Organizing a Labor Movement for the 21st Century: crisis and opportunities Track US Social Forum Workshops

Sharing lessons learned from the historic campaign led by domestic workers to secure recognition and rights.

Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Campaign: Transforming Relationships, Building Power, and Reversing a History of Injustice

Farm workers in the United States face many issues at their workplaces and communities. Farm workers are some the lowest paid workers in our society, they are exposed to dangerous pesticides, women farm workers are sexually harassed at the workplace and children can legally work in the fields at the age of 12. Learn about these and other issues that affect farm workers and learn how they are organizing to change these conditions.

Farm Worker Conditions in the United States

The historical transition from industrial capital to finance capital presents new challenges and opportunities for creating a better world.

Stages of Capitalism, Class Stratification, and State: Strategies for Labor Organizing and Governance

In May of 1935, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order creating the WPA, the largest public works program in U.S. history. The WPA created 8.5 million jobs during the depression of the 1930s. 75 years later, do the lessons of the WPA offer a fightback strategy to counter the deepening poverty and unemployment facing the US working class? What can be done to spark a resurgence to push back against corporate lay-offs and plant closing, right-wing Tea Party racism and bigotry and government tax breaks and bail-outs of banks and big business? There are more than 30 million unemployed and underemployed people in the country today. Everyone from youth graduating from high school and college, veterans returning from imperialist wars, long-time workers unsure about their future, seniors forced back into the job market, immigrants facing job discrimination and police harassment -- all need jobs or income now! It's time to say no: to a jobless recovery -- to an economy based on permanent high unemployment and low wages — to trillions of $ for Wall St., and trillions of $ for war, but nothing but joblessness, foreclosures, evictions, layoffs, low wages, union-busting, hunger and homelessness for workers and the poor. We need a real WPA-type program that is big enough to ensure that those who need work get work — work that is socially useful, that pays union wages and benefits. This wide-ranging discussion will bring together the experience of youth organizers in Detroit, Baltimore and Raleigh, trade unionists from San Francisco, historians and Bail Out the People Movement organizers – all of whom are building grass-roots support for a massive federally-funded jobs program that eliminates profit-skimming by corporations by directly paying workers to build and repair infrastructure, rehabilitate schools, housing and hospitals, build and beautify parks, walking and bike trails, create public art and advance community participation in culture and sports and so much more needed work.

How to Create 30 Million Jobs Now:The Lessons of the WPA

The TRADE Act is comprehensive trade reform legislation currently in Congress. Learn about its strengths and limitations, and explore its potential role in your organizing.

The TRADE Act as a Tool for Global Justice

In June 1996, representatives from major labor unions and political activists on the Left held the founding convention of the American Labor Party (LP). The organizers of this effort hoped to break the stranglehold on American by the dominance of two major political parties who have manifestly betrayed the interest of working people both domestically and internationally. But by 2010 the Labor Party has stalled. This workshop will draw together activists and labor organizers from diverse backgrounds to share their experiences with the Labor Party, and suggest avenues for further organizing and study.

The Agony of the American Labor Party (LP), 1996 to Present

This PMA will bring together workers who are literally & practically excluded from labor protections to explore how to expand our rights to organize.

Excluded Workers' Congress

Unemployment is devastating our communities. Wall Street recklessness and corporate greed created a national emergency -- but politicians in Washington, DC still don't get it. Share successes and challenges in building the grassroots movement and discuss next steps for putting millions of people to work immediately, and winning Full and Fair Employment.

Good Jobs for All: winning Full and Fair Employment and a New Economy

Manufacturing decline, wall street trashes Michigan Workers. A union fight back strategy, coalitions and "justice" is not "just us".

Impact Financial Restructuring On Michigan Workers and Union Response