San Francisco
28th Annual LaborFest
JULY 2021

Film starts 6:00 PM, panel starts 7:00 PM. You can watch the film by clicking below on youtube anytime prior to the panel discussion. Harry Bridges: A Man and His Union Harry Bridges, A Man and His Union is the most important video on the...

A Solo Play by Jomar Tagatac Inspired by the Life of Gordon Hirabayashi who defied 1942 executive order. In the midst of escalating racist, xenophobic and Islamophobic attacks in the US, a new play “Hold These Truths” by writer Jeanne Sakata is being performed at...

Film starts 7:00, Q&A and discussion starts 8:15 PM The director, Keif Roberts, will introduce the film and participate in a Q&A. ‘Be your own boss’ and ‘Work when and where you want’.  The gig economy promises freedom, flexibility and entrepreneurship to workers, but does...

  9:30 - 10:00 Slide show of some of the street art documented by the urban mapping team. 10:00 Panel discussion starts. This panel, consisting of a conversation between Urban Art Mapping researchers and visual artists active in Minneapolis, reflects on art, activism, and healing...

Labor History Bike Tour by Chris Carlsson (Donation to Shaping San Francisco) (Limited capacity, RSVP required. Please contact: shaping@foundsf.org From the pre-urban history of Indian Slavery to the earliest 8-hour day movement in the U.S., the ebb and flow of class war is traced. SF's...

Labor Troubadour and activist Anne Feeney passed on this year but her music and spirit lives on. She was on hundreds of picket lines and her voice was a call to action for all working people here and around the world. We will commemorate her life...

SF Mime Troupe - Tales of The Resistance volume2: Persistence To listen this program, please go to: https://www.sfmt.org A Series of Radio Play Podcasts in 2 Genres: Adventure & Mystery! With special single episodes that will also include Sci-Fi and Musical genres, as well as...

In 1968, David Schooley chained himself to a bulldozer at the foot of the San Bruno Mountain. The activism of David and many other community members was crucial in protecting much of the mountain, allowing for the creation of a public park where working people...

The insurrection and attempted coup on January 6 is the first time in the modern history of the United States that right-wing and fascist forces have organized to have an overthrow of the constitutional system of the United States. This is combined with open attacks on Blacks, Browns,...

Film starts 7:00, Q&A and discussion at 8:45 The director Scott Noble will introduce the film and participate in a Q&A. Scott Noble’s latest documentary series, THE WAR AT HOME, takes a hard look into the history of American labor movements and state and corporate...

Meet at the south column at Harry Bridge's Plaza (across from the Ferry Building) By Gifford Hartman Eighty-seven years ago a great battle took place between striking workers and the police and National Guard along the waterfront alongside the piers of San Francisco’s Embarcadero. We...

The power of poetry in this world is growing and LaborFest hosts this reading in honor of all the people who are struggling for justice and human rights here and around the world. Joining in reading will be poets Raymond Nat Turner Lita Kurth David Lee Morgan...

The monopolization of the media and the effect of corporate control of social media is a growing threat to freedom. This panel will look at how independent media is fighting to cover stories that corporate media in San Francisco and the US have covered up. This includes the...

Film starts 5:30 PM, panel starts 7:00 PM. You can watch the film by clicking below on youtube anytime prior to the panel discussion. Film: "No Red-Baiting! No-Race-Baiting! No Queen-Baiting! The Marine Cooks and Stewards Union from the Depression to the Cold War" (90 min) narration...

Film starts 7:00, Q&A with the film director Scott Noble starts 9:00 PM PART II: BLACKLIST AND LABOR uses a convincing voice over, archival non-fiction and narrative footage and interviews to articulate the history and politics of the period.  What emerges is a compelling argument...

This panel will look at the global experiences in fighting Covid and the issue of defending a public health system. The failure of the US public health system has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and the danger of the Delta variant could lead to another...

Book reading “Mobilizing in OUR OWN NAME: Million Worker March” by Clarence Thomas - at ILWU 10 hall - 400 N. Point St., SF Henry Schmidt room Today's workers can no longer continue to depend on politicians to address issues of systemic racism, income inequality,...

The history of attacks on Asian Americans and xenophobia is embedded in California and US history. This panel will look at this history and how today in the US, and how growing racist hysteria is a threat to all working people and the labor movement. Speakers:...

Panel discussion starts at 10:00 AM. We suggest you to watch the film prior to the panel by clicking the link on your registration. Otherwise, you can watch it after the panel. The Roadmap To Apartheid (2012, 95 min - by Ana Nogueira, Eron Davidson, narrated...

Historian Robert Cherny speaks about the recently restored Richmond dIndustrial City mural by Arnautoff. The talk will present the life and work of Victor Arnautoff, with special attention to the mural he created for the Richmond Post Office in 1941. I'll present photos of his...

Panel & discussion With the Turkish government moving swiftly to Islamist, gangster capitalism, the brunt of their crimes are falling on the labor, women, minorities and actually on all people while a handful of corrupt cronies are getting unbelievably rich. Women, labor, farmers and regular people...

Since 2010, there have been actions in solidarity with the workers and people of Palestine. The latest action was on June 4, 2021, and the picket successfully stop the Israeli ZIM ship Volans from being unloaded and loading. it was also met with pickets in Seattle, Prince Rupert...

John McDonagh, who has driven a Yellow Cab for the past 40 years and has a one man play about that experience called "Off the Meter" which ran for 3 months at the Irish Repertory Theatre. He can also be heard, with his his co-host...

Director Ken Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty have brought viewers another passionate tale of modern Britain with the feature film SORRY WE MISSED YOU.  Set in a land of low wage and service-economy serfdom, it’s fierce, open and angry about a vital contemporary issue whose...

JOIN THE Battle of Homestead Foundation for an online program by Dr. Edwin "Ted" Everhart, director of the Pittsburgh Labor Choir, examining the history of union and protest songs over the last 150 years ... and the tactical/political applications of singing for marches, vigils, meetings,...

Black workers have faced continual racist attacks on the job in San Francisco and throughout the country. A couple years ago in San Francisco, hundreds of  workers spoke out at SF City Hall about the verbal and even physical racist attacks. Over $120  million has been...

American Factory was filmed in a Chinese-run, former General Motors assembly plant in Moraine, Ohio.  The billionaire owner hired 2,000 working-class Americans to work in his high-tech facility.  The result is this award winning documentary film about Americans at work in the 21st century.  It has a...

The sell off San Francisco is transforming the city completely run and controlled by the billionaires and banks. The destruction of San Francisco City College with the closure of campuses and privatization of the PUC Balboa Reservoir to the Golden Gate Pars which have been turned...

Meet at the Main Berkeley Post Office - corner of Milvia & Alston. This walk will explore the “New Deal nexus” in Berkeley that includes Berkeley High School, the Community Theater, Civic Center Park, Post Office art, the old UC Press Building (now repurposed as...

Panel discussion The panel will look at the role of Amazon to workers, their health and safety and also the role of the warehouses. Amazon has spend $200 million for a whole square block at Berry and 7th St. in San Francisco and this non-union operation will be a...

THE MURALS written and directed by Howard Pflanzer is a new play dramatizing the conflict over the George Washington High School murals painted by WPA artist Victor Arnautoff in 1936. This conflict is between those who believe the murals should be painted or covered over, and those who...

The development of artificial intelligence, the use of algorithms and platforms at UBER. Lyft and other companies has made these tools the bosses in the global exploitation of workers.   Panelists: Mehmet Bayram, labor Researcher Edward Escobar, Alliance For Independent Workers Wagner Oliveira, former UBER driver, author...

Building Socialism and Fighting Fascism. Need to be vaccinated to attend this event! Poets: Jack Hirschman, Adrian Arias, Mahnaz Badihian, Lisbit Bailey, Lynne Barnes, Virginia Barrett, Judy Bernhard, Scott Bird, Charles Curtis Blackwell, Kristina Brown, Neeli Cherkovski, Bob Coleman, Kitty Costello, John Curl, Diego De...

MADE IN L.A. is an Emmy award-winning feature documentary that follows the remarkable story of three Latina immigrants working in Los Angeles garment sweatshops as they embark on a three-year odyssey to win basic labor protections from a trendy clothing retailer, Forever 21. Documented in...

This documentary , running almost one hour, presents the case of the assassination of Argentine socialist militant Mariano Ferreyra, by gunmen linked to the Peronist trade union bureaucracy and the Cristina Kirchner government. Showing the interests of the union bureaucracy and government officials aligning with...

After promising 1,100 employees that they would protect their jobs, the managers of a French factory decide to suddenly shut down the plant. Laurent, a worker at the factory, takes the lead in a fight against this decision.  Such is the simple premise for an...

This event was recorded. Click here to watch. Labor's Turning Point (43 min, 1981) director John de Graff The 1934 Minneapolis truck drivers’ strike was a pivotal struggle for working people of the mid-west. As a result of new tactics developed in the successful strike,...

This event was recorded. Click here to watch. Labor's Turning Point (43 min, 1981) director John de Graff The 1934 Minneapolis truck drivers’ strike was a pivotal struggle for working people of the mid-west. As a result of new tactics developed in the successful strike,...

By Javier Cordova Javier Cordova is Vice President of the Association of University Professors and member of Democracia Socialista in Puerto Rico. We learn about the current struggles of the working class in the colonial context and its relation to US imperialism. He will discuss...

Workshop Presenters: Guillermina Castellanos and Bill Shields This workshop will be a lecture demonstration by domestic workers from the San Francisco advocacy group La Colectiva de Mujeres/the Women’s Collective, performing as part of the Work Tales project of Labor and Community Studies of City College of San...

The deaths of over 600,000 people in the US could have been avoided according to public health experts and health-care workers. Despite the continuing pandemic, the CDC and Governor Newsom have cutback masks and other protections. Not only workers on the job but even health-care workers are unprotected. We will...

At 400 Howard St., & 1st St. SF One of the biggest union busters and privatizers in the world is BlackRock hedge fund which manages $9 trillion. They are supporting union busting and attacks on the UMWA Alabama mine workers  who are on strike. Join the...

The plans by the International Olympic Committee and the Japanese Suga government to go ahead with the Olympics in the middle of a pandemic could create a new virus according to Japanese scientists. It also takes place with the government threatening to release over 1 million tons...

Tom Mooney & Preparatory Day Bombing Walk Meet at One Market Street, SF With Gifford Hartman, David Duckworth During this walking tour, we visit several sites, which were integral to the unfolding of events following a bomb explosion on Steuart Street at Market Street on...

Readers from the LaborFest Writers Group share memoir, storytelling, oral history, and poetry. The theme of this year's reading is LaborFest Writers' Reflections on Current Events. LaborFest Writers explore the issues that we face today within our families, communities, and government whether its health, housing, jobs,...

The ongoing battle to prevent the development of People’s Park in Berkeley by the millionaire UC Regents continues unabated. This panel will talk about this history and how the corporatization and privatization of UC is pushing to monetize the public assets of the University for the...

San Francisco is world famous for its historic murals, yet there is now a struggle to defend them from destruction, being covered over or hidden from the public. This panel will look at the effort to destroy or remove the Arnautoff murals in George Washington High, the...

Labor Politics and Architecture of San Francisco - Walk with Brad Wiedmaier Meet at ILWU Sculpture at Mission & Steuart, SF Walk with Brad Wiedmaier, retired member of SEIU 2015  & architectural historian. San Francisco has a rich political and labor history that is also...

This half-hour video report prepared by the audiovisual team of Prensa Obrera tells the story of the Polo Obrero, an organization of unemployed workers in Argentina which stems from the uprisings in the 90’s and in 2001. They have maintained and strengthened its presence during the governments...

The panel will discuss the downsizing of City College of San Francisco that includes the dismantling of numerous programs that result in diminishing student educational opportunities; the closure of campuses; and the faculty enduring massive layoffs and pay cuts. The panel will also look at...

The film starts 4:00 (PST), panel starts 6:00 PM Dark Waters actor Jeffrey Grover and others will join the panel after the film. Dark Waters exposes the fight for a clean environment and the systemic take-over of regulatory agencies by such as OSHA and the...

There is a national organized attack on public education through charters, privatization and programs like Peer Assisted Review (PAR) that target Black, Brown and senior teachers. The Covid pandemic has also been used by the billionaires and privatizers to further push for more privatization including testing by companies like Pearson & computer...

The privatization of public resources is an epidemic around the world. The US through the World Bank and IMF has demanded that countries privatize and deregulate their economics to make them more “efficient”.  This has led to the sale off of all the resources and public services including health-care,...

Film starts 6:00, panel starts 7:15 PM The director, Amanda King, and the producer, Fabio Cavadini, will be present to introduce the film and participate in a Q&A. To this day, the Great Strike of 1917 is still Australia’s largest industrial upheaval. The story of the...

Eleventh Annual San Francisco Living Wage Coalition Awards Dinner Eleventh Annual San Francisco Living Wage Coalition Awards Dinner on Friday, July 30, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. with cultural and musical performances, as an online Zoom event. Take-out dinners can be picked up at San Jalisco...

Join Matt Seidel and others for  revolutionary folk music from Ireland. Listen to these timeless songs and learn about the centuries of struggle against colonialism, imperialism, and fascism that inspired them.  

Panel discussion The leadership of the Mine-workers Union of Namibia Rossing Branch were fired when they refused to take concessions on their health-care benefits and other conditions. The owner Chinese National Nuclear Mining Corporation promised when they took over the mine from Rio Tinto in 2019 that they...

By Gifford Hartman This year is the 75th anniversary of the Oakland General Strike. This walk will revisit the sites of Oakland’s “Work Holiday” that spontaneously began with rank-and-file solidarity with the striking, mostly women retail clerks at Kahn’s and Hastings department stores, where picket...

Need to be vaccinated to attend this event! 5:45 boarding, 6:00 PM departure Blue & Gold Fleet at Pier 41, Possibly gate3 (There is a possibility that the gate can be changed depend on their schedule) Boat leaves promptly at 6:00 PM (Boat can’t wait...