View the slideshow of Building Solidarity From Below - 2006 Labor Notes Conference

When the Labor Notes staff and Policy Committee started organizing the 2006 conference nearly a year ago, our thinking was along the lines of: "How in the world are we going to we cheer these folks up?"

As it turned out, participants brought their own good spirits, buoyed in part by a sense of "we're all in the same boat." Said Curt Booza of the striking Northwest mechanics union, "It was a real eye-opener to meet and hear from so many from around the country and the world who are locked in the same type of struggles as us."

Main sessions at the Labor Notes conference are a change for all conference attendees to come together and hear stories of recent labor victories, ideas for building a stronger movement, and accounts of labor struggles from around the world. The speakers list is still in formation. But the main session speakers are expected to include:

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  Lucas Benitez, of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, emigrated from Mexico to work in the tomato fields in Southern Florida. There, he helped organize the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the farmworker-led organization that recently claimed victory in their four year boycott of Taco Bell.