To
URPE Members and Friends:
Please forward this to anyone you think might be interested.
Please download and post this flyer at your school, job or organization:
http://urpe.org/BrechtSpring06.pdf
For our first event on retail organizing, you can choose a flyer to download:
http://urpe.org/RetailBW.pdf
(print with black ink) or
http://urpe.org/RetailColor.pdf
(full color)
Our series will take place at the Brecht Forum:
Brecht Forum, 451 West St.
(West Side Highway between Bank and Bethune)
***NEW ADDRESS***
See website for directions
www.brechtforum.org
212-242-4201
$6/$10/$15 suggested donation
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NYC Union for Radical Political Economics and the Brecht Forum present:
ORGANIZING POTENTIAL OF THE RETAIL SECTOR
Date: Tuesday, May 2, 7:30pm
Speakers: DAVID BENSMAN, MATHIAS BOLTON, JEFFREY EICHLER, LIZA FEATHERSTONE
Moderator: EDAN DHANRAJ
U.S. manufacturing employment is declining, and jobs in many other sectors
are being outsourced to countries with cheaper labor costs and eliminated
through "lean and mean" technological change. In this climate, union organizers
are asking themselves where to organize next. Our panelists feel there is
great potential for organizing workers in the retail sector, which includes
massive distribution centers as well as stores. Edan Dhanraj, our panel's
organizer and chair, and RWDSU research director Mathias Bolton have both
worked in these distribution centers, and Mathias has been involved in organizing
drives in both distribution centers and retail stores. RWDSU organizer Jeffrey
Eichler led a recently-successful drive to unionize immigrant workers in
a chain of Brooklyn sneaker stores. David Bensman has done extensive research
on the retail sector and will describe how it functions and how it has changed
over the years. Where Wal-Mart goes, others will follow -- it is the largest
employer (and retail employer) in the U.S. Liza Featherstone will talk about
the experiences of people who have been organizing workers at Wal-Mart.
About the Speakers:
David Bensman is a professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations at
Rutgers University, and author of several books about labor, education, and
social policy.
Mathias Bolton is the Director of Research for the RWDSU (Retail, Wholesale
and Department Store Union). For 10 years he worked at a unionized retail
distribution center where he was a rank and file activist and elected union
representative.
Jeffrey Eichler is the coordinator of Retail Organizing in NY for the RWDSU.
Liza Featherstone is a journalist who writes frequently on labor and student
activism for The Nation, as well as many other publications. She is the co-author
of Students Against Sweatshops: The Making of a Movement (2002). In 2004,
she published Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers' Rights
at Wal-Mart, a history of Dukes vs. Wal-Mart, the largest civil rights class-action
suit in history.
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OIL, NUKES, MULLAHS, DEMOCRACY AND U.S. HEGEMONY:
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE IRAN CRISIS
Date: Tuesday, May 16, 7:30pm
Speakers: FARAMARZ FARBOD, REZA GHORASHI, FATEMEH MOGHADAM, TOM O'DONNELL
The long-suffering Iranian people face dual burdens: the constant prospect
of a bloody U.S.-led intervention, and the continued internal rule of the
mullahs. This panel examines the motivations of both sides, and addresses
a number of questions: What is the political-economic basis for the persistent
hostility towards Iran by the U.S. and its allies: Britain, France and Germany?
What is the role of their long-term quest for oil? What are the real issues
involved in the nuclear power dispute? What is the political economy of the
present clerical regime, and what are the prospects for internal social and
democratic transformation? What is the current status of women in Iran, and
how are policies towards women used to maintain overall social control? Our
panelists will cut through the abundance of official misinformation on Iran,
and seek effective ways to express our solidarity with the just struggles
of the Iranian people.
About the Speakers:
Faramarz Farbod is an Iranian-American (a native of Iran). He taught politics
in Iran for several years in the 1990s, and has been teaching politics in
the US (Moravian College, Bethlehem, PA) since 1998. He is pursuing his PhD
in comparative politics at Rutgers University. His primary areas of interest
are: American foreign policy in the Third World (especially in the Middle
East); issues related to globalization, empire, capitalism, and development;
politics of dissent here in America; and issues related to the US media.
Reza Ghorashi has a Ph.D. in economics from Fordham University and teaches
at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. His areas of research and interest
are international trade, globalization, and the Middle East, particularly
Iran. He has published articles in both English and Farsi on the listed subject
matters.
Fatemeh Moghadam teaches courses at Hofstra on Economic Development, Women
and Development in the Middle East, Economic Development in the Middle East,
and International Economics. She has published extensively on economic history,
agricultural development, and women and development, including a book, From
Land Reform to The Revolution: The Political Economy of Agricultural Development
in Iran (1960-1979) (Tauris Academic Studies, London, February 1996). Her
research work includes several field studies in Iran. Her most recent publications
include entries in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History (New York,
2003), entries in Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures (to appear 2006),
as well as articles on women and work in Iran.
Tom O'Donnell (PhD, nuclear physics) is Lecturer at the University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor in the Science, Technology and Science Program (STS) and the Center
for Middle East and North African Studies (CMENAS), and the Residential College.
He lectured on "The Global Oil System and the Middle East" in graduate economics
at The University of Algiers and, as visiting professor, at The New School
for Social Research in New York City in spring-summer of 2005. He is currently
writing a book on "The New Globalized Oil Order." He is also Associate Member
of the Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics (MCTP). He previously spent
a decade as an industrial worker and organizer-activist in Detroit auto plants
and on Chicago railways.
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THE POLITICAL ECONOMIES OF PALESTINE AND ISRAEL:
UNDER-EXPLORED ASPECTS OF THE CONFLICT
Date: Thursday, June 1, 7:30pm
Speakers: JEROME JOFFE, KAREN PFEIFER
Last summer Jerry Joffe participated in a fact-finding tour of Palestine,
sponsored by Faculty For Israeli-Palestinian Peace. He traveled extensively
throughout the West Bank in search of a deeper understanding of how the economy
of Palestine works, and of how economic circumstances frame the political
prospects for peace between Israel and Palestine. Jerry will report on what
he learned about the many obstacles to economic development in Palestine
during the years of the Israeli occupation.
Because the economies of Israel and Palestine are so closely intertwined,
economic policies and circumstances in Israel have a strong effect on Palestine,
above and beyond whatever is going on politically. Karen Pfeifer, who has
studied and taught about the economies of many countries in the Middle East,
will talk about Israel's economy: its strengths, its vulnerabilities, and
their dialectic.
About the Speakers:
Jerome Joffe teaches at St. John’s University, Division of Social Science,
Program in Health Care Administration. His publications include "The U.S.
Health Care System, A Reproduction Crisis" in Political Economy and Contemporary
Capitalism (M.E. Sharpe) and articles on Long Term Care (Home Health Care
Services Quarterly), Health Care Costs (Journal of Economic Issues), Physician
Productivity (Public Health Reports) and Health Utilization (Inquiry). Jerry
recently joined a tour of Palestine sponsored by Faculty For Israeli-Palestinian
Peace and has written a report which is on their website.
Karen Pfeifer is a Professor of Economics at Smith College and has taught
there since 1979. She has served as an editor of Research in Middle East
Economics and of Middle East Report. Pfeifer's main teaching fields are alternative
economic theory and comparative economic systems, with research focused on
economic development and social change in the Middle East and North Africa.
She has done research in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Turkey,
and the Palestinian Territories. Her most recent scholarly projects concern
rebuilding devastated economies in the Middle East and the Euro-Med Partnership
Initiative.