Tuesday, April 12, 2005
7:30pm – 9:30 pm
Toronto Free Gallery

Undocumented workers. Young chainstore employees. Communication freelancers. Artists with reputation but not rent. Sessional university teachers. Short-term contract holders. These evoke radically different situations, but they share a quality of precariousness: non-guaranteed jobs, insecure incomes, uncertain futures. Work overtakes life. Precarity is becoming a norm in the ‘flexible’ economy. What are its roots? How is it lived? How is it being resisted? Join us for a discussion of these questions. This will be followed by a screening of Precarity (2004), a video which documents anti-precarity struggles that are flaring up around the world.

PANELISTS:
Jean McDonald – No One Is Illegal – Toronto
Sonia Singh – Toronto Organizing for Fair Employment
Kika Thorne – artist
Leah Vosko – Canada Research Chair in Feminist Political Economy, York University

SCREENING: PRECARITY @ 8:30pm
Precarity (2004) is a compilation of videos documenting the rebellion of precarious flexworkers across the continents. From the occupation of abandoned factories in Argentina, to the interruption of French prime time news, to the devotion to Saint Precarious at the May Day Parade in Milan, Precarity is advertising a new brand of labour activism. It is a toolbox to investigate new modes of collective action and an instrument for the radical organization of the consumerized younger generation.

Sponsored by: CMCE / Centre for Media and Culture in Education at OISE/UT

The Precarity Forum is the pilot event of Toronto School of Creativity & Inquiry.