TBOU Education Alert- Friday December 4 2009 "The Great Recession and the Battle for Good Jobs in the Black Community "

Dear Friends and supporters of TBOU we would like to pass the word to you about the:

The CUNY Murphy Institute for worker education Fall 2009 series of Labor Breakfast Forums, we are pleased to announce a forum entitled “The Great Recession and the Battle for Good Jobs in the Black Community.” The speakers slated for this important discussion are:

Steven C. Pitts, author of Job Quality and Black Workers-A Multi-City Report and labor policy specialist at the Center for Labor Research and Education, University of California, Berkeley; and
David Jones, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Community Service Society of New York (CSS).
The event will be held on Friday, December 4, 2009, from 8:30 to 10:15 AM, at the Joseph S. Murphy Institute, 25 West 43rd Street, 18th Floor.

While some economists have begun to discuss the formal end of the Great Recession, most also recognize that the economy will likely enter a jobless recovery worse than those following the recessions of 1990 and 2001. This situation promises to have particularly damaging impact on the Black community which entered this recession with disproportionately high level of unemployment and low-wage work. Racially stratified labor markets existed prior to the Great Recession; economic growth policies which ignore this reality will simply reinforce these racial hierarchies. What sort of legislative policies could help to remedy these problems? What new forms of organizing within the black community are needed to wield greater power locally and nationally to improve the quality of jobs held by Black workers? What role should organized labor and other allied movements play? Steven Pitts and David Jones will engage these and other crucial questions in what promises to be a timely and important conversation.


Please be sure to RSVP to Eloiza Morales at 212-642-2029 or eloiza.morales@mail.cuny.edu by Monday, November 30, 2009.
We look forward to seeing you.
Sincerely,
Paula Finn - Associate Director Editor, New Labor Forum
Rich Blint - Coordinator of Special Projects Center for
Labor,Community & Policy Studies

To Stay informed on all labor and community news visit www.tbou.org daily

TBOU Education Alert- Thursday November 19 2009 "The New York State Taylor Law goes International "

TRANSPORT WORKERS CHARGE: NEW YORK'S BAN ON PUBLIC SECTOR STRIKES VIOLATES INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW

What: discussion by distinguished panel of experts on labor law on New York State's Taylor Law pursuant to changes filed with the ILO by TWU Local 100
Where: Columbia Law School, Jerome Greene Hall, Room 102
When: November 19 4:00pm-6:30pm

Transport Workers Union Local 100 today filed a Complaint with the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Geneva. The ILO is a tripartite UN agency that brings together governments, employers and workers of its member states, which include the United States, "in common action to promote decent work throughout the world." The complaint, directed to the ILO's Committee on Freedom of Association, tests the legality and the chilling effects of New York State's Taylor Law in light of ILO standards which protect the freedom of association and collective bargaining as fundamental human rights. The Taylor Law bars all strikes in the public sector, and punishes strikes with extensive fines, imprisonment of union leaders and loss of automatic dues deduction. The complaint alleges that these restrictions on strikes by public sector employees under New York's Taylor Law constitute "a serious infringement on core trade union rights" protected by international law.

To stay informed on all Union and Labor news check www.tbou.org daily

TBOU Education Alert-Monday October 26,2009 " AT THE POINT OF PRODUCTION"

Author's Forum : 5:30 P.M., October 26th, 2009 at Brooklyn College Graduate Center for Worker Education,25 Broadway , 7 floor to RSVP call 212 -966-4014

At the Point of Production The Social Analysis of Occupational and Environmental Health A Collection of Essays Edited by Charles Levenstein.

This book locates workers' health and safety problems in the board political economy, arguing that without a deep understanding of the social/political/economic context of particular industrial hazards.The chapters report a series of case studies, all of which use the " point of production " as framework to investigate particular problems or industries.

The first section of the book focuses on globalization - the impact of privatization on health and safety of workers and communities in Brazil and Mexico. The Next section addresses environmental issues : the unintended effects of environmental regulation on workers, the situation of hazardous waste workers and emergency responders, the implementation of toxic use reduction and the role of workers in pollution prevention. The third section explores the intersection of labor relations with gender relations at the point of production.The last chapters addresses practical issues involved in conducting occupational health research in the contested terrain of the workplace.These chapters were previously published in New solutions Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health Policy.

Sponsors : CUNY/Brooklyn College Graduate Center for Worker Education
Worker USA : Journal of Labor & Society
New Solutions Journal Occupational and Environmental Health Policy

TBOU Education Alert-Monday October 26,2009 " WOMEN ON THE LINE"

On Monday October 26 Join Miriam Glucksmann for talk on her book and experiences:
Thirty Year Reflections on Women on the Line - Changes and Continuities in Women's Work with comments by Linda Gordon of New York University.October 26th From 5:00PM - 7:00PM at The Tamiment Library located at 70 Washington Square South NYU Bobst Library, 10th floor between La Guardia and Greene Street in lower Manhattan for more info contact Michael Nash by email Michael.Nash@nyu.edu to stay updated on all labor education news always visit www.tbou.org

TBOU Education Alert-Friday October 23 " Is Conventional Trade Union Obsolete"

As part of our fall 2009 series of Labor Breakfast Forums, we are pleased to announce a forum entitled “Is Conventional Trade Unionism Obsolete?” The speakers slated for this important discussion have considered these issues from crucial and distinct vantage points: Amy Dean, former Chief Executive Officer, South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council, and author of A New New Deal: How Regional Activism Will Reshape the American Labor Movement; Janice Fine, Assistant Professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations, Rutgers University, and author of Worker Centers: Organizing Communities at the Edge of the Dream; Gerry Hudson, Executive Vice President of the Service Employees International Union and co-founder of the Emerald Cities Project, committed to greening urban economies in equitable and democratically accountable ways; and Aijen Poo, Co-founder and Director, Domestic Workers United, an organization of nannies, housekeepers, and elderly caregivers fighting for power, respect, fair labor standards.

The event will be held on Friday, October 23, 2009, 8:30 – 10:15 AM, at the Murphy Institute, 25 West 43rd Street, 18th Floor.

Despite over a decade of renewed national commitment to organizing, the US labor movement has remained unable to significantly increase union membership. A legal framework that makes union recognition an uphill battle and huge job losses in heavily-unionized manufacturing sectors partly accounts for labor’s diminished size. Yet the fact that only a few unions have committed the resources necessary to support large-scale organizing also contributes to the fact that overall union density now hovers at 12.4%, and is a sobering 7.6% in the private sector. On the political front, organized labor helped to elect Barak Obama, but may be unable to secure the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), its top legislative priority.

These conditions require the labor movement to grapple with some tough questions: How can labor adapt its organizing template of long-term stability in a single workplace to meet the contemporary realities of contingent and globalized labor? Can the structures and objectives of industrial unions meet the challenges workers face in a post-industrial economy? How might American labor make common cause with a diverse, international labor force increasingly vulnerable within a corporate-dominated global economy? Did it make sense for organized labor to have set EFCA its top legislative priority, rather than focusing on universal health care or financial reregulation, for example? Should organized labor refashion itself as a social movement, standing in for what has become an eviscerated Left? Or does that role unfairly burden unions and distract them from fighting the workplace battles of its members? Our speakers will engage these and other difficult questions in what promises to be a timely and important conversation.

Please be sure to RSVP to Eloiza Morales at 212-642-2029 or eloiza.morales@mail.cuny.edu by Monday, October 19, 2009. We look forward to seeing you.To stay informed on all labor and worker news always visit www.tbou.org