[PEN-L:4372] Challenging Corporate Control

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

                        CHALLENGING CORPORATE CONTROL

April 16-18, at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut will be a major
conference/teach-in with the labor movement.  (For pre-registration and
housing, see the end of this message.) A partial list of participants
CONFIRMED for the conference includes:

Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer, AFL-CIO
Barbara Ehrenreich, Hearts of Men, The Snarling Citizen
Andy Stern, president, SEIU
Katha Pollitt, poet, columnist The Nation
John Wilhelm, president, HERE
Representative Cynthia McKinney, D-Georgia
Bruce Raynor, secretary-treasurer, UNITE
Frances Fox Piven, Poor People's Movements
Adolph Reed, W.E.B. DuBois and American Political Thought
Elissa McBride, Recruitment Director, Organizing Institute
Kent Wong, APALA and UCLA
David Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor
Hattie Canty, president, HERE Las Vegas maids local
Andrew Ross, editor, No Sweat
Reverend Scott Marks, New Haven
Barbara Ingalls, Detroit newspaper union
Steve Early, CWA
Mike Parker, Labor Notes
Phil Wheeler, UAW
Ellen Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes, No Ivory Tower
Jon Wiener, frequent contributor, The Nation
Ricardo Ochoa, pres. Univ. of Calif. grad student union
Kate Bronfenbrenner, editor, Organizing to Win
Nelson Lichtenstein, The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit
Maria Elena Durazo, president, Los Angeles HERE local
Richard Flacks, Making History, Youth and Social Change
Robert Dahl, Who Governs?
Amy Dean, executive officer, South Bay Labor Council
Stephanie Luce, co-author, The Living Wage
Tony Mazzocchi, Labor Party

SPONSORED BY:
Scholars, Artists, and Writers for Social Justice (SAWSJ), the unions at
Yale, and the Yale Student Labor Action Coalition.

THEMES:
-- The right to organize, and efforts to organize the unorganized
-- Transformations in the academy, and the role of the University in the
new labor movement
-- Labor/community relationships and the Union Cities initiative

SCHEDULE:

Friday 5:00 p.m. -- Solidarity march to support graduate student
organizing.  Assemble Beineke Plaza, corner of Wall and College Streets,
New Haven.

Friday evening -- plenary session: what is the right to organize?

Saturday all day -- a wide range of sessions (see below)

Saturday evening -- a cultural event and evening of entertainment

Sunday morning -- a breakfast and meeting with rank-and-file activists
from organizing campaigns around the country, who will tell personal
stories of their experiences and answer questions.  This meeting is open
ONLY to those who indicate they are ready and willing to participate in a
campaign to win workers the right to organize and form unions without
harassment or intimidation, and to publicize violations of this right.
(People planning to attend this event should pre-register to be guaranteed
participation.)  It will be followed by a general SAWSJ meeting and the
election of officers for the coming year.

A partial list of the sessions for the conference:

A session each on the struggles in/around/at:
       Las Vegas
       University of California system
       Los Angeles
       The South
       Yale/New Haven

These sessions will provide histories, analyses, and up-to-date reports on
events in some of the most interesting and important on-going labor
struggles.

Economics of the University
Organizing Graduate Students
Creating a Labor-Left Op-Ed Network
Undergraduate SLACs
Organizing the Health Care Industry
Organizing Clerical and Technical Workers
Alternative Models of Organizing
Becoming an Organizer
Living Wage Campaigns
Sweatshops
Community/Labor Coalitions
Union Democracy
Unions and Politics

This is a PRELIMINARY listing, both for people and sessions -- more to
come.

To register or for more info:
email = sawsj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
snail mail = SAWSJ, c/o Labor Relations and Research Center, Draper Hall,
Univ of Mass., Amherst MA 01003.

Advance registration fee:  $5 for students and low income, $20 all others.
We welcome donations to support the conference.  Make (registration or
donation) checks payable to SAWSJ.  For information on regular and
low-cost/free housing contact the SAWSJ office (info above);
pre-registration is necessary to guarantee low-cost/free housing.

The same weekend, April 16-18, there will also be three locally based
conferences, primarily focused on student labor activism and building a
national student network (which will also be a component of the Yale-SAWSJ
conference).  Contact information for those:  Stanford
(ekaplan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx), Harvard (adube@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx --
that's right, don't let the email deceive you), Kent State
(wdavis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx).

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD.  Pass this message along, pre-register for the
conference, and encourage others to attend.