your lunch. Coffee and cookies will be served.  

RSVP: Please e-mail hbcls@uw.edu