Workers of the World: 15th Biennial Labour History Conference, 23–25 September 2017, Emmanuel College, University of Queensland

The 15th Biennial Labour History Conference, held at Emmanuel College in the University of Queensland, brought participants together over the weekend of 23-25 September 2017. In a timely response to a present-day historical moment, marked both by the contested centenary of the Russian Revolution and the resurgence of exclusionary nationalist politics, this year's Labour History conference was motivated by an impetus towards unsettling national boundaries. The conference was organised, aptly, under the title of Workers of the World: a familiar labour movement phrase that captures both the migrant character of the Australian working class, and its place within the global history of labour. Over the course of a weekend that began with Sam Watson's Welcome to Country on Saturday morning, some 60 researchers and trade unionists from Australia and abroad presented papers examining the labour movement in its national, transnational and global dimensions. Papers ranged in historical scope from the eighteenth century to the present, and in scale from individual biographies to global political economy.