Robert Ovetz, Ph.D. | San Jose State University (original) (raw)
Unpublished Articles by Robert Ovetz, Ph.D.
CounterPunch, 2022
Book review of my book Workers' Inquiry and Global Class Struggle (Pluto 2020) by Steve Early
Carlisle petition to Congress from the 1794 "Whiskey Rebellion." This petition has never been dup... more Carlisle petition to Congress from the 1794 "Whiskey Rebellion." This petition has never been duplicated or transcribed. I will post the transcription when I am finished.
San Jose Mercury News, 2021
Unpublished excerpt from next book, 2021
Journal of Labor and Society, 2019
Book review by Justin Rogers-Cooper.
This was originally written for publication in Rethinking Schools which did not happen. Feel free... more This was originally written for publication in Rethinking Schools which did not happen. Feel free to publish and circulate. Please cite author and link to https://sjsu.academia.edu/RobertOvetzPhD when republishing.
Published News Articles by Robert Ovetz, Ph.D.
Dollars & Sense magazine, 2023
My cover story on AI and the future of work.
Dollars & Sense, 2023
May-June Labor Issue
Jacobin, 2023
There's no reason to venerate the framers of the US Constitution. The document they created was e... more There's no reason to venerate the framers of the US Constitution. The document they created was explicitly designed to check the democratic will of ordinary people and protect the plutocratic interests of the propertied elite.
Dollars & Sense, 2023
United States contains a provision that is weakening the labor movement and impeding the urgent n... more United States contains a provision that is weakening the labor movement and impeding the urgent need to democratize the economy. Called the "management rights clause," this provision gives management the power to make decisions about how to hire, fire, control the work process, and what to produce-without any input by workers or their unions.
Marin Independent Journal, 2022
Toronto Star (Can), 2022
Trump is the symptom of a crisis caused by the Constitution The framers concentrated power into t... more Trump is the symptom of a crisis caused by the Constitution The framers concentrated power into the hands of a single person to protect the propertied elite in order to provide a minority check of the majority.
Dollars & Sense, 2022
As algorithms are being integrated into nearly every type of work and being used to automate some... more As algorithms are being integrated into nearly every type of work and
being used to automate some jobs, the upsurge of organizing at these companies will come to inform how workers throughout the country organize
against the algorithmic black box.
Dollars & Sense, 2022
There’s an employer with nearly the same output (in terms of the value of products and services c... more There’s an employer with nearly the same output (in terms of the value of products and services created) and about 10 times the number of workers as Amazon where unionizing has taken off in recent years: the nonprofit sector.
The Progressive, 2022
Despite what we learn in school, the Constitution's "checks and balances" empower the minority to... more Despite what we learn in school, the Constitution's "checks and balances" empower the minority to check the majority.
Dollars & Sense, 2022
March-April issue
CounterPunch, 2022
Book review of my book Workers' Inquiry and Global Class Struggle (Pluto 2020) by Steve Early
Carlisle petition to Congress from the 1794 "Whiskey Rebellion." This petition has never been dup... more Carlisle petition to Congress from the 1794 "Whiskey Rebellion." This petition has never been duplicated or transcribed. I will post the transcription when I am finished.
San Jose Mercury News, 2021
Unpublished excerpt from next book, 2021
Journal of Labor and Society, 2019
Book review by Justin Rogers-Cooper.
This was originally written for publication in Rethinking Schools which did not happen. Feel free... more This was originally written for publication in Rethinking Schools which did not happen. Feel free to publish and circulate. Please cite author and link to https://sjsu.academia.edu/RobertOvetzPhD when republishing.
Dollars & Sense magazine, 2023
My cover story on AI and the future of work.
Dollars & Sense, 2023
May-June Labor Issue
Jacobin, 2023
There's no reason to venerate the framers of the US Constitution. The document they created was e... more There's no reason to venerate the framers of the US Constitution. The document they created was explicitly designed to check the democratic will of ordinary people and protect the plutocratic interests of the propertied elite.
Dollars & Sense, 2023
United States contains a provision that is weakening the labor movement and impeding the urgent n... more United States contains a provision that is weakening the labor movement and impeding the urgent need to democratize the economy. Called the "management rights clause," this provision gives management the power to make decisions about how to hire, fire, control the work process, and what to produce-without any input by workers or their unions.
Marin Independent Journal, 2022
Toronto Star (Can), 2022
Trump is the symptom of a crisis caused by the Constitution The framers concentrated power into t... more Trump is the symptom of a crisis caused by the Constitution The framers concentrated power into the hands of a single person to protect the propertied elite in order to provide a minority check of the majority.
Dollars & Sense, 2022
As algorithms are being integrated into nearly every type of work and being used to automate some... more As algorithms are being integrated into nearly every type of work and
being used to automate some jobs, the upsurge of organizing at these companies will come to inform how workers throughout the country organize
against the algorithmic black box.
Dollars & Sense, 2022
There’s an employer with nearly the same output (in terms of the value of products and services c... more There’s an employer with nearly the same output (in terms of the value of products and services created) and about 10 times the number of workers as Amazon where unionizing has taken off in recent years: the nonprofit sector.
The Progressive, 2022
Despite what we learn in school, the Constitution's "checks and balances" empower the minority to... more Despite what we learn in school, the Constitution's "checks and balances" empower the minority to check the majority.
Dollars & Sense, 2022
March-April issue
Dollars & Sense, 2022
March/April issue
Berliner Gazette, 2021
This is the German translation of my article "Zoombombed: The Proletarization of Academic Labor i... more This is the German translation of my article "Zoombombed: The Proletarization of Academic Labor in the Algorithmic University"
Global Labour Column, 2021
Earth Island Journal, 1992
Marin Independent Journal, 2020
Movement demands school remove the name Sir Francis Drake from the school name.
Made in China, 2022
Vol. 6 Issue 3, Sept–Dec 2021
New Global Studies, 2022
Introduction to the special issue on worker organizing at global choke points. Co-edited by Rober... more Introduction to the special issue on worker organizing at global choke points.
Co-edited by Robert Ovetz and Jake Wilson
California Sociologist, 1993
Crtical Sociology, 2020
Justin Rogers-Cooper analyzes my book When Workers Shot Back on pages 4-6.
Critical Sociology, 2020
The use of on-line education (OLE) to deliver higher education using learning management systems ... more The use of on-line education (OLE) to deliver higher education using learning management systems (LMS) has received growing critical attention for its reliance on precarious faculty, high dropout and failure rates, and as a form of privatization. While these critiques are well grounded, they overlook the role of OLE as a strategy for rationalizing teaching and deskilling academic labor in order to produce more self-disciplined precarious "platform" workers who can labor remotely under the control of algorithmic management. To recompose the power of academic workers, new tactics, strategies, and objectives based on an analysis of the new technical composition of capital in higher education are needed.
Arbeit Bewegung Geschichte (Labour-Movement-History)
The English draft and German translation of my "War in Europe, War on Capital: Wildcat Strikes an... more The English draft and German translation of my "War in Europe, War on Capital: Wildcat Strikes and the Labor Planning State in the US 1917-1918". The English version can be found here.
Monthly Labor Review, 2018
Our study shows that more workers are involved in strike activity in the US than is publicly repo... more Our study shows that more workers are involved in strike activity in the US than is publicly reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports on strikes.
Please contact me for a copy of our unpublished full report.
Work, Organisation, Labour & Globalisation
There has been little analysis of how neoliberal adjunctification and online education (OLE) are ... more There has been little analysis of how neoliberal adjunctification and online education (OLE) are shaping a new academic division of labour in US colleges and universities. OLE rationalises academic labour by separating it from the delivery of educational content while transforming learning into the self-disciplined completion of sequential tasks (e.g. 'competency-based learning') under the panoptic surveillance of online course management systems (CMS). OLE is subtly shifting the very hidden curriculum of higher education to meet the needs of global capital for a more effectively disciplined labour force that can work contingently and remotely with little or no overt coercion. This analysis of the process by which OLE is rationalising academic labour draws upon the ideas of Foucault and Tronti to argue that OLE is a tool for producing a type of disciplined labour that breaks down the borders between productive and reproductive labour in order to colonise all life as work.
Journal of Labor and Society
The reorganization of higher education has been made possible by a new division of labor that is ... more The reorganization of higher education has been made possible by a new division of labor that is rationalizing and deskilling college teaching. These new relations of academic labor are disempowering the profes-sorate by transferring control over teaching to a growing middle management and automating it as online distance learning. In order to respond to this threat to higher education, it is necessary to shift the focus from the commercialization of higher education to the adjunctification of the professorate. This requires a critical rethinking of organizational tactics, strategies, and objectives of academic labor organizing. Higher education is being reorganized. Privatization, disinvestment, online courses, for-profit colleges, tuition and fees, budget cuts, centralization and outsourcing of maintenance, food service and administrative services, and the use of " adjuncts " like myself have become rampant in the past four decades. The logic of the market subtly transforming the very work of teaching is obscured by discussions about commercialization. A new division of academic labor is being gradually imposed in order to expand control over academic labor, produce labor power better disciplined for contingent work, and design and build the technology to exploit that labor power. In order to develop new tactics, strategies, and objectives to respond to these threats, it is necessary to do a class analysis of the new division of academic labor. From the Mass to the Taylorized University The academic labor of the professorate is being rationalized, fragmented, deskilled, standardized, and disempowered, a process commonly called " adjunctification. " This Taylorization of academic labor is proceeding in order to increase " output " of both the exploitation of adjunct faculty and the students disciplined and trained for flexible, part-time, contingent work. 1 The adjunctification of academic labor is the dominant model for the relations of contingent labor throughout the economy. 2 Prior to World War II, higher education almost entirely served the elite and played little direct role in the disciplining of labor power. However, the wildcat
Labor Studies Journal
Braverman's analysis of the changing division of labor is crucial for understanding the impact of... more Braverman's analysis of the changing division of labor is crucial for understanding the impact of the neoliberal assault on higher education on academic labor. Much like Taylorism a century ago, adjunctification of the faculty, online education, and data driven planning are rationalizing academic labor. Teaching is being " unbundled " and its components parts automated, outsourced, and transferred to a growing middle level administration. As a result, faculty are becoming " just-in-time, " deskilled, disempowered, contingent labor. This newly emerging new division of labor is fundamentally transforming higher education. No longer merely subject to commercialization, academic labor is being reorganized to resemble the interchangeable contingent work that is ubiquitous throughout the labor market. To resist these developments it is necessary for faculty to study the new division of academic labor in order to devise new organizing tactics and strategies, such as the systemwide local and Metro organizing models.
Journal of Marine Policy
My article in Marine Policy, "The bottom line: An investigation of the economic, cultural and soc... more My article in Marine Policy, "The bottom line: An investigation of the economic, cultural and social costs of high seas industrial longline fishing in the Pacific and the benefits of conservation," Nov. 2005.
Radical Teacher
My 2012 Radical Teacher article on using Schoolhouse Rock in a political science class.
Sea Turtle Restoration Project
United Nations Law of the Sea Convention
My report published by the United Nations General Assembly, April 18, 2005.
New York Labor History Association, 2021
Organise!, 2021
Jay Fraser's book review of Workers' Inquiry and Global Class Struggle in Organise!, Spring 2021... more Jay Fraser's book review of Workers' Inquiry and Global Class Struggle in Organise!, Spring 2021, pp. 78-81
Journal of Labor and Society, 2021
Hamilton’s Radical Capitalism is Not the Answer to Climate Catastrophe
Journal of Labor and Society, 2020
Journal of Labor and Society, 2020
Post Digital Science and Education, 2020
Book review by Mark Smith
Marx & Philosophy Review of Books, 2020
Marx & Philosophy Review of Books, 2020
Livingston & McLean County Labor/Labor Culture, 2020
Marx & Philosophy Review of Books, 2020
When Workers Shot Back Class Conflict from 1877 to 1921 book review by Achille Marotta.
Journal of Labor and Society, 2019
Review of Robert Ovetz's amazing book!
The Journal of Labor and Society 2018
The path through decades of working class defeat is much discussed but little studied. Azzellini ... more The path through decades of working class defeat is much discussed but little studied. Azzellini and Kraft's book The Class Strikes Back seeks to change that by helping to fill one of the most glaring holes in class analysis today. It offers a compilation of detailed analyses of workers organizing to shift the balance of power between capital and workers, or what is otherwise known as class composition, from 13 countries and nearly every continent. Everyone involved in and studying working class self-organizing needs to not only read this book but use it as a model for continuing this long overdue work.
Marx & Philosophy Society, 2018
Journal of Labor and Society, 2018
Journal of Environmental Education
Digital Platforms and Algorithmic Subjectivities, 2022
chapter in Emiliana Armano, Marco Briziarelli, Elisabetta Risi (eds.), Digital Platforms and Algo... more chapter in Emiliana Armano, Marco Briziarelli, Elisabetta Risi (eds.), Digital Platforms and Algorithmic Subjectivities, Univ. of Westminster Press, 2022, pp 183-200
We the Elites: Why the US Constitution Serves the Few, 2022
The introduction to my new book We the Elites: Why the US Constitution Serves the Few (Pluto 2022).
Encyclopaedia of Marxism and Education (Alpesh Maisuria, Volume Editor), 2022
Chapter 37
Workers' Inquiry and Global Class Struggle, 2021
chapter 4 of my second book
Beyond Neoliberalism and Capitalism, 2021
My chapter "The Algorithmic university: On-line education, learning management systems, and the s... more My chapter "The Algorithmic university: On-line education, learning management systems, and the struggle over academic labor" can be found on pages 215-245
When Workers Shot Back, 2018
This is an excerpt of my class analysis of the history of the modern police created after the 187... more This is an excerpt of my class analysis of the history of the modern police created after the 1877 railroad strike
Des Luttes dans la Pandémie Un recueil de contributions sur la crise COVID-19, 2020
My chapter can be found on pp. 47-59.
See my chapter, "The Working Class Pandemic in the United States," pp. 53-67
This is CLR James's long out of print book.
The paperback edition of my first book will be released Sept 3, 2019
The introduction to my book When Workers Shot Back published by Brill in 2018 and in paper in 201... more The introduction to my book When Workers Shot Back published by Brill in 2018 and in paper in 2019 by Haymarket Press.
The cover of my first book published in August 2018.
This is the long censored report on the use of strategic violence by workers and labor unions in ... more This is the long censored report on the use of strategic violence by workers and labor unions in the first two decades of the 1900s. The Commission of Industrial Relations listed the report as part of its final report to Congress but this and several others were never published. Only one copy is know to remain.
Full citation:
Grant, Luke 1915a, Violence in Labor Disputes and Methods of Policing Industry, Unpublished report, Washington DC: Commission on Industrial Relations.
This is the long censored report on the use of strategic violence by workers and labor unions in ... more This is the long censored report on the use of strategic violence by workers and labor unions in the first two decades of the 1900s. The Commission of Industrial Relations listed the report as part of its final report to Congress but this and several others were never published. Only one copy is know to remain.
Full citation:
Grant, Luke 1915a, Violence in Labor Disputes and Methods of Policing Industry, Unpublished report, Washington DC: Commission on Industrial Relations.
This is the long censored report on the use of strategic violence by workers and labor unions in ... more This is the long censored report on the use of strategic violence by workers and labor unions in the first two decades of the 1900s. The Commission of Industrial Relations listed the report as part of its final report to Congress but this and several others were never published. Only one copy is know to remain.
Full citation:
Grant, Luke 1915a, Violence in Labor Disputes and Methods of Policing Industry, Unpublished report, Washington DC: Commission on Industrial Relations.
This is the long censored report on the use of strategic violence by workers and labor unions in ... more This is the long censored report on the use of strategic violence by workers and labor unions in the first two decades of the 1900s. The Commission of Industrial Relations listed the report as part of its final report to Congress but this and several others were never published. Only one copy is know to remain.
Full citation:
Grant, Luke 1915a, Violence in Labor Disputes and Methods of Policing Industry, Unpublished report, Washington DC: Commission on Industrial Relations.
This is the long censored report on the use of strategic violence by workers and labor unions in ... more This is the long censored report on the use of strategic violence by workers and labor unions in the first two decades of the 1900s. The Commission of Industrial Relations listed the report as part of its final report to Congress but this and several others were never published. Only one copy is know to remain.
Full citation:
Grant, Luke 1915a, Violence in Labor Disputes and Methods of Policing Industry, Unpublished report, Washington DC: Commission on Industrial Relations.
This is the long censored report on the use of strategic violence by workers and labor unions in ... more This is the long censored report on the use of strategic violence by workers and labor unions in the first two decades of the 1900s. The Commission of Industrial Relations listed the report as part of its final report to Congress but this and several others were never published. Only one copy is know to remain.
Full citation:
Grant, Luke 1915a, Violence in Labor Disputes and Methods of Policing Industry, Unpublished report, Washington DC: Commission on Industrial Relations.
Unpublished draft, 2016
On-line education is rationalizing and fragmenting faculty labor into discreet parts and allocati... more On-line education is rationalizing and fragmenting faculty labor into discreet parts and allocating it to an assembly line of adjunct faculty, corporate contractors, staff technicians, and administrators. This emerging division of academic labor is a dangerous threat to faculty control over teaching and participation in shared governance. The model for this new division of academic labor is an Arizona public community college, Rio Salado, which uses coercive data driven pre-dictive modeling to move students through standardized courses taught asynchronously along a virtual assembly line. The Rio Salado model is being used in California to deskill and disempower community college faculty, threatening public higher education as we know it. A critical understanding of this newly emerging division of academic labor in order to draw lessons for faculty organizing to shift the balance of control over teaching and governance. For profit universities are being touted as the model of public higher education of the future, one composed of mostly adjunct faculty teaching large numbers of students on an automated higher education assembly line. But the for profits are not the model of the future. Rather, they are merely knock off versions of the little known Arizona public Rio Salado College. This statewide community college is almost completely on-line and attracts primarily low waged full-time workers into virtual classrooms taught almost entirely by deskilled, disempowered adjuncts professors. The Rio Salado model illustrates the newly emerging division of academic labor in which cloned classes focused on task completion rather than learning are taught remotely by an assembly line of adjuncts, outside corporate contractors, and non-faculty staff technicians. Stripped of their contribution to shared governance, adjuncts and the few full-time faculty that oversee them are being deskilled and disempowered, much of what they do transferred to administrators and staff technicians. ! ! In this rapidly emerging model faculty working conditions have become the flip side of student learning conditions. Low-waged contingent adjuncts are teaching primarily first generation working class and students of color tracked into to low cost, high output on-line degree programs that in turn channel students into low waged service work and a lifetime of student debt. The rapidity in which this change is occurring makes it urgent that the new division of academic labor be critically examined so as to inform new strategies for faculty organizing and resistance.
Brave New Europe, 2021
Recording and transcript of my interview with Ben Wray of the Gig Economy Project podcast
KSKQ Brain Labor Report, 2020
Interview about my book When Workers Shot Back begins at 19:30.
World Labor Hour , 2020
The interview about my book When Workers Shot Back starts at 30:20.
This Is America/It's Going Down, 2020
I am interviewed during this episode about the wave of wildcat strikes in the US during the pande... more I am interviewed during this episode about the wave of wildcat strikes in the US during the pandemic.