AM Workshop Block (10:45am-12:30pm)

People's Budget and Fair Taxes in California

The California Federation of Teachers has been at the forefront of the progressive tax movement. This workshop will explore the various approaches the CFT is taking to educate its members and the public, and to build coalitions, around progressive tax activities. The presenters will describe some of their recent work, and will examine local and state opportunities to move toward a more fair state tax system.

Cathy Campbell, President, Berkeley Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 1078,
Alisa Messer, President, San Francisco Community College Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 212,
Fred Glass, CFT Communications Director

Labor and Electoral Politics
The labor movement is facing a sustained political assault across the country. Budget cutting Republicans and Democrats have public sector unions squarely in their sights. This workshop will focus on a discussion of how the labor movement can confront these attacks and push a political program which benefits working people.

Lisa Maldonado, Executive Director, North Bay Labor Council
Ramsés Teón Nichols, SEIU 1021
Roberto Reyes, Richmond community activist, Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) Steering Committee

Dignity in the Workplace: How to get It, How to Keep It

The goal of this workshop is to allow union members who are not field reps or shop stewards to gain tools for solving problems before the grievance has to be formally submitted to a Human Resources department. Additionally, we will share insights and concrete examples from which to draw upon should the grievance need to go a more formal route.

We will draw upon personal experiences. Johan has recently returned to work following a 4 month unemployment due to firing. KJ has repeatedly won grievances for herself and others at the Hilton SF, Union Square

Presenters: Johan Tahir, KJ Landis
they are both UNITE HERE Local 2 Members

The Nuts & Bolts of Workplace Organizing

Whether your goal is to organize new members, fight the boss, or reform your union, you need to be an effective organizer. Learn basic organizing skills such as active listening, creating an effective "rap", and moving others to action, which will help you build real power in the workplace and make your campaign a success

Zev Kvitky is a Field Representative for the California Federation of Teachers

Does the Labor Movement Need its Own Foreign Policy?

When it comes to foreign policy, should unions address more than trade and immigration? Central to the practice of business unionism is complicity with and even collusion between union leaders and the government in support of US foreign policy objectives. It will be impossible to move away from business unionism unless and until this collaboration ends. This workshop will explore the roots of the problem, its manifestations today, and ways to change how the labor movement relates to U.S. foreign policy.

Facilitator: Michael Eisencher, a veteran union organizer and labor educator, is National Coordinator of U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW)

Lessons on Forming a Reform Caucus

This workshop is intended to help union members think about beginning a reform caucus in their local. Panelists will talk about their experiences helping to build reform movements in two locals in the Bay Area where strong reform caucuses exist: UAW 2865 (Academic Workers for a Democratic Union) and UESF (Educators for a Democratic Union). AWDU and EDU members will share ideas on the following topics:

-Why start a reform caucus?
-How to start a reform caucus?
-Common challenges for reformers and lessons we've learned.
-Strategies and perspectives on union leadership positions and elections

After presenting about our caucuses experiences, we will have a discussion with workshop participants about issues in their locals and possibilities for beginning reform.

Magdalena De Guzman - Filipino Bilingual/Bicultural Educator, Executive Board Member, United Educators of San Francisco

Mandy Cohen - third year graduate student at UC Berkeley, department of Comparative Literature. Recording Secretary of UAW 2865 (representing academic student employees in the UC) and member of Academic Workers for a Democratic Union (AWDU).

Nick Kardahji, PhD Student in History at UC Berkeley, member of UAW Local 2865 and reform caucus Academic Workers for a Democratic Union.

Andy Libson - science teacher at Mission High School, member of United Educators of San Francisco (UESF) and reform caucus Educators for a Democratic Union (EDU)

End Wage Theft! A Campaign Led by the San Francisco Progressive Workers Alliance

"Everyone deserves to be paid for the hours they work. But this basic right is denied to the majority of low-wage immigrant and workers of color across the country. While CEOs worry about bonus pay, many workers are paid below minimum wage, obliged to work off the clock, denied overtime pay, and sometimes get no pay at all.

This is wage theft and it hurts everyone—workers can’t support their families, responsible businesses face unfair competition from employers paying below-legal wages, and consumer satisfaction and safety are compromised. Labor laws exist to protect the basic rights of workers, but they are not adequately enforced. Nationally, wage theft takes billions of dollars a year out of the pockets of workers and their local communities. This growing epidemic threatens our economic recovery, shrinks our tax base and lowers standards instead of creating quality jobs.

San Francisco can do better to stop unfair employers from driving down the economy. Together we can build a healthy, vibrant economy and a new future for families in San Francisco—a future of opportunity and progress for all which protects young, immigrant, LGBTQ, and workers of color."

San Francisco Progressive Workers Alliance

En Busca de un Sindicalismo Independiente para la Clase Obrera

Los participantes podran conecer de primera mano la experiencia de lucha de activistas sindicales inmigrantes que desde un movimiento de oposicion sindical independiente al interior de el Local 1877 de SEIU buscan acabar con las politicas conciliadoras de los dirigentes patronales en esta organizacion y transformarla en un sindicato independiente, que defienda los intereses de sus trabajadores y que levante las banderas de los derechos de los inmigrantes como trabajadores a traves de luchar por la unidad de la clase trabajadora americana. Igualmente, en este taller, el presentador dara a conocer un cuerpo de principios que guian al movimiento de oposicion sindical Alianza Multiracial de Trabajadores de los Servicios de California (AMTSC), como un movimiento sindical independiente.

Hector Rincon, Alianza Multiracial de los Trabajadores de los Servicios de California (AMTSC)

Confronting the National Right to Work Agenda

Today highly organized and well funded organizations are implementing a national agenda to eliminate collective bargaining and most labor unions. The key strategy is that of the National Right to Work committee, and its local affiliates. Very few people in Labor understand the unified relationship between political, business, and local government realities which are putting organized labor in constant crisis. This class is an attempt to address ways we can alert and educate union membership as to this, and develop strategies to resist. We hope to clearly state this issue and its challenges, but also implement LaborNotes Troublemakers skills to build permanent local committees to stand up to this opposing force in the workplace.

Mike Daly, Ironworkers

Lessons from the 1930's

The current economic crisis and the political changes since the 2008 election have caused many activists to look to the 1930’s with increased interest. This workshop will look at the experience of the last great economic crisis, which was also last great private sector worker-organizing upsurge, for parallels and lessons for our organizing today. Included will be the workers’ movements’ use of culture, especially theater, as well as union and other organizing of working class people, on the job and off. We will also examine the relationship between laws and government action and the growth of the labor movement.

Joe Berry, independent labor educator, organizer and historian
Bill Shields, Department Chair of SF City College Labor and Community Studies

Education Reform and the Assault on Teachers

Teachers are the largest organized job in the US. Bankrolled by the likes of Bill Gates and Eli Broad, testing schemes, destruction of tenure and seniority, and privatization are all tools of an assault on teacher unions masquerading as educational reform. To make matters worse many teacher union leaders have embraced some of these strategies. This workshop will discuss these threats to education and unionism and how teachers can effectively respond.

Diane Brown, President UTR;
Margaret Browne, CTA/NEA retired, Life Member;
Mary Flanagan, UTR;
Jack Gerson, OEA

Is Bargaining for Health Insurance Benefits a Failed Strategy?
The Impact of Federal Health Reform on Collective Bargaining and Alternative Solutions to the Health Care Crisis Facing Workers Today

Many experts advocate that federal health reform will help workers obtain health insurance, and will eventually constrain the double digit increases in health insurance costs.
A panel of experienced labor negotiators will discuss the impact of the Patient Protection and Affordability Act (PPACA), and its impact on collective bargaining. These experts will also debate and discuss if bargaining for health benefits continues to be a viable bargaining strategy, and other healthcare initiatives the labor movement can pursue.

Facilitator – DeAnn McEwen, Co-President, California Nurses Association; critical care nurse, Long Beach Memorial.
Panelist – Martha Kuhl, Chief Nurse Representative (rank-and-file), Children’s Hospital, Oakland
Panelist – Sue Eustice, Chair, Insurance Committee, California School Employees Association, recently retired classified school employee, Newark Unified School District
Panelist – Jim Grogan, Organizing Director, UFCW, Local 5

What Can We Learn from Wisconsin?

From tens of thousands occupying the Capitol to teachers across the state walking off the job, Wisconsin’s defense of union rights grabbed national headlines and had the entire labor movement on the edge of its seat. This workshop will examine how Wisconsin activists are continuing to push back against Republican Governor Scott Walker’s union-busting agenda, and what activists around the country are doing to spread the Wisconsin spirit.

Ken Volante, former rep for Madison Teachers Inc.
Armando Ibarra, Wisconsin School for Workers
Pilar Schiavo, National Nurses United
Mark Brenner, Labor Notes

PM Workshop Block (2pm-3:45pm)

Skilled Work and Union Strength

Why is skilled work so important to union strength? How do employers target skilled work to remove it from the bargaining unit using outsourcing and work reorganization? How do employers use issue of skill to pit workers against each other? How do we recognize and fight back against these attacks? This workshop will be interactive presentation and group discussion on these issues.

Mike Parker works in the area of new technology. He is the author of books and articles on skilled work, unions and so-called participation programs, and union democracy. He is a member of the national Labor Notes policy Committee.

Renewing Labor Union Locals

Renewing labor union locals addresses the question of why it is so difficult to get union members to participate in the affairs of their union. If you have heard the phrase, "What's the union going to do about 'x'?" and are interested in turning that into "What are we going to do about 'x'?", then you will find this session of interest. This IS NOT a session of "how to" techniques. Rather, it is a "how to think about" workshop that will examine what union leaders, activists and staff do that contributes to the current problem of participation. The assumption of this session is that labor cannot be a vital force for social change by simply replacing conservative leaders with progressives or radicals, by fighting for stronger rather than weaker contracts or by engaging in more radical or progressive politics than it now typically does. The problem of participation in separable from what is usually called "politics." We will examine that separate problem. Techniques of the workshop will include discussion, small group work and role-playing. To get the maximum from your participation in this workshop, you should read "Renewing Labor," by Michael Eisenscher and Mike Miller prior to your attending.

Mike Miller, Executive Director, Organize Training Center

What is a General Strike; What Would One Look Like Today?

Since the first general strike in Philadelphia in 1835, led by Irish immigrant workers demanding a 10-hour day, there have been several other – largely forgotten, yet inspiring – mass strikes in the U.S. The last citywide general strike occurred here in Oakland in 1946; the most recent one was the nationwide May Day General Strike led by millions of immigrant, mostly Latina/o, workers against the racist anti-immigrant Sensenbrenner Bill (H.R. 4437) in 2006 – which forced Congress to back down. In this workshop a multimedia historical survey of mass and general strikes will be followed by a participatory discussion of how those lessons could be applied today. A point of reference will be the week-long wildcat strike of public sector workers in Wisconsin, in response to Gov. Walker’s anti-labor laws, and how we can learn from attempts to organize a statewide general strike – and be prepared to build for something similar against the austerity attacks on the working class here in California.

Gifford Hartman, teacher – adult education, independent working class historian

Oliver Lanti, Industrial Workers of the World, SF Bay Area GMB, spent a month in Wisconsin during the protests

Economic Crisis and Militarism: Labor's Silence is Not Golden

Any approach to the economic crisis that fails to consider the impact of war and military spending will fail to produce solutions favorable to working people. Unions will not successfully advance the interests of workers if they don't tackle the economy's dependence upon and addiction to the military-industrial-security complex. This workshop will explore what union activists can do to connect the dots. The New Priorities Campaign will be considered as one vehicle for changing the terms of the discourse.

Facilitator: Michael Eisencher, a veteran union organizer and labor educator, is National Coordinator of U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW).

Becoming a Good Trans Ally and Trans Inclusive Activist

We will use film clips and short presentations to illustrate specific challenges facing transgender workers in the US -- particularly highlighting where multiple oppressions (ex. racism, poverty, immigration status) compound these challenges -- & to frame an open discussion of how participants can take what they learn in the workshop back out into their activism.

Gabriel Haaland, SEIU 1021, Political Coordinator; National Pride at Work, Executive Board Member
Jazzie Collins, Member of the San Francisco Trans March Organizing Committee
Christine Darosa, International Socialist Organization, contributor to SocialistWorker.org

Solidarity Unionism

Solidarity Unionism has gained prominence in the labor movement recently with organizing efforts at Jimmy John’s and Starbucks workers nationwide. Making the audacious assertion that workers themselves have the ability to engage in effective struggle at the workplace without relying on union professionals and labor laws stacked against workers, Solidarity Unionism points us toward a reinvigorated labor movement from below which imagines that a world without bosses is possible.

This workshop is presented by members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and will first draw from examples of attendees to show the power that direct action on the job can have and then move to a brief overview on Solidarity Unionism as a concept. This will be followed by a panel of organizers sharing their experiences: Jimmy John's Workers Union member Brittany Koppy from Minneapolis, Bay Area service industry workers currently organizing, Eduardo Soriano-Castillo on his work in a non-majority organizing campaign with security guards

Adam W., Mykke Holcombe, Bay Area IWW,
Adrian Maldonado, NUHW,
Eduardo Soriano-Castillo, Labor Notes
Brittany Koppy, worker/organizer with Jimmy John's Workers Union affiliated with the IWW

Community Labor Alliance Building – Lessons from the Battle of Cathedral Hill

This workshop will provide an overview to the community labor coalition campaign with the California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC), drawing out lessons learned and fostering deeper dialogue about community labor alliance building. In San Francisco, a broad based coalition of community and labor groups has been engaged in a complex multi-year campaign to hold Sutter Health’s CPMC accountable to community and labor concerns surrounding its $2 billion hospital development plan and corporate practices. The coalition’s unified platform covers a range of critical issues including healthcare equity and access for San Francisco’s predominantly working class southeast sector and low-income patients citywide; union organizing rights and fair contracts for CPMC’s nurses and other workers; CPMC’s affordable housing funding commitment; access to jobs at CPMC and other community benefits and mitigations for low-income residents in surrounding neighborhoods.

Jobs with Justice San Francisco

Immigration reform and labor rights – what do we want?

Labor and immigrant rights activists are fighiting for immigration reform based on labor and human rights. This workshop will talk about the need for an alternative to the guest worker/enforcement bills in Congress, and how people organize for this on a local level.

Adriana Garcia is the director of Maiz, which means Movimiento de Acion, Inspirando Servicio (movement of action, inspiring service). She is a longtime activist in the Chicano and womens' movements in San Jose and the South Bay, and uses cultural advocacy in order to increase political participation in the San Jose Mexican community.

Renee Saucedo is the Community Empowerment Coordinator at La Raza Centro Legal in San Francisco, and and has worked as an organizer, attorney, and advocate since 1991. She was the coordinator of the San Francisco Day Labor Center for many years, and director of the Northern California Coalition for Immigrant Rights. She is an activist in SEIU Local 1021.

Fred Hirsch has a long and fabled history as a labor and community activist in the South Bay. He fought the rightwing policies of the American Institute for Free Labor Development, and for peace and international labor solidarity. He is a leader in his own union, Plumbers Local 393, and in the South Bay Labor Council.

David Bacon was a union organizer with the ILGWU, UE, Molders and other unions, a factory worker in Silicon Valley, and board chair of the Northern California Coalition for Immigrant Rights. He works today as a journalist and photographer, and is the author of several books on labor and migration.

All four people are active in organizing the Dignity Campaign in the Bay Area, and this workshop will make the links between immigration reform based on labor and human rights, and the struggles of immigrant workers on the ground for their rights.

Using Health and Safety to Organize Co-Workers

Health and Safety are many times used by management as a way to enforce discipline and to target activists. However, Health and Safety are things that should concern Union activists and a good issue to organize around. Based on a two-year campaign for safety improvements in a warehouse in San Leandro, CA., this workshop aims at shifting the dynamics around Health and Safety in a way that promotes a safe work environment and helps develop collective power on the job. This skill-sharing workshop will address how to mobilize people around safety, how to use the bosses arguments against them and to think about safety campaigns as organizing campaigns.

Pedro De Sa, Chair of the rank-and-file Organizing Committee of ILWU Local 6

Reform Efforts within the SEIU

Often, SEIU members have become involved in their local only to find it unwelcoming of member input, financially secretive, and manipulative during contract campaigns. Often, these rank and file activists will then try to run for office and end up experiencing corrupted union officer elections. Just as workers struggle for control over their local, along comes SEIU's top-down tactic: the forced merger into a mega local. All of this can feel like a brick wall to reformists who are working alone.

So please join us as we hear from each panelist a short history of the problems in their local, and what reform strategies have and haven't worked. Working together, we are determined to reform the SEIU, from the chapter and local levels, to the International Union level.

This workshop is sponsored by SMART (SEIU Member Activists for Reform Today) and will feature a powerhouse of SEIU reform with a panelist each from the following SEIU locals: 221, 1877, 521, 1021, 24/7, 1000, 6434 and others.

What’s next for public education in California?

What’s next for the struggle to defend public education in California? How can students and teachers unite to fight? What role can ‘social movement unionism’ play in building student/teacher/community alliances? What have we learned from our recent experiences in teacher/student activism? What sort of education system are we fighting for? These and questions will be discussed by a panel of student/teacher activists, followed by a general discussion involving the audience.

Jessica H-W (CCSF student),
Chris Cuadrado (UCSC undergrad),
Blanca Misse (UCB grad student, AWDU/UAW),
Magdalena Deguzman (Educators for a Democratic Union/UESF),
Steve Neat (OEA secretary)

Breaking Down the CA Budget by the Numbers

Description of Workshop: This is an interactive workshop that breaks up the audience into groups of 10 and each group will sequentially examine and report on figures from the CA Budget Project which explains some portion of the CA budget including where does the money come from, how is it spent, where has been cut in the past (and present), what sectors are impacted the most, how CA compares with other states, who benefits and who pays. This activity sends a clear message that the Budget crisis is NOT a result of the economic crisis but a conscious crisis created by the priorities of the rich and powerful.

Andy Libson