Public lecture by Natasha Iskander – Associate Professor of Public Policy, Wagner School, New York University
In modern capitalist production systems around the world, forced labor arrangements are used in specific and deliberate ways to meet production challenges. In contemporary Qatar, forced labor arrangements erase the skill contribution of workers — an aspect of production typically treated as a neutral input in the form of human capital — even as production relies on workers’ skills to meet technical challenges and highly variable production targets. Systemic skill erasure forecloses all negotiations between labor and management over how skill is used and compensated, thus preserving maximum production and price flexibility for firms.
Monday, May 15, 6pm, Wolff Conference Room (6 E 16th St, Room 1103)