[act-ma] 12/16 Tonight: New Strategies for Labor w/Jeremy Brecher and Elaine Bernard (7:00 @ encuentro 5)

[Suren Moodliar]

Join labor activist intellectuals, Jeremy Brecher and Elaine Bernard
as they connect the issues with the Majority Agenda Project: New
Strategies for Labor

OF COURSE, WE'LL HAVE HOT CHOCOLATE!

Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. in encuentro 5 (33 Harrison
Ave, 5th floor, Boston, MA 02111). This participatory conversation
will be followed by a small reception with light refreshments.

Download the flyer here: http://bit.ly/jb-e5
For directions, see here: http://bit.ly/e5-directions

Event Title: New Strategies for Labor: Connecting the Issues - the
Economy, the Climate Crisis & War and Peace

Background: This conversation brings together 2 outstanding, long-time
labor-movement activist intellectuals. It focuses on strategies for
labor at this critical moment, particularly those that involve
systematic collaboration with the peace/anti-war movement, climate
justice movement, the single-payer health movement and the diverse
coalition that elected Obama.

It also introduces the Majority Agenda Project as a potential solution
to the strategic dilemma facing labor organizers: They care about a
number of important issues that fall outside the traditional
collective bargaining relationship but have to concentrate their work
on areas prioritized by the needs of current campaigns.

About Jeremy: He is a leading labor historian, writer, and documentary
script writer best known for the labor history Strike!  For more than
two decades Brecher and the late Tim Costello have studied and written
about labor and globalization, writing such well-known books as
Building Bridges: The Emerging Grassroots Coalition of Labor and
Community and Global Village or Global Pillage. For the past 8 years
they have been joined by Brendan Smith, who collaborated with them on
the book Globalization from Below: The Power of Solidarity.  Their
Emmy-nominated documentary Global Village or Global Pillage? has been
used by unions and other groups in the US and throughout the world to
present an international grassroots response to globalization.
Together they partnered to form Global Labor Strategies. Recently,
Jeremy helped found the Labor Network for Sustainability.

About Elaine: She is Executive Director of the Labor and Worklife
Program and the Harvard Trade Union Program at Harvard Law School. She
has conducted courses on a wide variety of topics for unions,
community groups, universities and government departments.  Her
current research and teaching interests are in the areas of
international comparative labor movements and the role of unions in
promoting civil society, democracy and economic growth. Some of her
more recent talks and publications include: The Changing Workplace and
Building A Union's Organizational Capacity, Organizing in a Cold
Climate, How to Get Momentum to Change the Structure, Why Unions
Matter, Labor Rights as Human Rights, Why Health Care Should Not Be a
Business, Social Unionism: Labor as a Political Force, Public Sector
Workers and the Creation of Pubic Value, and The Way to the Future:
Setting a Social Agenda for Labor.