[PEN-L:11956] IN SUPPORT OF ORGANIZED LABOR

[HTUP@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

I hope folks at Pen-L can sign on to this.  It would be good to
get endorsements beyond the labor historians.  Elaine
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Hi -

I hope you will add your name to this public statement which will be
released on September 1. Please either email me, and tell me you
are willing to sign on, at htup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
and I'll forward it, or or e-mailing Thaddeus Russell at
tnr1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Please note that the address contains
the numeral one after "tnr." Please include your affiliation.

At the same time you may also join Scholars, Artists,
and Writers for Social Justice, which is planning a
series of teach-ins and other events over the next several months.
Please send a contribution to Ellen Schrecker, 771 West End
Avenue #7D, New York, New York, 10025.

Elaine Bernard
Harvard Trade Union Program
htup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

................................

Labor Day, 1997

For two decades, Labor Day has been an occasion for eulogies and epitaphs,
as the labor movement suffered deindustrialization, downsizing and defeat.
But Labor Day 1997 arrives with a new militance and a new hope. The
victory of the Teamsters in the two-week UPS strike -- the largest strike
in a generation -- was a victory for all working people, whose incomes and
livelihoods have stagnated for nearly a quarter of a century. The UPS
strike was also a turning point for the labor movement, and could
determine its strength and direction for years to come.

Though the right to organize has eroded in a world of contingent work --
part-time, temporary, outsourced, and subcontracted -- organizing
campaigns across the continent are now rebuilding the labor movement in
old and new workplaces: from Borders bookstores to Las Vegas casinos, from
the strawberry fields of Watsonville to the classrooms of Berkeley and
Yale, from Federal Express to Nike sweatshops.

We take this moment of struggle to announce the formation of a new
independent, national organization: "Scholars, Artists, and Writers for
Social Justice." In the academy and publishing, in the arts, sciences and
entertainment, we also experience the growth of low-wage, part-time
employment which erodes our craft and creativity. We call upon our
colleagues and friends this Labor Day to declare their solidarity with the
organizing drives of the new labor movement. The time is ripe to restore
the mutually empowering relationship that once gave hope and dynamism to
the labor movement and its allies in the academic and cultural
communities.

We envision a movement that can reshape the nation's political culture by
combating inequality and powerlessness, and by fostering the growth of a
vibrant, militant, multicultural working-class movement. In an era
when elite opinion makes a fetish of the free market, unions -- with a
commitment to solidarity, equality, and collective struggle -- remain
fundamental institutions of a democratic society. Our confidence in
launching SAWSJ comes from the success of the "labor teach-in" movement,
inaugurated last fall when more than 2,000 people affirmed a new alliance
of labor and academe at Columbia University. In more than a score of other
teach-ins from coast to coast, students, teachers, writers, artists, and
unionists met, talked, learned, and argued in an atmosphere of hope and
solidarity. SAWSJ hopes to fulfill the promise of those teach-ins.

 Alewitz, Mike
 Aronowitz, Stanley
 Aronson, Ronald
 Azcarate, Fred
 Ballinger, Lee
 Benjamin, Ernst
 Bennett, Marty
 Bernard, Elaine
 Bonilla, Frank
 Buhle, Paul
 Carter, Prudence
 Chancer, Lynn
 Clawson, Dan
 Cutler, Jonathan
 Delgado, Hector
 Denning, Michael
 DiFazio, Bill
 Domingo, Ligaya
 Dubro, Alec
 Fennell, Dorothy
 Fletcher, Bill
 Fraser, Steven
 Freeman, Joshua B.
 Gerstle, Gary
 Gray, Lois
 Green, Adam
 Green, Venus
 Hall, Jacquelyn
 Horne, Gerald
 Huck, Gary
 Kaye, Harvey
 Kazin, Michael
 Kelley, Robin D.G.
 Kornbluh, Felicia
 Krupat, Kitty
 Levi, Margaret
 Lichtenstein, Nelson N.
 Lie, John
 Marquez, Dennis Bixler
 Mendel-Reyes, Meta
 Montgomery, David
 Murolo, Priscilla
 Nathan, Debbie
 Newman, Kathy
 Ngai, Mae
 Piven, Frances Fox
 Porter, Allison
 Potter, Sarah
 Pranis, Kevin
 Prisock, Louis
 Ripton, Jessica
 Robinson, Dean
 Rosen, Sumner M
 Royster, Dee
 Russell, Thad
 Ryan, Sarah
 Schrecker, Ellen W.
 Semann, Ingrid
 Simmons, Esmeralda
 Singh,  Nikhil
 Skotnes, Andor
 Slaughter, Jane
 Stephens, Michelle
 Sugrue, Tom
 Uehlein, Joe
 Venkatesh, Sudhir
 Watts, Jerry
 Willis, Ellen
 Woodard, Komozi
 Young, Cynthia