Labor EducationApril 7, 2007Coalition of Immokalee Workers In C-U
1. Presentation and Discussion 2. Presentation and Discussion 3. Demonstrations in Chicago at McDonalds Headquarters, April 13-14, buses Posted by higbie at 5:15 PM April 3, 2007Part-Time Faculty: Organizing for PowerSaturday, April 21st, 2007 Part-Time Faculty: Organizing for Power Featured Keynote Presenter: Bucky Halker, Labor Historian and Musician Session topics: Building Power Among Our Locals, Legislation Impacting Higher Education, External Relationships And Bargaining, Benefits For Part-Time Faculty, Resources Available Through IEA. A $10 registration fee includes lunch. Advance registration is preferred. For more information please contact Meredith Byers, director, IEA Higher Education, at Meredith.Byers@ieanea.org . Posted by higbie at 9:34 PM March 28, 2007Jobs with Justice May Day CelebrationMay Day / Workers Memorial Solidarity Day Location tenatively at Illinois Disciples Foundation ( North-West corner of Springfield and Wright st., Champaign). This event is in honor of the campaign for the eight-hour day ( Haymarket in Chicago 1886 ) and those who died to make the eight hour day a reality. Also honoring those workers locally and nationally who have died on the job-site. But in particular, this event will also be a living celebration of the recent struggles by the University of Illinois Unions ( IEA ( Illinois Education Assoc. ), IFT ( Illinois Federation of Teachers ), AFSCME, and SEIU ) for a fair and decent contract. An event to honor these brave and UNIFIED fighting Unions for their struggle and the struggle of ALL Working People in their pursuit of a just and decent standard of living ! Come join us in a celebration of music, food, fun, and solidarity Anne Feeney is CONFIRMED to be performing ( 5pm - 7pm ) For more information and to volunteer please contact ; David Johnson 356-8247 or unionyes@ameritech.net or Germaine Light germainelight@sbcglobal.net Posted by higbie at 11:35 AM March 25, 2007Chicago Labor Education Program UpdateMarch 24, 2006 David Bacon, APRIL 24, 4-6 pm.
Posted by higbie at 9:57 PM March 22, 2007Central Illinois Jobs with Justice UpdateCentral Illinois Jobs with Justice In this update: 1. Steering Committee Meeting, Saturday March 24, 2007, 10 AM IDF 1. Steering Committee Meeting, Saturday March 24, 10 AM IDF 2. Coalition of Immokole Workers events: "Behind the Golden Arches" Come see this documentary presentation focussing on conditions for America's impoverished, mostly immigrant tomato pickers and the struggles of these workers to improve their lives. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworker organization, is asking McDonald's to pay a penny a pound more for its tomatoes, as Taco Bell agreed to do in 2005. McDonald's is refusing. Come hear the Immokalee Workers' plan, and how you can help. www.ciw-online.org Farmworkers with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and students with the Student-Farmworker Alliance will be in Champaign-Urbana Monday and Tuesday April 9-10. There will be several events, including a public rally/protest against McDonald's on campus. Big rallies/protests will follow at McDonald's headquarters in Chicagoland Friday and Saturday April 13-14. Local contact: Ricky, 328-3037 or baldwinricky@yahoo.com. 3. Rev. Mike Mulberry speaks on Oaxaca, March 28 OAXACA Witness for Peace Presentation -- Mar. 28, 2007. Sponsored by AWARE [Rescheduled due to bad weather on its originally planned February date.] Wednesday, March 28, 7:00 PM 4. Rev. Charles Bayer on "Bring Them To Justice: Putting Faith Into Action." Wednesday, March 28, 7:00 PM Sponsored by IDF. Contact: Jen Tayabji, 352-8721. 5. City council and school board elections, April 17 There are local elections for city council and school board in Champaign and Urbana on April 17. Jobs with Justice is a 501c3 and cannot endorse candidates or participate in candidate campaigns. But we can publicize the date and encourage people to participate. Turnout in these elections is usually low. There are economic justice issues 6. Anne Feeney at IDF April 28 7. Organizing Institute, AFL-CIO, www.organize.aflcio.org 2-Day Member Training: These trainings are for union members to give them essential organizing skills so that they can organize on any type of campaign. April 21-22, St. Paul, MN 3-Day Organizer Training: These trainings are offered to members and non-members to give the basic skills needed to organize non-union workers. June 22-24 Chicago, IL 8. US Social Forum, Atlanta June 27-July 1st From National Jobs with Justice: Plans are well underway for the first U.S. Social Forum to take place in Atlanta June 27-July 1st, and attendance is expected to be 5,000-15,000. The USSF will provide space to build relationships with other activists and movement building organizations in the U.S., learn from each other's experiences, share our analysis of the problems our communities face, and bring renewed insight and inspiration. It will help develop leadership and develop consciousness, vision, and strategy needed to realize another world. The USSF sends a message to other people's movements around the world that there is an active movement in the US opposing US Policies at home and abroad. We must declare what we want our world to look like and begin planning the path to get there. A global movement is rising. The USSF is our opportunity to demonstrate to Jobs with Justice nationally is helping to organize parts of the USSF; JwJ is on the national planning committee for the forum, we are helping facilitate a labor working group, we are planning a series of workshops, Atlanta JwJ has proposed the major action that everyone will participate in, we are planning a party to take place during the Forum that will celebrate JwJ's 20th Anniversary, and most importantly, we are organizing a JwJ delegation to "be there". Since we have postponed our JwJ National Conference to 2008 and since we expect hundreds of JwJ activists to attend the Forum, we will use the USSF as an opportunity to do some sharing and thinking among our own network as well as the larger USSF. Posted by higbie at 11:53 AM January 8, 2007CLEP Update, January 3, 2007Chicago Labor Education Program Update BASIC AND ADVANCED CERTIFICATE CLASSES START JANUARY 16, 2007 BASIC CERTIFICATE ADVANCED CERTIFICATE SPANISH LANGUAGE CERTIFICATE NATIONAL LABOR COLLEGE CLASSES Comparative Labor Movements: Monday evenings, Feb 5 - April 9, 6-9 pm Political Economy of Labor: Thursday evenings, February 8 - April 12, 6-9 pm History of the Labor Movement: Saturdays Feb 17, March 17 and April 14, from 9-4. We now hold monthly Jumpstarts for people who are working on their portfolios for the Ed Planning class. The next Ed Planning class is January 26 and 27, 2007. UNITED ASSOCIATION FOR LABOR EDUCATION CONFERENCE MARCH 8-11 HEALTHCARE CONFERENCE MARCH 18-21, 2007 NURSES IN ILLINOIS FORUM POSTPONED TO JUNE 22, 2007 REGINA POLK WOMEN'S LABOR LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE MAY 16, 2007 MIDWEST SCHOOL FOR WOMEN WORKERS in IOWA, IOWA CITY, July 30 through August 3. Contact Jennifer Sherer at the University of Iowa Labor Center for more information, 319-335-4144 or jennifer-sherer@iowa.edu. The Polk Fund has provided some scholarships for this 2007 school. TWO NEW BOOKLETS AVAILABLE SCHOLARSHIPS We are making a list of scholarships that are available to students who want to get a BA in Labor Studies. We know of three so far, in addition to our own Debs scholarships which have already been awarded for Spring 2007. Deadline March 1, 2007. For SEIU members, their children, or SEIU union staff: The John Geagan Scholarship, $5,000 or $2,500 per year for any labor studies program where college credit is awarded (for example, for our National Labor College classes). Information available at www.seiu.org/mbe.scholarships or call Alva Hines, at 202-730-7179 or email her at hinesa@seiu.org. We have some applications here at the Deadline January 31, 2007. One-time cash award for students attending or planning to attend a college or university for undergraduate study, ranging from $500 to $4,000. Current and retired members of AFL-CIO unions, spouses and dependent children. This is the Union Plus scholarship program. Go to www.unionplus.org/benefits/education/scholarships/up,cfm Deadline already passed: AFSCME has the Joey Parisi and Nadra Floyd scholarships, which have already been awarded for this year. However, AFSCME members can apply for next year. Applications for both scholarships are obtainable through the National Labor College at www.nlc.edu (new website - the old one doesn't work any more). Use the search box on the website to search for "scholarships" or call 202-429-1250. Chicago Labor Education Program CLEP is Part of the UIUC Labor Education Program Posted by higbie at 12:28 PM November 7, 2006Chicago Labor Education Program UpdateWHAT WRITERS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CONTRACTS CERTIFICATE CLASSES BASIC CERTIFICATE ADVANCED CERTIFICATE SPANISH LANGUAGE CERTIFICATE NATIONAL LABOR COLLEGE CLASSES Comparative Labor Movements: Monday, Feb 5 - April 9, 6-9 pm Political Economy of Labor: Thursday, February 8 - April 12, 6-9 pm History of the Labor Movement: Saturday Feb 17, March 17 and April 14. We now hold monthly Jumpstarts for people who are working on their
POLK GALA THURSDAY DEC. 7, 4:30 - 7 pm HEALTHCARE CONFERENCE MARCH 18-21, 2007 NURSES IN ILLINOIS FORUM MARCH 19, 2007 REGINA POLK WOMEN'S LABOR LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE MAY 16, 2007
Helena Worthen Posted by higbie at 2:09 PM April 1, 2006Technology: Social BookmarkingThe internet has loads of resources for labor activits, but the chaos of the net sometimes makes specific information hard to find. Try Googling "union." You get 507 million hits. It's enough to make you want to watch TV. Lately people (including union activists) have been using a new tool called "social bookmarking" to identify and share useful websites. One of the most popular social bookmarking services is called Delicious, and it's free. Del.icio.us and other social bookmarking services allow registered users to save links to websites in an online library. It's exactly like the Favorites list or Bookmarks folder on your web browser, but stored remotely so you can find it even if you use different computers (as long as all your computers are connected to the internet). When you save a link, del.icio.us allows you to describe the link with keywords, or "tags." You can use as many tags as you like, and the service keeps track of all your tags so you can search your library. The service also lets you know how other people are tagging a particular link. You can search the entire del.icio.us link library on specific "tags" to see what other people with similar interests are looking at, and you can make combined searches by using a 'plus' sign between tags. Below we have rigged a javascript that displays the most recent six links tagged with "labor" and "union" (labor + union). As people tag new items with both tags, those links should show up on the list. Just imagine if thousands of union activists used del.icio.us and tagged every useful site "labor" and "union." Very soon we would have a good index of labor online. So go to it! A word of caution, your del.icio.us library is completely public and visible to all other users of the service. This is a service that only works by sharing information freely. So use it with that in mind.
Posted by higbie at 6:18 PM March 26, 2006Technology: Text MessagingThe newest thing in political organizing is using mobile phones and text messaging to reach supporters and get them to act. During the Roberts and Alito Supreme Court confirmation hearings the People for the American Way set up www.savethecourt.org to coordinate their campaign against the nominees. As part of this, they created a “Mass Immediate Response” system, which sent text messages to supporters urging them to contact members of Congress at crucial moments during the confirmation process. In the Philippines, cell phone ring tones helped to spark a movement to impeach the country’s president after a recording surfaced in which she appeared to discuss vote rigging. Also, union organizers working in the hostile export sector use cell phone text messaging to alert members and potential members to upcoming meetings, major grievances, and other job actions. The union gathers basic contact information for everyone who comes to meetings, whether or not members, and then uses a free online service called Chikka to distribute text messages from Internet cafés. Most commercial cell phone services in the U.S. allow for similar functions. Important issues to consider with text messaging include 1) most people consider their cell phones private and do not want unsolicited messages. So you must get people to explicitly opt in to the program. Anything that resembles spam will generate hostility. 2) Messages must be short and useful. The screens are small. They should contain information people want. 3) The text messages should make action easier for your members and supporters. For more information see the following: The Politics-to-Go Handbook: A Guide to Using Mobile Technology in Politics (Institute for Politics, Democracy, and the Internet at George Washington University, 2005). Buy it for $20 including shipping at www.ipdi.org/publications. MobileActive: Cell Phones for Civic Engagement is a global network of activists and campaigners using mobile phones for civic action and engagement. WinkSite (Wireless Ink) is a service that allows registered users to set up web content that is laid out in a way that makes it readable on cell phones. According to their site, they are “a community-focused microcontent publishing platform designed for personal expression and social networking for those who enjoy a mobile lifestyle.” Posted by higbie at 8:57 PM Technology: Blogs for LaborWeb logs (a.k.a., Blogs): Easy Online Publishing The term blog is a contraction of web log. A blog is a website on which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. Blogs often focus on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news. Some blogs function as online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Since its appearance in 1995, blogging has emerged as a popular means of communication, affecting public opinion and mass media around the world. (adapted from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLOGhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLOG). The act of writing posts for a blog is known as “blogging,” and a person who writes or contributes to a blog is known as a “blogger.” The easiest and cheapest way to set up a blog is though the free service called Blogger www.blogger.com, which is owned by Yahoo! It takes about 5 minutes to register and set up a basic blog, and an evening of fiddling to get things just the way you want them. There are several other programs and services for bloggers, but in my experience Blogger is the easiest to start with, and is flexible enough to expand with your needs. Blogger hosts a wide array of blogs: personal diaries and political rants, artistic projects, and organizational blogs. If your local has the financial and technical support, you may want to host your blog on your own computers. Blogs can work as a central place to post information about your union—in this case they are just a convenient and inexpensive way to have a website. But the potential of blogs to spark discussion and move people to action is more important. Blogs can be a place to foster discussion about issues of concern to union members. They can even invite the public at large to enter a dialogue with unions about policy issues that impact union members lives. To be a discussion forum, you must enable the comment function. WARNING: if you choose to have comments, you should be ready for negative, and even hostile comments. There are ways to limit malicious comments, and to create a delay so that the blog editor can view comments before they go live. However, you don’t want to make your readers think you are censoring them. This is a sure way to turn them off and create more hostility. During the New York City transit strike last December, the union set up a blog as a back up to their website. For the first several hours of the strike they left the comment function on with the result that they received over 600 comments, many of them extremely hostile. By noon on the first day of the strike, the union turned off the comment function.
American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE): UnionBlog American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has a blog dedicated to one issue: the federal law known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). NCLB: Let’s Get It Right Starbucks Workers Union Cleveland, Ohio, Central Labor Council hosts a blog written by its executive secretary, John Ryan of the CWA For more information see… Sharon R. Pinnock, “Organizing Virtual Environments: National Union Deployment of the Blog and new Cyberstrategies,” WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society 8(June 2005): 457-468. Also at http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/loi/wusa. Posted by higbie at 4:58 PM Technology: Open Source and UnionsOpen Source Software and Open Access to Information The commercialization of the Internet has been a double-edged sword. On the one hand, we have many more applications, more content, and better search engines than we did in the recent past. On the other hand, commercialization threatens to undermine the promise of the Internet to deliver inexpensive information to any one within reach of a networked computer. The single most important thing you can do to cut down on unnecessary commercialization is to use “open source” software whenever possible. In the case of web browsing, there really is no reason to use a commercial program because Mozilla Firefox http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ is free, and it is probably the best browser out there. In recent years, large media companies have led the charge to make copyright more restrictive. In general, this benefits stockholders over the public and artists. It means that ever fewer works of art, literature, and commentary enter the “public domain” where they can be freely shared. In an effort to balance out the drive to copyright everything, many are turning to the Creative Commons licensing system, which allows authors, artists, and musicians to tailor their copyright in order balance the needs of audiences for free access to information and their own need to retain control over their creations. For more information see http://creativecommons.org/ Posted by higbie at 4:54 PM |
Labor in Illinois
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