CONFERENCE organized by Touraj Atabaki│International Institute of Social History, Duccio Basosi│University of Venice Ca’ Foscari, Elisabetta Bini│University of Trieste, Giuliano Garavini│University of Padua, Francesco Petrini│University of Padua, Massimiliano Trentin│University of Bologna

Secretariat:
Barbara Gollin, Silvia Brunelli

24 October 2014
Dipartimento di scienze politiche, giuridiche e studi internazionali Aula Economia
Via del Santo 28 Padova
sponsored by
University of Padua, FIRB Engines of Growth
University of Padua, Department of Political Science, Law, and International Studies University of Venice Ca’ Foscari, FIRB Engines of Growth

The importance of labor in the history of national and international oil politics has been largely overlooked by scholars. Yet, as recent events in Libya, Algeria and Nigeria show, oil workers play (and have played) a crucial role in blocking or rederecting the flow of oil, while labor policies have often been central in defining relations between international oil companies and oil producing states.
This international conference aims at analyzing the role labor has had in transforming oil politics during the 20th century, particularly its second half. The decades that run from the 1950s to the 1990s are by now recognized as crucial in changing the relationship between oil producing and oil consuming countries. However, scholars have focused their attention mostly on diplomatic relations and high politics or on the economic strategies carried out by single oil firms. With few exceptions, the ways in which labor relations, workers and trade unions contributed to redefine oil politics has received but scant attention.

DIPARTIMENTO DI SCIENZE POLITICHE, GIURIDICHE E STUDI INTERNAZIONALI (SPGI)
Programme
10 am
Geert Van Goethem (Amsab Institute of Social History/Ghent University), Unattainable Paradise: American Labor’s Global Activities and the Petroleum Workers during the Cold War Era
Betsy A. Beasley (Yale University), Wildcat: Outsourcing, Expertise, and Oil in Postwar Houston
Coffee break
Zachary Cuyler (Georgetown University), Tapline and Lebanese workers, 1950‐1964
Eva‐Maria Muschik (New York University), “A Pretty Kettle of Fish”: UN Assistance in the Redeployment of 20,000 Surplus Workers in the Iranian Oil Industry, 1958‐60
Kevin A. Young (State University of New York at Stony Brook), Blood of the Earth: Oil Nationalism and the Working Class in Bolivia, 1952‐1969
Discussant: Touraj Atabaki (International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam) 1 pm Lunch break
2 pm
Elisabetta Bini (University of Trieste), Securing a Global Oil Empire: The U.S. and the
Challenge of Libyan Oil Workers, 1955‐1981
Vincent Godfrey (Tuskegee University), The Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union and the Struggle for the Nationalization of the Petroleum Industry in Trinidad and Tobago, 1967‐1989
Coffee break
Peyman Jafari (University of Amsterdam), Telling It Like It Wasn’t: Oil Workers and the Power Struggle During the Iranian Revolution, 1978‐1982
Daniel A. Omoweh (Western Delta University, Nigeria), The State, Oil Companies and Labour Politics in the Niger Delta, Nigeria: A Historical Perspective
Discussant: Giuliano Garavini (University of Padua)
Keynote speech
Robert Vitalis (University of Pennsylvania)

Participants Touraj Atabaki
Duccio Basosi
Betsy A. Beasley Elisabetta Bini Zachary Cuyler Giuliano Garavini Vincent Godfrey Peyman Jafari Eva‐Maria Muschik Marta Musso
Daniel A. Omoweh Francesco Petrini Massimiliano Trentin Geert Van Goethem Robert Vitalis
Kevin A. Young
International Institute of Social History, The Netherlands
University of Venice Ca’ Foscari, Italy Yale University, USA
University of Trieste, Italy Georgetown University, USA University of Padua, Italy
Tuskegee University, USA
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
New York University, USA
University of Cambridge, UK
Western Delta University, Nigeria
University of Padua, Italy
University of Bologna, Italy
Amsab Institute of Social History, Belgium University of Pennsylvania, USA
State University of New York at Stony Brook, USA
DIPARTIMENTO DI SCIENZE POLITICHE, GIURIDICHE E STUDI INTERNAZIONALI (SPGI)