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Forum/Readings
July 8 (Sunday) 5:00 PM (Free) City Lights Bookstore 261 Columbus at Broadway, SF
Labor On The Margins (Poetry reading)
Hear poets on subjects that aren't always talked about. Having troubles, demanding dignity, trying to survive. Writers from sex workers and exotic dancers, tenants and homeless activists, a mother who was a sixteen year old unwed mother, having the low income blues, growing up in the working class West Coast. With Daisy Anarchy, Barbara Bennett, Rafael F. J. Alvarado (from Los Angeles), Geri Digiorno (Sonoma County Poet Laureate), and James Tracy.July 10 (Tuesday) 7:00 PM (Free) Modern Times Bookstore 888 Valencia St., SF
500 Years of Chicana Women's History
Book reading by Elizabeth (Betita) Martinez
Betita's work uncovers a critical history of the struggle and lives of Latina women workers in the United States. Their strength and perseverance give testimony to their power in the true history of this country.
http://www.monthlyreview.org/0702martinez.htmJuly 11 (Wednesday) 7:00 PM (Free) New College
766 Valencia at 19th St., SF
Labor, Imperialism and Indigenous People - (Forum)
Chair, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, writer and professor in Native American Studies, co-founder Indigenous World Association, 3 decades of international indigenous organizing.
Speakers:
Aileen "Chockie" Cottier, Lakota from Pine Ridge, co-founder, Women of All Red Nations, Indigenous World Association, 3 decades of international indigenous organizing.
Jimbo Simmons, Creek from Oklahoma, International Indian Treaty Council representative, 3 decades of international indigenous organizing.
Morningstar Gali, Pit River nation, Northern California, Bay Area indigenous organizer from the new generation, raised by Pit River, international activists.July 13 (Friday) 7:00 PM (Free) Modern Times Bookstore - 888 Valencia St. SF
The Fight of Our Lives: The War of Attrition Against US Labor - Stolen Birthright: The US Conquest and Exploitation of the Mexican People
Book reading by Richard D. Vogel
The war against Mexican migrant workers in the United States has a long
history and this ghost from the past is haunting American today. This
presentation looks at the history of the relationship between the United
States and Mexico including Indian wars and the role of slavery in the South
and it's connection to the exploitation of Mexican workers and US workers.
According to Vogel a prime factor in the invasion of Mexico was the
pressure to defend and expand the southern empire of slavery in the U.S.
This history is vital to understand in the context of the attack on Latino
workers and all workers in the United States today.
http://www.houstonculture.org/hispanic/conquest.htmlJuly 16 (Monday) 7:00 PM (Free) New College 766 Valencia St. at 19th St., SF
1877 Strike and The Chinese Struggle for Justice
Presentation by Anna Naruta Ph.D., Director of Collections of Chinese Historical Society of America.July 17 (Tuesday) 7:00 PM (Free) AFM Local 6 Hall 116 9th St., near Mission St., SF
Denmark, Labor, Art and The Working Class Movement
A report on the labor situation in Denmark and role of labor culture and arts. This delegation of musicians were supported in their trip to the United States by the Musicians union and other unions in Denmark.July 18 (wedbesday) 7:00 PM (Free) Modern Times Bookstore 888Valencia St., SFG
July 21 (Saturday) 12:00 Noon (Free) New College 766 Valencia at 19th St., SF
From Us to Them: The $Trillion Dollar Income Shift
Book reading by Jack Rasmus -Jack's book critically looks at the massive and historic shift in income in the US. The growing disparity of wealth and real decline in living standards of working people in the US is a story that is generally covered up by the corporate controlled mainstream media.
Memoirs, Non-Fiction, Poetry and Stories (LaborFest Writing Group)
The group will read their writing honoring working people. This group evolved out of the 2005 LaborFest writing workshop with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. The reading will be on the theme Our Working Life and Our Working Ancestors. With Margaret Cooley, Keith Cooley, Phyllis Holliday, Susan Ford, Jerry Path, Bernadette St. John, and Alice Rogoff. There will also be a writing exercise with the audience.July 21 (Saturday) 2:00 - 5:30 PM ($5.00) ILWU Local 6 Hall 255 9th St., near Howard St., SF
WORDS ON FIRE (A spoken word performance, poetry/theater, and topical songs)
with Albert Vetere Lannon, Hali Hammer, Bernard Gilbert & Chris Chandler who will screen the video Paterson silk Strike with narriation.
An Open Mic follows the show - bring your poems, songs, stories to share. Albert Vetere Lannon is a former ILWU Local 6 officer and retired Coordinator of the Laney College Labor Studies Program. He now lives near Tucson and performs regularly at local spoken word events and slams. He is a founding member of the Tucson performance poetry troupe Paris Moves.July 21 (Saturday) 7:00 PM ($5.00 donation) New College
766 Valencia at 19th St., SF
Tillie Olsen "Her Words Ring Out"
A benefit reading and video with devorah major, Annie Hershey, Nellie Wong, Merle Woo, Daisy Anarchy, Alice Rogoff, Leslie Simon and others. Tillie Olsen was in the thick of it during her life. As a child she witnessed a lynching in her small town and that incident along with many others made her a fighter for justice, humanity and workers power. She wrote about the San Francisco general strike in 1934 and what this strike meant to the common people. Some of these writings are contained in the work"Yonnondio: From the Thirties". Her words still have the same clarity and power they had when she wrote them and we were lucky at LaborFest that she helped bring her voices to the workers today. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/olsen/onlineinterviews.htmJuly 22 (Sunday) 10:00 - 2:00 PM (Free) New College -
777 Valencia Room 4 at 19th St., SF
Labor, Telecommunications, The Public & Media
Telecommunications are a critical issue for the labor movement from the use of this technology to spy on workers to how workers and unions can use youtube and municipal broadband to get their story out and break the information blockade.
This educational training will provide an over-view on these issues as well as hands on training on the use of video and new technology.
Invited speakers are: AFTRA, Bruce Wolfe -public.freemuni.net, Will Goodo -fired Comcast Worker, Carl Bryant -producer TV214, Dave Mathison -author “Be The Media”, Robert McCarthy -Producer daily strike TV video show on youtube called “The Strike”.
July 22 (Sunday) 3:00 PM (Free) Modern Times Bookstore - 888 Valencia St. at 20th, SF
"The Devil in Silicon Valley: Northern California, Race and Mexican Americans"
Book Reading by Stephen Pitti
Stephen has made an important contribution in discovering the hidden history of Silicon Valley and Northern California. The first multi-nationals in California in fact used Indian slave labor to mine cinnabar in New Almaden and these stories keep coming. http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7386.html
July 22 (Sunday) 7:00 PM (Free) ILWU Local 6 Hall 255 9th St. near Howard, SF
Housing Struggles: Workers, Unions, and the Bay Area Crisis
A panel discussion with labor and housing rights activists on the housing crisis, one of the most pressing issues for workers in the Bay Area and beyond, and how unions and other organizations play a part in this battle.
PANELISTS:
· Alysabeth Alexander, La Voz Latina and SEIU member
· Mike Theriault, Secretary-Treasurer the San Francisco Building Trades
· Jane Martin, Bernal Heights Neighborhood Association and former UNITE-HERE
organizer
· Robert Haaland, San Francisco political coordinator for SEIU 1021 and
former organizer Housing Rights CommitteeJuly 23 (Monday) 6:00 PM (Free) Plumbers Hall 1621 Market St. at Franklin St., SF
1877 Great Strike and The 1907 SF Car Workers Strike
In honor of the 100th anniversary of the 1907 Carmen’s strike in San Francisco and the 1877 national railway strike, the San Francisco Labor Council is presenting the video “The Grand Army of Salvation” (28 minutes) by the American Social History Project. Also, MichaelTheriault Secretary Treasurer of the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council will make a presentation on the 1907 strike and the death of a union ironworker in that year. Finally UAW-NWU member and writer Larry Shoup will make a presentation on the 1877 strike and its affect in the Bay Area. These two important struggles are part of the hidden history of San Francisco and the American working class.
July 24 (Tuesday) 7:00 PM (Free) New College 766 Valencia St. at 19th St., SF
Forced Off The Land : A Story of One Family's Struggle in 1847 Ireland
Reading and presentation by Margaret Cooley
Margaret went to Ireland and found within the story of her family a portrait of working class oppression. Hear through the personal story of one family’s struggle to hold onto their land tenancy, how the potato economy forced the immigration of the tenant workers of Ireland to make way for capitalist enterprise.
marg_cooley@yahoo.com
Video Showing
Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America (28 min) 2007
by Rosemary Feurer, Laura Vasquez
Mother Jones, one of the most famous Irish born labor activists in the US had a brutal life. Her 5 children died in a yellow fever epidemic in Memphis, Tennessee. She then moved to Chicago and during the Chicago fire she lost her home, shop and all her belongings. In her late 50’s she began to struggle for workers rights with the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and helped organize strikes and marches including marches to protest child labor.
This powerful video tells her story and the fight for rank and file power that she stood for. Rose will also discuss her new book Radical Unionism In the Midwest 1900-1950.
http://www.press.uillinois.edu/s06/feurer.html
http://www3.niu.edu/~td0raf1/labor/indexpage.htm
http://www3.niu.edu/~td0raf1/radicalunionism/index.htmJuly 25 (Wednesday) 7:00 PM (Free) Niebyl Proctor Marxist Library 6501 Telegraph Ave. in Oakland
IWW: From the Bay Area to the Ends of the Earth
Presentation by IWW members: Since its founding in 1905 the Industrial Workers of the World has played an important role in the international movement toward workers’ emancipation. With the IWW experiencing resurgence in the last decade, a critical look at this unique movement is vital. With a focus on the Bay Area, we will trace the IWW from its current form back through diverse areas of strike struggles and working class culture.July 26 (Thursday) 7:00 PM (Free) Modern Times Bookstore 888 Valencia St. at 20th St., SF
Golden Gulag : Prison, Surplus, Crisis and Opposition in Globalizing California
Reading By Ruthie Gilmore
Ruthie shows the roots of the drive to build more prisons in California and the forces that are driving this. Both political parties are now fully engaged in pushing billions more for criminalization of large parts of the population. With more money being spent on prisons than education in California the need to understand this insidious development is vital for the future of our society.
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10234.html
SF Chronicle's reviewJuly 28 (Saturday) 3:00 PM (Free) ILWU Local 6 Hall 255 9th St. near Howard, SF
The Living New Deal: Excavating the Public Landscape of the Great Depression
Presentation By Gray Brechin
In less than a decade, President Franklin Roosevelt's various public works agencies radically transformed the United States, giving employment to and improving the lives of millions while setting the stage for the post-war economic boom. For the past quarter century, however, the New Deal's ideological enemies have systematically rolled back and erased the memory of its epochal accomplishments without understanding how it profited them and continues to do so. Dr. Gray Brechin will discuss the Living New Deal Project - a statewide collaborative effort to document and map the physical legacy of the New Deal in California and to honor the surviving veterans. The Project will provide the foundation for a national inventory and for a discussion of the role of the public sector in a just society.July 29 (Sunday) 1:00 - 3:00 PM (Free) New College 777 Valencia St. at 19th St., SF
Publishing Contract Workshop
With the National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981). With Mike Bradley, Alice Rogoff, and Joe Gold. A workshop on contracts for writers and nonwriters to explain how publishing contracts affect freelance journalists, work for hire writers, and book and literary writers. The NWU believes that writers deserve respect, rights, and renumeration. The work of NWU grievance officers will also be discussed.July 30 (Monday) 7:00 PM (Free) Bird and Beckett Bookstore 2788 Diamond St., SF
National Writers Union Reading
A Literary Reading sponsored by the National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981). A sampling of work from members of the Poetry and Fiction Committee of the San Francscio/Bay Area Chapter. With Adam David Miller, Cesar Love, Alice Rogoff, Margaret Cooley, Keith Cooley, John Rhodes, Margot Pepper, Eileen Malone, Joe Gold, Mickey Ellinger and David Gray.