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LaborTech Conference
Presenter's Bio

 

Javier Córdova is a Puerto Rican activist and union leader. He has participated in numerous social movements in the island, including environmental movements, struggles for women’s rights, democratic rights and union’s rights. He is a member of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of Haiti. Javier is the President of the Chapter of the Puertorrican Association of University Professors (APPU) at the University of Puerto Rico, Arecibo campus. He is a member of the National Board of APPU and a member of its Executive Committee. Javier is also leader of the Working People’s Party (WPP), a political organization founded in 2010 and who participated in the electoral process in PR in 2012 and who is currently working in the inscription to participate in the elections of 2016. The WPP aims to organize the working class in its own political party independent of the two major political parties that represent the employers.

Tod Davies is an Associate Director and Lecturer Symbolic Systems Program Stanford University. He has also focused on democratic communication and the use of digital technology to facilitate communication and education on a global level. He has also worked to defend journalists around the world.

Ali Ergin Demirhan is an electrical engineer, editor in chief of Sendika.Org and Çapul TV, and a revolutionary activist as a member of People's Houses - a grassroots socialist organization. He was a participant of June Revolt / Occupy Gezi movement and was one of the founders of Çapul TV in Gezi Park during the protests.

Bill Doran, of equalit.ie, an organization whose goal it is to create accessible technology and improve the skill set needed for defending human rights and freedoms in the digital age.

Barbara Gertz, Injured Walmart worker who is with OUR Walmart Health & Safety Leader

Gail Glick has been litigating employment disputes in Los Angeles since 1994. She and her partners founded the AK+G partnership with a continued commitment to the exclusive representation of employees in all aspects of employment law disputes and resolutions. Since 2002, Gail has focused her practice on representing employees in employment discrimination and retaliation, wrongful termination, defamation, unfair competition and wage and hour law. Gail’s warm nature, writing acumen and attention to detail are particular assets to the partnership and its clients.

Kavena "Kav" Hambira is a visiting Fulbright Scholar and emerging independent filmmaker from Namibia. With a background in Labor Relations and enthusiasm for documentary film, he aims to produce insightful content that advances the cause of The Working Class. His recent short film on ILWU Local 10's May Day protest can be freely viewed atkavenafilm.com

John Han is a cab driver and labor videographer who has produced the film Driving For Hire (84 min) (2015) USA about new apps and the issues facing tax cab drivers.

Steven Hill is a Senior Fellow with the New America Foundation and his forthcoming book, Raw Deal: How the "Uber Economy" and Naked Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers, will be published by St. Martin's Press this October. He is a veteran journalist and author of four other books, including the internationally praised Europe's Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age, which was selected as one of the "Top Fifteen Books of 2010" by The Globalist. His articles and media interviews have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Financial Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Die Zeit, Project Syndicate, Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Politico, Mother Jones, Huffington Post, Salon, Slate,BBC, C-SPAN, Fox News, NPR, PBS, Democracy Now, Austrian Public Broadcasting and many others. He lives in San Francisco, CA.

John Parulis is a member of the KPFA multi-media team and is a member of CWA-TNG Local 39521/Pacific Media Workers Guild. He has worked with Green Peace and many other organizations. He is also on the planning committee of LaborTech.net

Jack Linchuan Qui is an Associate Professor with the School of Journalism & Communication, CUHK Deputy Director, Centre for Chinese Media and Comparative Communication Research.
He conducts research on information and communication technologies, class, globalization, and social change. His publications include World’s Factory in the Information Age, Working-Class Network Society, and Mobile Communication and Society. He serves on nine international journal boards and is associate editor for Journal of Communication. In his paper Locating Worker-Generated Content (WGC) In The World's Factory he looks at the use of communication technology by the working class in China.

Karthik Ramanathan, an immigrant tech worker from India working in the United States for over a decade. Completed Grad school at UMass Lowell 2005.

Ruth Silver Taube is a Supervising Attorney of the Workers' Rights Clinic at the Katharine & George Alexander Community Law Center, an Adjunct Professor of Santa Clara University School of Law, and a Special Counsel for the Legal Aid Society - Employment Law Center. She teaches a Workers' Rights' class at Santa Clara University School of Law that investigates retaliation claims filed with the Labor Commission.  She is the Coordinator of the Santa Clara County Wage Theft Coalition, a founding member of the Bay Area Equal Pay Collaborative, Legal Services Chair of the South Bay Coalition to End Human Trafficking, and an alternate delegate to the Santa Clara County Human Trafficking Commission.  She has partnered with the Vietnamese American Bar Association of Northern California, the Filipino Bar Association, and the Pilipino Association of Workers and Immigrants to establish monthly community law clinics for Vietnamese American clients and quarterly clinics for Filipino clients.  Prior to law school, she was a journeyman machinist, President of IAM Local 547 in District 93, and a Senior Field Representative for SEIU 535.  After law school, she served as a law clerk to the Honorable Ronald M. Whyte, District Court Judge, Northern District of California, San Jose Division and worked as a federal mediator for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and as a panel mediator for the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division.   She is a frequent speaker on wage theft; employment law issues in human trafficking, equal pay, and domestic violence cases; and ERISA disability benefits.  She previously taught at Njala University College, in Sierra Leone, West Africa with the Canadian Peace Corps.  In 2013, she was the keynote speaker at the Vietnamese American Bar Association of Northern California’s dinner and  received the Unsung Hero Award from the Santa Clara County Victim Support Network and the Commitment Award from the Alexander Community Law Center.  In 2015, she received the Pro Bono Advocate of the Year award from WorkSafe.k

Steve Zeltzer is one of the founders of LaborNet and LaborTech.net. He produces labor video documentaries and also produces a KPFA Pacifica labor radio show called WorkWeek Radio.

There will also be a presentation by Stanford lecturer
Hilton Obenzinger who is Associate Director, Stanford Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project about the building of the Transcontinental Railway on the 150th anniversary of its construction by the 50,000 Chinese workers who came to America to build it. These Chinese workers played an important and critical role in building America and also led the first and largest strike at that time in California history starting on June 25, 1867. We honor them for the work they did in building America.