Laborfest: Book Fair, Videos, Music & Poetry Reading

This extraordinary full day book fair, videos, music and poetry reading is free.
SCHEDULE
Main gallery
9:30 AM
Mark Evans speaks on Stopping The Presses, The Murder Of Walter W. Liggett by Marda Liggett Woodbury.
One of the hidden stories of the 1930’s was the murder of journalist and muckraker Walter W. Liggett.

10:30 AM
Jeanetta Calhoun Mish will read from her new book of poetry, Work Is Love Made Visible; she will also share writings by other contemporary Oklahoma writers and a selection of Woody Guthrie's work.
Mish is a founding member of the Woody Guthrie Poets at the Woody Guthrie Free Folk Festival in Okemah, Oklahoma.

1:00 PM Panel Discussion
The Struggle In The SEIU and The Crisis In Labor
With labor journalist Steve Early, SEIU 521 Vice President Wren Bradley, writer Michael Yates, writer Randy Shaw and Al Rojas.
The internecine crisis wracking the trade union movement including the trusteeship of SEIU UHW and the raid of UniteHERE by the SEIU is now tearing the labor movement apart. This forum will discuss what is taking place, why it is taking place and where it is going.

2:30 PM Panel Discussion
Women Organizers During the 1930s & 1940’s
With Elisabeth Martinez, Julia Stein, Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, Jeanetta Calhoun Mish and others.
Women workers during the depression and the 1930’s and 1940’s were battling for justice and survival. This panel will discuss who some of these women workers were and what they did to build the labor movement.

Theater
9:30 AM
Michael Yates on Why Unions Matter.
Yates in this important book shows that the vehicle for fundamental change rests within the labor movement. He acknowledges the weaknesses of labor but proposes that labor must rebuild its power by building a broad working class movement that can confront the control of capital.

10:30 AM
by Zeese Papanikolas
Buried Unsung: Louis Tikas and the Ludlow Massacre
Papanikolas work focuses on Louis Tikas, a Greek immigrant and union organizer killed in the Ludlow massacre in Colorado in 1914. The fight he led for justice and labor rights cost him and many other immigrants their lives, and this work illuminates that part of hidden history.

12:00 Noon Video Screening
Labor Imperialism, Corporate Unionism And the SEIU (2008) (59 minutes) by the Labor Video Project
This video focuses on the June 2008 convention of the SEIU in San Juan Puerto Rico and the protests by Independistas, the Puerto Rican teachers union FMPR and the battle on the floor of the convention over union democracy and the merger agenda of the SEIU.

1:00 PM Poets and Musicians
Poets Avotcja, Julia Stein, Alice Rogoff, Jeanetta Calhoun Mish and others.

2:30 PM Panel Discussion
Death on The Job And The Workers of 9/11
By Daniel Berman , John Sferazo and Mike Daly.
Daniel Berman, author of Death on the Job will join with Iron Worker and IOUE member John Sferazo who was a first responder at the 9/11 attack and Ironworkers Local 377 member Mike Daly on the lessons for health and safety of 9/11 and the crisis in OSHA and workers compensation for injured workers.

Small Gallery
9:30 AM
Jack Rasmus on the Epic Recession And Financial Crisis: Prelude To Global Depression
His prescient perspective about where the economy has been and where it is going is a framework for understanding the nature of the attacks that working people are facing.

10:30 AM
Alicia Lutz-Rolow on The Plane Truth
AMR Airline Safety Compromised by Executive Greed: The Disturbing Firsthand Story of an American Airlines Flight Attendant

1:00 PM
Jeffrey B. Perry on Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918
Hubert Harrison was an important figure in the Black working class in America and Perrry’s book influenced many including A. Philip Randolph and Marcus Garvey. He was “a freethinker and early proponent of birth control, a supporter of Black writers and artists...”

2:30 PM
Michael Perleman on The Invisible Handcuffs of Capitalism: How Market Control Undermines the Economy by Stunting Workers
Perleman has been exposing the contradictions in the system and the reason that capitalism is now destroying the the lives of millions of working people and their families.
See also:
http://www.laborfest.net/2009/Bookfair.htm
http://www.laborfest.net/2009schedule.htm