Globalization, Labour, and Inequality

Southwest Labor Studies Association conference

Southwest Labor Studies Association Conference
May 9-11, 2002
California State University
Los Angeles 5151 State University Dr

Theme "Globalization, Labor, and Inequality Within and Across Borders"

Thursday, May 9

5:00 Registration-Program Area, University Student Union (2nd Floor)
6:00-9:00 Film and Reception: "Made in India" Maxwell Theatre

Friday, May 10

8:00 Registration-Program Area, University Student Union (2nd Floor)

Session 1 9:00-10:30

1. Alhambra Room A
Labor Organizing in Strategic Industries: World War II and California
Ports Chair: Wythe Holt, University Alabama Law School
-- Norman Dolnick, Formerly Editor and Legislative Director of the United Packinghouse Workers of America, CIO, "Reflection on the National War Labor Board and What Good Was it"
-- Josh Kirshner, UCLA, "High Road Strategies in Logistics: Institutions, Networks, and Workforce Development"
-- Joong-Jae Lee, University of Wisconsin, Platteville, "Defense Workers in World War II"

2. Los Angeles Room A
Cross-Border Organizing: The U.S. and Mexico
Chair: Alejandra Marchevsky, CSU Los Angeles
-- Haydee Urita, UCLA, "Gender and Labor Rights in a Binational Campaign: Gender and Livelihood of Maquiladora Workers in Coahuila, Mexico"
-- Juan DeLara, UCLA Labor Center, "Organizing a Border Health and Safety Campaign: Confronting NAFTA, Charro Unions, and Imposing Americanos"
-- Veronica Carrizales, ENLACE, "Building a Transnational Campaign from the Bottom-Up: Resources, Strategic Planning, Organizing Challenges, and Capacity Building"

3. Alhambra Room B
Immigrants, Ethnicity, and Community Organizing
Chair: Rita Ledesma, CSU Los Angeles
-- Nancy Cohen, Research Scholar, UCLA Center for the Study of Women, "Worker Empowerment and Community Organizing in Contemporary Los Angeles: Two Cases from the Field"
-- David Diaz, CSU Northridge, "Politics and Immigrants in the 2001 Mayoral Election in Los Angeles"
-- David Kamper, UCLA, "Organizing Navajo Workers: The Cultural and Linguistic Challenges of Cross-Cultural Union Organizing"

Session 2 10:45-12:15

4. Alhambra Room A
Workers, Peasants, and Social Movements in Latin America
Chair: Ra=FAl Fern=E1ndez, UC Irvine
-- Tanalis Padilla, Pomona College, "Workers, Campesinos and the Struggle to Preserve Cardenismo in Mexico during the 1940s"
-- Miguel Tinker-Salas, Pomona College, "Venezuela Under Hugo Ch=E1vez: From Model Democracy to Insurgent Nation?"
-- Iván Gutiérrez, CSU Dominguez Hills, "Mexico's 'Dirty War' and the Left in Historical Perspective"
-- Line Schjolden, UC Berkeley, "Suing for Justice: Labor's Experience in the Courts in Early Twentieth Century Argentina"

5. Alhambra Room B
Case Studies in Social Movement Unionism
Chair: Dianne Layden, Santa Fe Community College
-- Michael Danielson, Monterey Institute of International Studies, "The Promise of Social Movement Unionism: The Case of the Citizenship Project and Teamsters Local 890 in the Salinas Valley"
-- Jim Smith, Editor, L.A. Labor News, "The Corporatization of Unions"
-- J.W. Smith, The Institute for Cooperative Capitalism and The Institute for Economic Democracy, "Pushing Neo-Liberal Nonsense Off the Table So We Can Create an economic philosophy to Provide a Respectable living for all labor and all people"
-- Jenifer Vernon, UC San Diego, "The Justice for Janitor's Campaign in San Diego"

6. Los Angeles Room A
Immigrant and Multiracial Organizing in Los Angeles: A Roundtable
Organizer: Mayron Payes, CHIRLA

12:30-1:30 Business Meeting, Montebello Room -- Lunch on Your Own

Session 3 1:45-3:15

7. Los Angeles Room A
Radical Community and Labor Organizing
Chair: Dana Frank, UC Santa Cruz
-- Kathy Brown, St. Edward's University, Austin, "California Communist Activities in the 1920s"
-- Enrique M. Buelna, UC Irvine, "Resistance From The Margins: Mexican American Radical Activism in Los Angeles, 1940-1960"
-- Kenneth Burt, California Federation of Teachers and UC Berkeley, "Vice President Henry Wallace and the Linking of Latino and Latin American Struggles"
-- Donald F. Tibbs, Arizona State University, "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back!: Prisoner Politics and the Radical Prisoner Labor Union Movement in North Carolina"

8. Alhambra Room A
Labor Studies Programs: A Roundtable
Chair: June McMahon
-- Frank Stricker, CSU Dominguez Hills
-- Katarina Davis, SEIU
-- Gilbert G. González, UC Irvine
-- John McDowell, LA Trade Tech
-- William Bollinger, CSU Los Angeles

9. Alhambra Room B
Student Community-Labor Organizing: A Roundtable
Chair: Valerie Martin CSU Los Angeles
-- Leslie Bunnage, UC Irvine
-- Melina Simonds, People Against War, Glendale College
-- Reeana Gleason, Students for Social Justice, Pasadena City College

Session 4 3:30-5:00

10. Alhambra Room A
A Case Study in "Managed Migration": The Mexican Contract Labor Program, 1942-1964
Chair: Gilbert G. Gonz=E1lez, UC Irvine
-- Gilbert G. González, UC Irvine, "New Guest Worker Program, NAFTA, and the American Empire"
-- Henry Anderson, Independent Labor Historian, "Labor's Uncertain Trumpet: The Bureau of Employment Security"
-- Kitty Calavita, UC Irvine, "A Grower's Dream of Heaven": Immigration and Naturalization Service"

11. Alhambra Room B
Organizing Contingent Labor in the Ivory Tower: Trends in California, the United States, and Canada
Chair: Craig Flanery, CSU Los Angeles
-- Elizabeth Hoffman, CSU Long Beach, and Associate Vice President, California Faculty Association, Representing Lecturers, "Dare We Call it a Movement? Trends in Collective Bargaining in the U.S. and California State University"
-- Rene Castro, Southern California Organizing Director, California Faculty Association, "Strategies for Organizing Faculty; Lessons from Other Unions in Organizing Contingent Labor"
-- Mary Ellen Goodwin, DeAnza College and California Part-Time Faculty Association (CPFA), "Building Collaborations in Community Colleges: Strategies for Uniting Faculty, Students, and other Campus Workers"-- "Contingent Labor Organizing in Canadian Higher Education; Models for the U.S?"
-- Craig Flanery, CSU Los Angeles, and Lecturer Representative, California Faculty Association, "The Spirit of Job Actions; Organizing Faculty While Fighting a Contract Battle"

12. Los Angeles Room A
What Can Be Learned from Past Class Struggles?: Successes and Defeats
Chair: Terry Kandal, CSU Los Angeles
-- Terry Kandal, CSU Los Angeles, "Finding Working Class Struggles in the Shadows of Racial/Ethnic and Gender Politics: Lessons for the Past"
-- Jeff Stansbury, UCLA, "Outside Looking In: The Surprising Power of Politically Marginalized Labor in Los Angeles, 1890-1915"
-- Anne Winkler-Morey, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, "Transnational Labor Solidarity and Anti-imperialism: The Intersection of Two Inter-war Social Movements. United States, Mexico and the Caribbean region; 1918-1929"

13. Los Angeles Room B
Globalization, Work Conditions and Union Organizing
Chair: Goetz Wolff, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor
-- Garrett Brown, Maquiladora Health and Safety Support Network, "Globalization's Impact on Occupational Safety and Health: The Case of Sports Shoe Factories in China and Indonesia"
-- James Devine, Loyola Marymount University, "A Framework for Understanding Increasing Wage and Salary Inequality in the United States"
-- Anibel Ferus-Comelo, University of London, "Re-Scaling Labour Organizing Strategies Under Economic Globalization: The Case of Electronics Production"

Dinner 5:30-9:00 Alumni Lounge
Keynote: Dr. Kevin Danaher, Global Exchange, "Lessons from Porto Alegre: How to Grow a Grassroots, Fair Trade Economy in an Age ofCorporate Globalization"
Entertainment: Los Jornaleros del Norte, A Day Laborer Musical Group working with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles (CHIRLA)

Saturday, May 11

8:00-12:00 Registration-Program Area, University Student Union (2nd Floor)

Session 1 9:00-10:30

14. Alhambra Room A
Labor, Politics, and Revolution in Mexican History
Chair: Martín Valadez, Stanford University
-- Jeff Bortz, Appalachian State University, "Hiring, Firing, and Discipline in Mexican Cotton Textile Factories During the Revolution"
-- Juan Gómez-Quinoñes, UCLA, "Partido Liberal Mexicano: Futurepast"
-- Myrna Santiago, St Mary's College, Moraga, "The Mexican Oil Workers and Lazaro Cardenas: The Revolution from Below"
-- Eric Schantz, UCLA, "Alien Prostitutes in the Mexican Border, 1906-1914: Globalization, Sex Commerce, and Immigration Policies in Baja California"

15. Alhambra Room B
Class and Labor in Hollywood
Chair: Nelson Lichtenstein, UC Santa Barbara
-- Craig Loftin, USC, "Rethinking the Blacklist: Labor and Communist Hysteria in the Movie Studies, 1945-1948"
-- Laurie Pintar, TBA-- Clark Davis, CSU Fullerton, "The Grey Flannel Peril: The Male Career Dilemma in Postwar Corporate Culture"

16. Los Angeles Room B
What About Unrepresented Workers' Rights in CA?
Chair: Tommy Donahoe, CSU Dominguez Hills
-- Peter Zschiesche, Employee Rights Center
-- Heide Solbrig, UC San Diego
-- Juliann Sum, UC Berkeley Institute of Industrial Relations

Session 2 10:45-12:15

17. Alhambra Room A
Globalization and Class Struggle
Chair: Kim Geron, CSU Hayward
-- Victor Rodriguez, CSU Long Beach, "Race and Ethnicity and Class in the Context of Working Class Solidarity: Trade Union Support for Anti-Military Struggles in Vieques, Puerto Rico"
-- Tryon P. Woods, UC Irvine, "Detroit, Bagdad, and Kabul: Transnationalism and Oil Production"
-- Marty Otanez, UC Irvine, "Tobacco Labor, Engaged Anthropology, and Corporate Power"

18. Alhambra Room B
Reflections on César Chávez and the Organization of Farm Workers
Organizer: Hub Segur, Menlo College

19. Los Angeles Room A
Race, Class, Gender and Public Higher Education in California: A Roundtable
Chair: Blanca Casteneda, CSU Los Angeles
-- Steve Teixeira, CSU Los Angeles
-- Sadot Chavez, CSU Dominguez Hills
-- Lil Taiz, CSU Los Angeles and California Faculty Association

20. Los Angeles Room B
Union Organizing in Baja California's Maquiladoras
Chair: Fred Lonidier, UC San Diego
-- Fred Lonidier, UC San Diego
-- Enrique Davalos, San Diego City College and Universidad Autónoma de Baja California
-- Robert Herr, United Farm Workers of America

Lunch 12:30-2:00 Alumni Lounge
Keynote: Grace Chang, Evergreen State College, Washington, "Globalization in Living Color: Women of Color Living Under the 'New World Order'"
Entertainment: Bettie Mae Fikes, SNCC Freedom Singer, Blues and Gospel Performer

Session 3 2:15-3:30

21. Alhambra Room A
Latina/o Migrations and Organizing in Los Angeles
Chair: Gilda Ochoa, Pomona College
-- José Calderón, Pitzer College, "Connecting the Classroom to Labor Organizing: Lessons from Pomona's Day Labor Center"
-- Myrna Donahoe, CSU Dominguez Hills, "Organizing and Reorganizing in Southeast Los Angeles: A Historic Perspective of IndustrialDevelopment"
-- Martín Valadez, Stanford University, "Mexican Immigrants and the Making of Los Angeles"

22. Alhambra Room B
Middle East Labor and Migration
Chair: Afshin Matin-asgari, CSU Los Angeles
-- Efraim Davidi, Tel-Aviv University, "From Rio Grande to Gaza Strip: NAFTA as a Model for the Economic Relations Between Israel and Palestine"
-- Jonathan Friedlander, UCLA, "Sojourners and Settlers: The Yemenis of the San Joaquin Valley"
-- Eric Hooglund, Institute for Palestine Studies, "Rural Labor in Post-Revolutionary Iran"
-- Jennifer Olmstead, Occidental College, "Have Israeli Closure Policies Exacerbated Income Differences in the Occupied Territories?"

23. Maxwell Theatre
Documentary Film and Social Activism: Video Presentations and Discussion
Chair: Richard T. Rodriguez, CSU Los Angeles
-- Judy Branfman, UCLA Center for the Study of Women, "The Land of Orange Grove and Jails"
-- Joan Sekler, Documentarian, "American Coup D'Etat: Stolen Presidential Election of 2000"
-- Marty Otanez, UC Irvine, "Thangata: Debt, Labor, and U.S. Transnational Corporations in Malawi (Africa)"

SWSLA Hotel Information
Pasadena Hilton (union)
150 S. Los Robles
Pasadena, CA 91101
626-577-1000
Rate: $149

Wyndham Commerce (non-union)
5757 Telegraph Rd
Commerce, CA 90040
323-887-8100
Ask for Labor Conference rate: $79

Freemont Inn (non-union)
2221 W. Commonwealth Ave
Alhambra, CA 91203
626-281-8297
moderate budget hotel near campus

Motel 6 (non-union)
3429 Peck Rd
El Monte, CA 91731
626-448-6660
moderate budget hotel near freeway. Approx. 10 miles from campus

There is Lodging on Campus for 8 people in a shared facility. Please contact Celia Simonds-Hidalgo (323-343-2298).