San Francisco
29th Annual LaborFest
JULY 2022

The attack on public education includes the censorship of classes by Zoom, Facebook and youtube which is owned by Google.

Report on San Quintin farm workers and talk about the legacy of UFWA co-founder Al Rojas.

Labor History Bike Tour by Chris Carlsson (Donation to Shaping San Francisco) (Limited capacity, RSVP required. Please contact: shaping@foundsf.org

Australian journalist and publisher Julian Assange has been pursued by the US and other governments for WikiLeaks and the exposure of US war crimes in Iraq.

Eighty-eight 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.

The economic crisis in Argentina is leading to continuous massive labor community protests and growing opposition to the IMF which is demanding privatization and wage cuts for the working class.

On July 2nd, 3rd, 4th we will premiere Back To Way Things Were with a reminder to all of us that we need to get back to the frontlines of activism before things roll back any further.

The USS Potomac was Franklin Roosevelt’s “Floating White House.” Many important New Dealers and international dignitaries sailed on the Potomac, including Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins.

The AFL-CIO receives $75 million a year from the US funded National Endowment For Democracy NED for the operations of the “Solidarity Center”.

The ongoing battle to prevent the development of People’s Park in Berkeley by the millionaire UC Regents continues unabated.

The effort to destroy the George Washington Victor Arnautoff murals has failed but other murals are under attack from the Bernard Zackheim murals that have been removed from UCSF to the possible loss of the Diego Rivera mural at CCSF.

The connection between the privatization of public education by the billionaires and privatization of public services and public lands will be the focus of this educational action conference sponsored by Schools and Labor Against Privatization SLAP.

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 the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive), and the old Farm Credit Building.

The most important labor film festival is in Turkey and LaborFest has helped get it going. We will have a report about their festival and how it is organized and what it does to get labor culture and films out throughout the country. We will be joined by their organizers from Turkey.

Readers from the LaborFest Writers Group share memoir, storytelling, oral history, and poetry.

A new, inclusive union movement with a contemporary vision and an eye toward building social and economic power can remake society.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster is still with us more than 11 years after the radioactive explosions at the plants. The melted nuclear radioactive fuel rods still have not been removed and the Japanese government with the support the US wants to dump over 1.3 million tons of radioactive water in the Pacific Ocean.

Join LaborFest when we have labor music and poets from around the US. Musicians include Matt Seidel and others.

In this panel, we ask: What are the implications of the Uklaine War on the world and the working class, and what can working people of the US do to turn this tide and destruction?

The danger of a fascist coup and military dictatorship in the US is growing according to the Vermont AFL-CIO. This panel will look at what working people and unions should do to prepare for this and also the call for a general strike by the Vermont AFL-CIO to prevent an insurrection and coup.

Speakers include: Nayvin Gordon, Cheryl Thornton

Directed by Abigail E. Disney & Kathleen Hughes (2022) (87min) Disneyland, maybe “The Happiest Place On Earth, for those who can afford to visit but not so for its Cast Members,” the label Disneyland gives its workers. In the film The American Dream and Other...

Diego Rivera’s America, the most in-depth examination of the artist’s work in over two decades.

Reading by Revolutionary Poets Brigade.

Trade unionists in the US have worked to build solidarity with Palestinian workers and people. They have faced an effort to shutdown any debate and discussion.

The Internet has allowed digitalization of working-class history and graphics. One of the most important global sites for this is the Marxist Internet Archives MIA.

This walk will look at how the privatization is taking place in Golden Gate Park from the privatization of the Botanical Gardens to the ferry wheel to the privately run $27 million Golden Gate Park tennis center.

By Saru Jayaraman. As the president of One Fair Wage and director of the Food Labor Research Center at University of California, Berkeley, Saru has spent the last 20 years organizing and advocating for raising wages and working conditions for restaurant and other service workers.

The privatization of public services and education is running rampant with the sell-off of public lands, parks and the outsourcing of public jobs with non-profits and special "business districts".

(Info coming)

With cultural and musical performances as an online Zoom event for this year's SF Living Wage Coalition's award dinner.

Panel discussion on systemic racism on the job

This panel will hear about the growing international labor actions against the threat of war.

This panel discussion will center on the historic, international struggle of the Liverpool, England dockers (1995-1998).

Douglas O’Connor, Todd Davies, Edward Escobar and others

Rachel Schreiber discusses her new book, "Elaine Black Yoneda: Jewish Immigration, Labor Activism, and Japanese American Exclusion and Incarceration"

Book reading by Mark Kruger
In 1877, as a result of the first national railway strike, workers and trade unionists in St. Louis Missouri organized a general strike and ran the city for three days.

The growing repression and imprisonment of trade unionists, political activists and journalists is the focus of this panel.

The US government has been involved in overthrowing governments throughout the world. Labor researcher and US Army veteran Ricardo Ortiz will discuss the role of the military, racism, the threat of insurrections and a successful military coup in the United States.

The struggle of the working class in Southern Africa against apartheid and the contract labor system will be the focus of this panel with trade unionists from South Africa.

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 lines were broken by police-escorted scabs.

On July 30, 1975, students from the National University of El Salvador  
were marching to protest repression by the military, which had taken  
over the campus in Santa Ana on July 25.

San Francisco has a rich political and labor history that is also connected to its buildings. In this history-by-the-buildings walk, Brad Wiedmaier will outline artifacts and events, and their connections to San Francisco’s past and present.
For more information call (415) 694-3605.

Join the best labor maritime boat trip in the world as we go to historical sites on the bay and the Oakland container port. We will hear about our working-class history, and how the SF General Strike helped shape the character of San Francisco and the Bay Area.