Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 18:19:16 -0800 (PST) To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: SAWSJ Conference, April 24-26 Below is the initial call for the SAWSJ Teach-In and First Annual Meeting, along with a registration form to be mailed in. You will be receiving a more detailed program schedule, but at this time we invite you to pass the word along and, of course, to register. We look forward to seeing you in Washington. Onward, SAWSJ! ************************************************************************** DEMOCRACY AND THE RIGHT TO ORGANIZE: A NATIONAL LABOR TEACH-IN April 24-26, 1998 George Washington University Washington, D.C. Scholars, Artists, and Writers for Social Justice is sponsoring an important public event this spring, entitled "Democracy and the Right to Organize: A National Labor Teach-in." This convocation, which will be held April 24-26 on the George Washington University campus in Washington, D. C., will bring together hundreds of academics, students, trade unionists, and social activists to explain, advocate, debate, and celebrate the right of all Americans to organize, both on the job and off. Plenary speakers on the evening of Friday, April 24, include Julian Bond, civil rights activist recently elected chair of the NAACP board of directors; John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO; Kimberle Crenshaw, Columbia University professor of law; Steve Fraser, editor and writer; Juliet Schor, Harvard University economist; and Robin D. G. Kelley, New York University historian. More than a dozen workshops, plus the first annual meeting of Scholars, Artists, and Writers for Social Justice, will be held on Saturday, April 25. SAWSJ, whose members have sponsored more than a score of labor teach-ins at universities and colleges across the country, believes that democracy and dignity at work and in American society requires the right to self-organization. But tens of millions of American workers are today denied this essential right. SAWSJ insists that whatever legal, political, managerial, or bureaucratic obstacles stand in the way of a genuinely unfettered right to organize must be swept aside in the interests of American democracy itself. This is a task, not only for the labor movement, but for all those who want to make the Bill of Rights a living document in the 21st century. Saturday workshops will include sessions on labor and political action, the future of the Teamsters union, organizing the South, labor and the law, student activism, labor's connection to other social movements, and more. Among those who will be speaking at these workshops are legal scholar Karl Klare; Ken Paff of Teamsters for a Democratic Union; historians Gary Gerstle, David Brody, Andor Skotnes, and Nelson Lichtenstein; student activist Ligaya Domingo; sociologists Allen Hunter, Dan Clawson, Stanley Aronowitz, and Lynn Chancer; American studies scholar Nikhil Singh; labor educators Elaine Bernard, Kate Bronfenbrenner and Tom Juravich; and numerous trade unionists, including Bruce Raynor, Lane Windham, and Joe Uehlein. Tami Gold and Kelly Anderson, co-producers of the documentary film _Out at Work_, will also participate. SAWSJ will hold its first annual meeting on Sunday, April 26, where it will elect its first set of officers. The group envisions a movement that can reshape the nation's political culture and foster the growth of a vibrant, militant, multicultural working-class movement. The labor movement needs an academic, cultural, and intellectual community that helps shape the terms of public debate, contesting corporate dominance of politics and culture. In turn, professors, students, artists, and writers need a progressive unionism that can provide a powerful voice for social justice. The time is ripe to restore that mutually empowering relationship that once gave hope and dynamism to the labor movement and its allies in the academic and cultural communities. To register, to join SAWSJ, and/or to be added to our e-mail mailing list, please print out a copy of the form below and mail it in with your check (made payable to SAWSJ), to: SAWSJ 2565 Broadway, #176 New York, NY 10025 For more information, or if you would like to volunteer to work on the conference, please contact Tami J. Friedman: tjf3@columbia.edu You can also check our website: http://www.sage.edu/html/SAWSJ If your organization would like to have a display table at the conference, please fax your request to Michael Kazin at 301-656-8145. We will do our best to accommodate you. **************************************************************************** 1. CONFERENCE REGISTRATION "Democracy and the Right to Organize," April 24-26, Washington, D.C. Name: Street address: City, state and zip: Organizational affiliation: Home phone: Work phone: E-mail: FAX: CONFERENCE REGISTRATION FEE: $5 student/low income (circle one) $10 Friday night session only $20 all others 2. SAWSJ MEMBERSHIP MEMBERSHIP DUES: $10 student/low income (circle one) $25 others with incomes below $40,000 $40 for those with incomes of $40,000 or above 3. SAWSJ E-MAIL MAILING LIST: You will receive timely information about SAWSJ activities and other labor-related programs, resources, etc. ___ I am currently on the list. ___ I am not on the list. Please add my e-mail address. ___ Please do not add my e-mail address to the list. Make checks payable to SAWSJ (Scholars, Artists, and Writers for Social Justice). Mail them to SAWSJ, 2565 Broadway, #176, New York, NY 10025 . *******************************************************************************