3rd Annual LaborFest BookFair & Poetry Reading | Mission Dist.

Submitted by the Event Organizer

The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts hosts the 3rd Annual LaborFest BookFair & Poetry Reading – a full day of activism, poetry, books and lectures. The free event takes place from 9:30am to 5pm. Topics includ from “Epic Recession: Prelude to Global Depression” and “A People’s History of Early California 1769-1901.”

3rd Annual LaborFest BookFair & Poetry Reading
July 25 (Sunday) 9:30 AM – 5:00 PM
– Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts – 2868 Mission St., at 25th St, SF
– FREE
Main gallery

9:30 AM Panel on Art And The Commodity
With Jack Hirschman, John Sheridan, Agneta Falk and Polony Csaba
This panel will look at the role of labor as a commodity in capitalism and deal with the implications of the commodity for having colonized arts. (Sponsored by Left Curve magazine)

11:00 AM – Sisters in the Brotherhoods, Working Women Organizing for Equality in New York City (2008)
Her book gives a glimpse of this complicated story of women workers and describe a bit of what it took to bring about the dramatic change in the New York City’s blue collar workforce in the last third of the 20th century.
http://www.laborarts.org/exhibits/sisters/

1:00 PM -Panel on Labor Media And Coverage of The Working Class
Labor is under assault in the corporate media. This panel will look at the struggle to break the information blockade for labor journalists and how to get the stories out.
Rose Aguilar, radio host on KALW, Paul Burton, Labor Reporter, Dick Meister, Labor Journalist, Maria Hall, Radio Host and Journalist

3:00 PM – Labor’s Civil War in California: The NUHW Healthcare Workers’ Rebellion
In the largest internal battle since the 1940’s, tens of thousands of hospital workers are in the battle over who will represent them. This book by a supporter of the NUHW looks at this conflict.

Theater

10:00 AM -Panel on Greece and The Lessons For California & The United States
John Milios, Professor of Political Economy and the History of Economic thought at the National Technical University of Athens streamed live from Greece.http://users.ntua.gr/jmilios/en/pc.html
Michael Perelman, Professor CSUC/CFA, George Wright, Professor Skyline College AFT 1493, UPWA.

11:30 AM – US Radicals In Russia
Professor Cherney will report on a group of radicals who leave Seattle and go to Russia to set up an agricultural collective. This lasted for decades and slides are used for this presentation.

12:30 PM – Epic Recession Prelude To Global Depression
Author Jack Rasmus looks at the growing economic crisis, how it is affecting the US and world economy and the long term ramifications for US workers. http://www.kyklosproductions.com/

2:00 PM – One Big Union: Judi Bari’s Vision of Green-Worker Alliances in Redwood Country
He will look at the life of Judi Bari and her organizing efforts to link workers in the wood industry to the struggle to defend the environment. Her organizing was a threat to those who run the industry and her death made her a martyr to labor and all working people. http://www.judibari.info/

3:30 PM – Panel & Video The UAW, NUMMI, Toyota and the Closure In Fremont
The struggle to keep the NUMMI plant open has many lessons for workers today. The last auto assembly plant in California was closed this April and the reasons for it’s closure will be examined in this panel.
Juan Castillo, Executive Board UAW 2244, Barry Sheppard, Husband of former UAW 2244 Trustee Carol Lund, Mike Parker, UAW 1700 Delegate, retired.

Small Gallery

10:00 AM – Myth and Empire: An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
She will discuss her book in progress: How ethnic cleansing of Indigenous territories and settler colonialism made possible thereby determined the particular formation of the U.S. working class based on property ownership rather than collectivity.

11:30 AM – Sport and Globalization
He will focus on how has commercialization of sports in the US and internationally changed the athletes and the character of the sports.

12:30 PM – Poetry Reading
California labor poet Julia Stein will read from her work. Stein has been writing poetry and about labor and the fight to defend public education.

2:00 PM – California Rulers and Rebels: A Peoples History of Early California 1769-1901
This is about ruling class control during early California history and the varied rebellions against that control.

3:30 PM – Repression, The Working Class and the Lynne Stewart Case
The growing attack on democratic rights from the Clinton administration “Anti-Terrorism Act” to Bush’s “Patriot Act” have led to a dangerous attack on basic constitutional rights. Journalist Schoneman will look at who is really behind this repressive legislation, how the “war against terrorism” is being manipulated and the case of national civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart who has been jailed using this “war”.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.