Forum / Reading Events

 

July 8 (Wednesday) 7:00 PM (Free) ILWU Local 10 - Henry Schmidt Romm - 400 Northpoint, at Mason
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All
The Lessons of May Day 2015 and ILWU Local 10
On May 1, 2015 ILWU Local 10 called for a stop work meeting to protest the police terror and murders of African Americans, Latinos and other working people. Two thousand marched to demand justice and human rights. ILWU made history as the only union in the United States to not only to challenge the epidemic of police murders, but also to take action on the job.
This educational forum will look at why the ILWU Local 10 took this action and how their members have been affected by the increasing militarization of the police and repression in working class communities.
There will also be a screening of a new documentary about the ILWU Local 10’s initiated action.
Henry Schmidt room is on the second floor of the smaller building at the location.

July 11 (Saturday) 9:00 AM (Free) Mutiny Radio - 2781 21st at Florida St., SF
Why Labor Matters In The Schools?
Labor history is mostly unknown and that is where “Labor In The Schools” comes in. The California Federation of Teachers has set up a program and educational material to help teachers and educators make labor part of curriculum in the schools.
“Labor in the Schools” is a workshop for teachers, people who work with K-12 students, and anyone else who is interested. It will feature materials designed by the Labor in the Schools Committee, some interactive activities and simulations that focus on cooperation, worldwide wealth inequality, and strategies for children.
Participants will receive free materials and view the Hall of Labor, a Big Poster gallery of famous labor leaders and their bios. Nothing is more important to our movement than to educate our base - working class young people.
For information contact Bill Morgan (415) 516-5822
http://www.cft.org/about-cft/committees/labor-in-the-schools-committee.html

July 11 (Saturday) 9:30 - 3:30 PM (Free) SEIU 1021 Hall - 350 Rhode Island - Entrance on Kansas St. near 17th, SF
Workplace Bullying Labor Educational Conference
What It Is and How to Stop It!
Lunch included with pre-registration (by 7/9) 
(For pre-registration, call Brenda Barros: 925-437-0593)
The bullying of working people on the jobs and in the communities is escalating. There is both a California and a national campaign to pass legislation against workplace bullying which is a serious health and safety concern for workers and the public. This workshop will draw the links between an epidemic of bullying and police terror evident in places like Ferguson, Baltimore and North Charleston. Bullying on the job and police harassment of Black and minority people are two sides of the same coin. Bullying is also connected to the growing militarization of the police with billions for armored vehicles and machine guns while social services are cut and public education is privatized and destroyed for the poor and oppressed.
Speakers Include:
Greg Sorozan, SEIU NAGE 282 President
Brenda Barros, SEIU 1021 San Francisco General Hospital Chapter President
Dr. Derek Kerr, Former Doctor at Laguna Honda Hospital and Whistleblower
Carrie Clark, California Healthy Workplaces And Former Teacher/Whistleblower
Jamie Tillotson, Former San Francisco Public Defender Who Was Arrested For Defending African American clients rights at Hall of Justice
Derrick Boutte, SEIU 1021, Chair SEJ
Yolanda Williams, SFOFJ

July 11 (Saturday) 10:00 - 2:00 PM (Free) City College Mission Campus - 1125 Valencia, Room 109, SF
Workers' Voices, Workers' Lives
Join City College Labor and Community Studies and the Fund for Labor Culture and History for an afternoon celebrating workers’ lives. The janitors of SEIU Local 87, the convention workers of Sign and Display Local 510 and the domestic workers of La Colectiva de Mujeres will perform excerpts from oral history theater celebrations of their lives, struggles and victories. They’ll participate in guided conversations of their laborlore, work culture, and discuss the humor, hardship and solidarity of their work and organizations. Join us for an illuminating day investigating work and workers’ lives.
For more information, contact Bill Shields at 415-550-4473 or
wshields@ccsf.edu

July 12 (Sunday) 2:00 - 5:00 PM (Free) Bayview Library - 5075 3rd St, SF
Militarization, War, Labor and History Education Conference
San Francisco has played a historic role in US wars. San Francisco ship workers built war ships at Union Ironworks, which were used in the war with Spain and then the occupation of the Philippines. Also, in the post war period, contaminated ships from nuclear weapon tests in the Pacific were brought to Hunters Point shipyard. They were sandblasted which spread the radioactive material into the area and the communities that surrounded the shipyard.
This forum will look at how these wars have affected San Francisco, and how the US is now expanding the militarization of Japan, Korea and the Philippines as well as Europe and Ukraine.
Speakers:
Ray Tomkins Ph.D; Health and Safety Advocate
George Wright; AFT 1473 Retired Professor Skyline College
Galina Gerasimova; AFT 2121 CCSF Professor
Misuk Nam; UTR Teacher, Sewol Support Committee
Chizu Hamada; No Nukes Action Committee
Cindy Sheehan; Anti-war Activist

July 13 (Monday) 7:00 PM (Free) Canessa Gallery - 708 Montgomery St., SF
A Victory in the Fight to Save our Historic Post Offices
With members of the Committee to Save the Berkeley Post Office
The U.S. Postal Service, now headed by those favoring privatization, is closing and selling off many post offices listed on the National Register of Historic Places, reducing postal services and cutting public sector union jobs.  Many of these historic post offices have murals and art created during the New Deal. The City of Berkeley, however, prevailed in federal court saving the historic post office building and setting a precedent for others.  The case promises to save union jobs by requiring the USPS to follow the law. Come hear the story of how a spirited group of Berkeley residents set a national precedent.
Citizens to Save the Berkeley Post Office fought for their historic building and art for three years.  They made the nation aware of the issue with articles in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.
For information: harveysmithberkeley@yahoo.com
or call 510-684-0414

July 14 (Tuesday) 7:00 PM (Free) Green Arcade Bookstore - 1680 Market St. at Gough, SF
Berkeley and The New Deal
By Harvey Smith
Like the heritage of the New Deal in San Francisco, Berkeley’s 1930s and early 1940s New Deal left a lasting legacy of utilitarian and beautiful infrastructure. These public buildings, schools, parks, and artworks helped shape the city and thus the lives of its residents. It is hard to imagine Berkeley without them. The artists and architects of these projects mention several themes: working for the community, responsibility, the importance of government support, collaboration, and creating a cultural renaissance. These New Deal projects, however, can be called “hidden history” because their legacies have been mostly ignored and forgotten. Comprehending the impact of the New Deal on one American city is only possible when viewed as a whole. More than history, this book shows the period’s relevance to today’s social, political, and economic realities. The times may again call for comprehensive public policy that reaches Main Street.

July 14 (Tuesday) 7:00 PM (Free) First Unitarian Universalist Church - 1187 Franklin Street, SF
Bastille Day, Words on the Anniversary of Joe Hill’s Death
Voices for labor, human rights and justice on Bastille Day and the 100th Anniversary of the Murder of Joe Hill, first martyr for workers’ rights and the labor movement.
Music with Troubadour Vic Sadot
POETS: Judith Ayne Bernard, Dorothy Payne, John Curl, Mahmaz Badihian, Jack Hirschman, Agneta Falk, Karen Melander Magoon and others.
Sponsored by FUUS, Revolutionary Poets Brigade

July 18(Saturday) 10:00 - 3:00 PM (Free) ILWU 34 Hall - 801 2nd St. next to AT&T ball park
Nuclear Power, Health and Safety, Labor and Fight in a Court - International Educational Conference
There are hundreds of aging nuclear plants in the US and around the world that are becoming increasingly dangerous. The Fukushima plant in Japan continues to release thousands of tons of radioactive water into the Pacific and a growing epidemic of thyroid cancer of children and people is developing in Japan. At the same time, the Japan’s Abe government is seeking to restart the remaining nuclear plants and also export nuclear plants throughout the world. There are also lawsuits against the manufacturers of nuclear plants and a successful lawsuit against a Korean nuclear plant where a woman got cancer from that plant. The Korean lawsuit’s success is an important step in protecting the communities near nuclear plants not only in Korea but throughout the world. This international education conference will discuss the growing dangers in the nuclear industry, problems facing nuclear whistleblowers and their efforts to protect the workers, public and communities that live around nuclear plants.
Speakers include:
Lee Ji Seop : Filed a successful  lawsuit against the Korean nuclear power plant on behalf of his wife who had thyroid cancer
Choi Seung-koo : founder of the law suit against the Korean nuclear reactor makers
Rev. Lee, Dae-soo
Dr. Robert Gould : President SF-Bay Area Physicians For Social Responsibility
Dr. Larry Rose : Former Medical Director of Cal-OSHA
Bob Rowen : Nuclear power plant whistleblower, former Humboldt PG&E nuclear plant worker and member of IBEW 1245
Donna Gilmore : Founder, San Onofre Safety

July 18 (Saturday) 2:00 - 3:30 PM (Free) Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library - 6501 Telegraph Ave., Oakland
Fighting The Just In Time Professor: A Lesson From The SF Bay Area Metro Organizing Strategy
The dirty  secret about higher education is that about two thirds of the faculty are part-time or full-time temporary adjunct professors hired by the class or semester. In the past few years, adjuncts have been organizing, striking and unionizing in record numbers. Many of them are using a new strategy known as the Metro Organizing Strategy, which organizes across a geographic region rather than campus by campus, where non faculty is included. Join a critical discussion about these organizing campaigns.
Robert Ovetz, Ph.D. is a migrant mindworker of academia who teaches at three Bay Area colleges and universities. He writes about the changing division of academic labor and strategies for resistance.
Jessica Beard is a lecturer in English and Critical Theory at San Francisco State University and the San Francisco Art Institute. She teaches in the METRO program at SFSU--a joint effort by CCSF and SFSU for first generation college students of color in the Bay Area.
Jessica Lawless was an adjunct professor in the arts and humanities for 9 years. Organizer with SEIU local 1021’s Adjunct Action campaign.
Gifford Hartman has worked in adult education for over two decades, mostly in literacy and English as a Second Language (ESL). He also participates in Labor History events, writing and talking about the history of class struggle. In 2008, he was part of a 4-day strike at a non-profit ESL school in San Francisco.
For more info: rfovetz@riseup.net

July 18 (Saturday) 6:00 - 8:00 PM (Donation) Manilatown Center - 868 Kearny St., SF
50th Anniversary of Grape Strike, The Past, Present and Future
2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the historic Grape Strike. The strike was launched on September 8, 1965, in the Filipino Community Hall by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), AFL-CIO, in the small farming town of Delano in the California Central Valley.  This strike followed an earlier AWOC strike in the Coachella Valley.  Both strikes were led by a Filipino labor leadership composed of Larry Itliong, Benjamin Gines, Pete Velasco, and Philip Vera Cruz, veterans of the decades-long struggle to bring collective-bargaining rights to this country’s agricultural sector.
The strikes highlighted the ongoing fight for basic workers rights, including minimum wage, overtime pay, sick time and recognition of their union. The strike was expanded when AWOC leadership urged the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) and its president, Cesar Chavez, to merge forces by joining its picket-line.  The merger of these two-2 major organizations subsequently became the United Farmworkers, AFL-CIO.  The ‘65 strike and subsequent grape boycott received support from workers’ organization both in the U.S. and around the world. This strike came to be the largest agricultural workers strike since the 1930’s and brought about a mass mobilization focused not only on conditions on the job, but the living conditions of those workers who toil to put food on our nation’s table. 
Our program will summarize the victories of the 1965 Grape Strike and its aftermath.  In the end, the initial Filipino leadership was all but gone marking the decline of the UFW as a militant, fighting union for all agricultural workers.  We will then focus on the reasons and causes for the eventual decline of the UFW and its impact on this country’s agricultural workforce. 
Today, the vast majority of agricultural workers face the very same issues that they did in 1965, including the lack of union protection and representation.  Moreover, the courts and politicians in California have swung to the Right, becoming the mouthpiece of corporate Agribusiness.  Our forum will examine what is needed to rebuild the labor struggle within our agricultural sector.
Panel Speakers include; Al Rojas, an original founder of the UFW; Mary Jane Galviso, Farmer, Ilokano Farms & Flipina agricultural worker; Howard Keylor, former ILWU Local 10 member, who was personally involved and acquainted with many of the Filipino labor leadership.

July 21 (Tuesday) 7:00 PM (Free) Bird & Beckett Books and Records - 653 Chenery St., SF
LaborFest Writers
Members of the LaborFest Writers will read their work on the theme: Our Right to the City: Fighting Against the Forces of Displacement.
LaborFest Writers believes everyone has a story to tell. An evening of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and memoir will help awaken the hidden stories within. We will be exploring past histories, our uncertain future, and new changing landscapes and paradigms.
The evening includes special musical guest Tom Wishing.
Members of the group are Phyllis Holliday, Keith Cooley, Susan Ford, Margaret Cooley, Nellie Wong, Jerry Path, Richard Chen, and Alice Rogoff.
Contact: info@laborfestwriters.org

July 22 (Wednesday) 7:00 PM (Free) Redstone Building - 2940 16th St. at Capp, SF
Uber, Tech, Apps and the Future of Taxi Drivers
The massive use of communication technology has had a major role in the explosive growth of Uber, Lyft and many other taxi driver apps. This forum will look how this has affected drivers and how this technology has “disrupted” the regulated taxi industry.
It will also look at the conditions of drivers who use this new technology.
Sponsored by San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance
http://www.sftwa.org/

July 25 (Saturday) 10:30 AM (Free) Treasure Island Museum - Treasure Island
With Two Feet on the Ground: Labor and the Building of Treasure Island
By David Duckworth
This slide lecture examines the labor required to create an island in the San Francisco Bay during the 1930s.  Laborers and unions, tasks and equipment, technologies and labor requirements, sponsoring agencies and corporate enterprises are explored as a matrix within which to understand the challenges and achievements of labor in this particular man-made project.
David Duckworth is a San Francisco-based cultural historian who has been documenting 20th century American culture through the art, artifacts and expressions of its age.
Muni bus route: #25 from Transbay Temporary Terminal

July 25 (Saturday) 2:00 - 5:00 (Free) 518 Valencia - near 16th St., SF
Profiteering off Education: Charters, Union and Public Workers
A Public Forum
From the Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation to Pearson Inc., public education is under attack with charters, testing and the commercialization of our public education system for profit.
There is no national campaign by education and public worker unions fighting privatization yet this attack on public education and services is being used to destroy the entire labor movement.
This forum will look at how education is being privatized, who is doing it and how labor and working people can launch a successful fight against the destruction of our public education system.
Speakers:
Kathleen Carroll, former Commission on Teacher Credentials lawyer and whistleblower and advocate for teachers and public education.
Brian Crowell, Berkeley Federation of Teachers BFT former steward and activist who defended teachers against the Peer Assisted Review PAR program which has been used to target African American and Latino teachers as well as senior teachers.
Rick Baum, AFT 2121 San Francisco City College Lecturer on how privatizers have sought to destroy the college using the accreditation board and the struggle to mobilize statewide for the defense of community colleges.
George Wright, AFT 1741 retired Skyline College and Chico State Professor who fought corporatization of the Community College system.
Sponsored by UPWA, www.upwa.info

July 25 (Saturday) 7:00 PM (Free) 518 Valencia - near 16th St., SF
Puerto Rico: Labor and The Fight Against Neoliberalism and Colonialism
Presentation by Javier Córdova
(Click here to watch this presentation)
Puerto Rico has been a US colony since 1898, and its people have resisted and fought back for self-determination and cultural rights through the organized struggle of the working class.
Today as a direct result of US economic policy, Puerto Rico is reaching a state of bankruptcy, and the US government and bankers are pushing further privatization of all public resources.
They have already privatized the healthcare system of Puerto Rico, which has been devastating to the poor and working class.
 “Operation Bootstrap” was also the first “free trade zone”, are precursors to NAFTA by the US in Puerto Rico to increase the profits of multi-nationals and create a union-free environment.
Come hear about this important movement! Javier Córdova is the President of the Puerto Rican Association of University Professors (A.P.P.U.) at the University of PR-Arecibo campus and also serves on A.P.P.U.’s national board and its Executive Committee. He is also leader of the Working Peoples’ Party which participated in the 2012 election in Puerto Rico with a radical, political working class program. Javier is also involved with civil rights, environmental and other progressive movements in Puerto Rico.
For more information (510) 290-2312

July 28 (Tuesday) 7:00 PM (Free) First Unitarian Universalist Church - 1187 Franklin St./Geary St., SF
The 150th Anniversary Of The San Francisco Chronicle, Class Struggle And Labor
This year is the 150th anniversary of the San Francisco Chronicle. It has played an important role in the political and economic history of San Francisco in the development of San Francisco from the early "big four" multi-millionaires Stanford, Crocker, Hopkins and Huntington to the media tech moguls who now manipulate politics and development in San Francisco including the ethnic cleansing "redevelopment" of African Americans and Latinos and the removal of the working class and poor from San Francisco. The paper's owners in the past and present have also had a war against the workers at the San Francisco Chronicle. The printers union has been busted by outsourcing and the attacks continue on union workers at the paper. We will look at the lessons of the 1994 San Francisco Chronicle 11 day newspaper strike.
Initial Speakers:
Dr. Gray Brechin is a historical geographer,author of "Imperial San Francisco", He is currently a visiting scholar in the U.C. Berkeley Department of Geography and founder and project scholar of the Living New Deal Project. He is one of the leading experts in the history and role of the San Francisco Chronicle in San Francisco and California.
John Holmes is a retired member of the CWA Media Workers and a member of the Typographers Union unit who was active during the 1994 strike.
Tim Redmond, former editor San Francisco Bay Guardian and present editor of 48 Hills.
Carl Hall, TNG-CWA Local 39521/Pacific Media Workers Guild Executive Officer
Mark Arata, San Francisco Web Pressmen & Pre- Pressmen Local 4B GCIU President retired
Sponsored by FUUS and Labor Video Project
For more information (415) 282-1908

July 29 (Wednesday) 7:00 PM (Free) ILWU Local 34 Hall - 801 2nd St. next to AT&T Ball Park
Housing, Tenants, Non-Profits, Privatization & Labor
San Francisco is rapidly turning into a city only for the super-rich. While the number of billionaires increase, tens of thousands of working people and small business people are being driven out of the city by speculators and developers who run SF city hall and the state legislature. Working people are being told they can no longer live in the Bay Area.
At the same time, the city is driving to privatize all public housing and turn the operations over to “non-profits” which have appointed boards, and whose workers are very much underpaid compared to public workers. This forum will look at who is benefiting by these policies and how the privatization of public housing will lead to the end of any poor people in public housing.
Panel:
Lynda Carson, Tenant Activist
Tony Robles, Tenant Advocate
Tenants from public housing
Brenda Barros, SEIU 1021 General Hospital Chair and COPE Co-Chair
Charles Minster, Senior Action
Sponsored by United Public Workers For Action
www.upwa.info

July 30 (Thursday) 7:00 PM (Free) 518 Valencia - near 16th St., SF
The Lessons of NAFTA for Workers and Farmers
Premiere screening of “Corrientes de la Frontera” (16:40) 2015 by Jamie Chavez
The recent mass struggle and strike of agricultural workers in Baja is an expression of the growing working class movement in Mexico. There is growing anger about the economic attacks of the “free trade” agreements and their social and economic costs.
This forum will examine the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central American Fair Trade Agreement (CAFTA) for workers in the Americas.  The film examines the cost of these treaties on workers, farmers and indigenous people. It also looks at how the destruction of the ejidos by NAFTA pushed farmers off their lands and forced them into the immigration pipeline. The forced destruction of the economy pushed by US multinationals had the direct result of privatization and destruction of jobs and livings in Mexico. Mexico is now forced to import corn in which it was self-sufficient, and this migration has been used by US politicians to spend billions militarizing the borders, bringing racism and mass repression.
Jaime Chavez will introduce his film, lead the discussion, and also present some poetry. Al Rojas will make a report on agricultural workers in the US and Mexico and struggles in the Mexican labor movement.