Laborfest: LaborFest BookFair

6th Annual LaborFest BookFair

10:00 - 11:30 AM
(3rd floor Room A)
A Desire Path By Jan Shapin
Set in the class struggles of the 1930s through the 1950s, this novel deals with the shifting relationships between a union organizer, a journalist (based on the real life Anna Louise Strong) and the wife of a union lawyer. Shapin weaves a story of CIO organizing in the 1930s, the post-war witch hunts, and how those events affected not only political life but the lives of those in the middle of the struggle. Shapin will talk about labor history from a fictional perspective, read from her novel and discuss the history and political issues on which A Desire Path is based.
http://www.janshapin.com/
http://www.stourwater.com/ALS/

(3rd floor Room B)
Lettuce Wars, Ten Years of Work and Struggle
By Bruce Neuburger
In this important work we learn about the real history of the United Farmworkers of America from the eyes of an activist member. What happened to one of the most vibrant union organizing of farmworkers in the United States and how did the UFWA become a shadow of itself? Neuburger also recounts how non-farmworkers were brought into the leadership of the UFWA to replace the actual farmworker organizers and the end of the possibility of democracy and rank and file power.
http://www.lettucewars.net/p/author-bio.html

(First floor theater)
Guest Workers or Colonized Labor?
By Gilbert Gonzalez
He will discusses the historical causes of immigration of Mexican workers to the United States. He shows that the economic development of US capitalism required a cheap labor force from Mexico, and this in fact, led to the mass uprooting of peasants and small farmers in Mexico who were forced to the US by big corporate interests. Gonzalez exposes the real economic implications of NAFTA which like the other trade agreements including the present Trans Pacific Partnership TPP bill provide the framework for greater exploitation of labor and the destruction of economies throughout the world for privatization and union busting.
http://labor.ihr.ucsc.edu/labor-and-immigration-working-group/gilbert-gonzales/

12:00 - 1:30 PM
(3rd floor Room A)
Wind Over Water
Edited by Keiko Yamanaka
UC Lecturer Keiko Yamanaka will present her work Wind Over Water about the migration of workers in Southeast Asia and how this migration of migrants is changing the face of countries in the region.
http://www.keikoyamanaka.info/

(3rd floor Room B)
The Wobblies in San Pedro
By Art Almeida
Retired ILWU Local 13 longshore worker Art Almeida from Los Angeles will talk about the role of Wobblies on the waterfront in San Pedro and how they helped shape the formation of the ILWU. He will be joined by Herb Mills, the retired Secretary Treasurer of ILWU Local 10 in San Francisco. The history of Local 10 and it’s democratic traditions were shaped as well by the Wobblie influence, which in Local 10 has meant leadership elections once a year and a two term limit on top positions in the local.

(First floor theater)
Immigration Reform, “Guest” & Temporary Workers and the Labor Movement - Panel
The scapegoating and exploitation of immigrant workers in the United States has a long history. This panel will look at the history of immigration from Latin America to the United States and the role of the Bracero Program, “guest worker” programs, and the new “immigration reform” that is being discussed and debated by working people and the US Congress. It will also look at the role of US unions in this debate.
Panelists:
Gilbert Gonzalez, UCI professor; Don Mitchell, Syracuse University professor; Al Rojas, LCLAA, labor organizer; Manny Ness, CUNY professor; Norm Mattloff, UCD professor, Computer Science.
http://labor.ihr.ucsc.edu/labor-and-immigration-working-group/gilbert-gonzales
http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/geo/Mitchell,_Don/
http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/web/academics/faculty/faculty_profile.jsp?faculty=34 (Ness)
http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/matloff.html

2:00 - 3:30 PM
(3rd floor Room A)
Passing Through to the Territory
By Bob Wells
What would have happened if Huckleberry Finn and Jim had met abolitionist John Brown? On the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, this work by retired Oakland Education Association member Bob Wells carries on the story of Huckleberry Finn and brings to life the struggle of abolitionist John Brown and what happened as he connected with Huckleberry Finn and Jim.

(3rd floor Room B)
Guest Workers and Resistance to U.S. Corporate Despotism
By Immanuel Ness
Ness’s work looks at the growth of migrant labor and global capitalism from India and Jamaica to the USA. Over 300 million migrant workers are a growing force in the world economy, including a growing number who are also high tech workers. Ness looks at the political crisis of our present unions who are unable to grapple with this new world global economy and now are even supporting a new massive “guest worker” program after initially opposing it. At the same time there is growing opposition among this new migrant global workforce.
http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/web/academics/faculty/faculty_profile.jsp?faculty=34 (Ness)

(First floor theater)
Globalization, Digital Films, and New Directions in Documentary
By Tom Zaniello
Tom Zaniello is the foremost writer on working class films and documentaries. In his new work, Zaniello discusses labor documentaries that focus on many of the global working class struggles and provides a critical look at technology, immigration and the world economy. The development of these global documentaries and the stories they tell is critical to understand the changes in our world and his report on these films is illuminating.

4:00 - 5:30 PM
(3rd floor Room A)
Virgin Soul
By Judy Juanita
The political and social movements of the 1960s, including the Black Panther Party, is what this novel centers on. It looks at how young African American women were activated and transformed by the movements of the 1960’s. Judy Juanita was a student and member of the Black Student Union. She has taught English at Laney College from 1993 to 2012 as a professor.

(3rd floor Room B)
They Saved the Crops - Labor, Landscape, and the Struggle over industrial farming in Bracero-era California
By Don Mitchell
Don Mitchell, is a professor at Syracuse University. He has written a basic primer to understand the California Bracero Program. “The Bracero Program was the ideal business recipe for cheap immigrant labor, cooked up by growers and stamped Government Approved.” This work is absolutely critical to understand today, “as ... ‘guest worker’ politics is a pot always on the boil,” and the push for a new “guest worker” program is now embedded in the new immigration “reform” bill.
http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/geo/Mitchell,_Don/

(First floor theater)
Healthcare, Wellness Programs and Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Labor
Journalist Steve Early and other labor panelists will discuss the growing push for “wellness programs” and the affect of Obama’s ACA on unions and their Taft-Hartley healthcare plans. Unions, including the UFCW, IBT and others are angry that the ACA will undercut their union healthcare benefits plans. This panel will look at who is behind this healthcare “reform” and how it will affect working people, union and non-union. The panel will include: Steve Early, labor journalist; Brad Wiedemier, SEIU-UHW executive board member; Brenda Barros, SF General Hospital SEIU 1021; Charlie Andrews, healthcare writer; Carl Finamore, retired IAM 1781, delegate SF Labor Council.

See also:
http://www.laborfest.net/2013/2013Bookfair.htm
http://www.laborfest.net/2013/2013schedule.htm