This internal workshop is a cooperation between the University of Vienna, Charles University Prague, Humboldt University Berlin, University of Warsaw and Eötvös Loránd University.

This CENTRAL Workshop takes place in Vienna on 2 and 3 of December 2026.

Labour history has undergone significant renewal, moving beyond institutional and economic narratives to analyse labour as a social relation embedded in changing political, social, and spatial contexts. Periods of transformation in politics, the economy, technology, and shifting social orders have reshaped working conditions while opening new arenas of negotiation for workers and institutions. Our workshops bring together scholars exploring labour as both an object and an agent of transformation. Participants examine how labour relations are constituted, experienced, and contested across historical moments and spatial scales, from transregional entanglements to everyday workplace practices. The aim is to foster dialogue across historiographical traditions and rethink labour history in Central Europe through interconnected transformations and multi-scalar experiences of work.