How Class Works - 2014

PLEASE POST AND FORWARD WIDELY - DEADLINE DECEMBER 11, 2013

PLEASE SEND ALL QUERIES AND PROPOSALS DIRECTLY TO <michael.zweig@stonybrook.edu> 

DO NOT REPLY DIRECTLY TO THIS ANNOUNCEMENT

          HOW CLASS WORKS - 2014

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS
A Conference at SUNY Stony Brook
June 5-7, 2014

The Center for Study of Working Class Life is pleased to announce the How Class Works –2014 Conference, to be held at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, June 5-7, 2014.  Proposals for papers, presentations, and sessions are welcome until December 11, 2013 according to the guidelines below.  For more information, visit our Web site at <www.stonybrook.edu/workingclass>.
Purpose and orientation: The conference seeks to explore ways in which an explicit recognition of class helps to understand the social world in which we live, and ways in which analysis of society can deepen our understanding of class as a social relationship. Presentations should take as their point of reference the lived experience of class; proposed theoretical contributions should be rooted in and illuminate social realities. Presentations are welcome from people outside academic life when they sum up social experience in a way that contributes to the themes of the conference.  Formal papers will be welcome but are not required. All presentations should be accessible to an interdisciplinary audience.Conference themes: The conference welcomes proposals for presentations that advance our understanding of any of the following themes.

The mosaic of class, race, and gender. To explore how class shapes racial, gender, and ethnic experience and how different racial, gender, and ethnic experiences within various classes shape the meaning of class. 

Class dimensions of poverty. To explore why and how poverty is something that happens to the working class, not some marginal "other" at the bottom of society..  

Class, power, and social structure. To explore the social content of working, middle, and capitalist classes in terms of various aspects of power; to explore ways in which class and structures of power interact, at the workplace and in the broader society.

Class and community. To explore ways in which class operates outside the workplace in the communities where people of various classes live.

Class in a global economy. To explore how class identity and class dynamics are influenced by globalization, including experience of cross-border organizing, capitalist class dynamics, international labor standards.

Middle class? Working class? What's the difference and why does it matter? To explore the claim that the U.S. is a middle class society and contrast it with the notion that the working class is the majority; to explore the relationships between the middle class and the working class, and between the middle class and the capitalist class.
                                         

Class, public policy, and electoral politics. To explore how class affects public policy, with special attention to health care, the criminal justice system, labor law, poverty, tax and other economic policy, housing, and education; to explore the place of electoral politics in the arrangement of class forces on policy matters.

Class and culture: To explore ways in which culture transmits and transforms class dynamics.

Pedagogy of class. To explore techniques and materials useful for teaching about class, at K-12 levels, in college and university courses, and in labor studies and adult education courses.

How to submit proposals for How Class Works – 2014 Conference

Proposals for presentations must include the following information: a) title; b) which of the eight conference themes will be addressed; c) a maximum 250 word summary of the main points, methodology, and slice of experience that will be summed up; d) relevant personal information indicating institutional affiliation (if any) and what training or experience the presenter brings to the proposal; e) presenter's name, address, telephone, fax, and e-mail address. A person may present in at most two conference sessions. To allow time for discussion, sessions will be limited to three twenty-minute or four fifteen-minute principal presentations. Sessions will not include official discussants.  Proposals for poster sessions are welcome.  Presentations may be assigned to a poster session.

Proposals for sessions are welcome. A single session proposal must include proposal information for all presentations expected to be part of it, as detailed above, with some indication of willingness to participate from each proposed session member.

Submit proposals as an e-mail attachment to michael.zweig@stonybrook.edu or as hard copy by mail to the How Class Works  - 2014 Conference, Center for Study of Working Class Life, Department of Economics, SUNY, Stony Brook, NY 11794-4384.

Timetable:  Proposals must be received by December 11, 2013. After review by the program committee, notifications will be mailed on January 17, 2014. The conference will be at SUNY Stony Brook June 5-7, 2014.  Conference registration and housing reservations will be possible after March 3, 2014. Details and updates will be posted at http://www.stonybrook.edu/workingclass.

Conference coordinator:

Michael Zweig

Director, Center for Study of Working Class Life
Department of Economics

State University of New York 
Stony Brook, NY 11794-4384

631.632.7536    

michael.zweig@stonybrook.edu                 

##

Two views. Which way for organized labor and the working class.

Listen to this. Richard Trumka's main speech to the AFL-CIO's National Convention: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TlmMzM8ukQ

Then check out this; has Richard Trumka responded to the problems of the working class and the problems we as a Nation face:

Sisters and Brothers, Fellow Workers;

Uniting People (UP) is a new national organization for Peace, Equality, Full Employment, Universal Health Care and Protection of the Environment. We appreciate the invitation extended by the AFL-CIO to all people and organizations to comment on its White Paper, “Prosperity Economics, Building An Economy For All” by Jacob S. Hacker and Nate Loewentheil, intended to create discussion about the direction of organized labor and the kind of country we all want to live in where peace, social and economic justice for working people prevail.

Democracy--- as well as social, economic and environmental justice--- require no less than a full and broad discussion of these important concerns and issues.

We agree with the concept of “prosperity economics” by “building an economy that works for everyone.”  There are several very basic facts left out of this “White Paper” and it is very hazy, vague and nebulous as to what our concrete and specific goals and objectives are to be and what kind of movement and struggle it will take for the working class--- organized and unorganized together--- to create a prosperity economics for us all.

The “White Paper” does not clearly articulate our main enemy: Wall Street. The “White Paper” doesn't reflect the fact that we, as working people, are engaged in a social, political and economic struggle for power with the intent to replace Wall Street's dominance over every aspect of our lives--- in our schools, at work and in our communities.

Let's state right up front workers create all wealth but workers have had no say in how this wealth is distributed and used. This needs to change. Democracy requires no less.

Let's also put it right out there before the American people that militarism and wars are squandering the wealth of our Nation to such a large extent we don't have the resources to solve our many domestic problems. These dirty imperialist wars are killing our jobs and our standard of living just like they kill people.

Militarism and wars are a major contributing factor to the world-wide collapsing capitalist economy. No nation can continue to endlessly use the wealth of its nation to prepare for wars and to fight wars. This is sheer insanity.

Wall Street's greedy drive for profits results in wars which exacerbates our problems. 

Detroit goes broke; the rest of our cities are sure to follow as Wall Street wallows in profits.

Working people go without adequate health care; insurance and pharmaceutical companies get fabulously wealthy. Shorter workweeks/longer vacations with no cut in pay create jobs and would keep us healthier, too.

Our public institutions like public education fall apart, crumble and collapse just like our roads, highways and bridges because we are constantly feeding a war machine intended to fight never-ending wars waged to protect Wall Street's assets and profits.

Prosperity for all begins with the recognition peace is required to achieve full employment.

Full employment is about the government seeing to it that jobs are created for all at real living wages. It is about putting people to work by creating massive universal social programs like Medicare for All, not job destroying legislation like Obama-care as detrimental to our health and jobs as wars without providing real health care reform while pushing the price of health care up instead of its stated intent to push prices down. 

Eliminating militarism and wars eliminates the largest carbon footprint contributing to global warming and climate change as the Military Industrial Complex wastes our precious resources in a huge, monstrous complex that ruins our environment---  power generation, mining, manufacturing, the resources like oil and gas required to fight wars. Preparation for war, and war itself, creates a mammoth sized carbon footprint destroying our living environment while creating massive joblessness and poverty and ill health for our people as our air, water and land gets polluted.

The Wall Street selected politicians talk about “jobs, jobs, jobs” when their hidden agenda is really “profits, profits, profits” and “war, war, and more war.”

The time has come to make politicians legislatively responsible for full employment and peace because prosperity economics requires: peace and full employment--- a healthy people and a healthy environment.

Therefore, we propose that a central goal of the American labor and working class movement needs to be the building of an economy for all that is inseparably linked to peace and full employment which must include:

A Minimum Wage tied to all cost of living factors indexed to inflation. Jobs or a living income for all.

Medicare for All. Protect, defend and expand Social Security programs.

Legislation prohibiting lockouts and scabbing. Repeal of “At-Will Employment” legislation--- the primary obstacle to worker empowerment and union organizing.

Price controls are needed for food, gas, home heating fuels and electricity.

A healthy economy means a healthy living environment and a healthy planet. We need a quality of life index.

The two-party system is a trap for working people. We must free ourselves from the Democrats and Republicans. A working class based people's party is required if we are going to have a prosperity economics that works for all of us. We can learn a thing or two about health care and politics from our Canadian Brothers and Sisters.

We are now at a crossroads.

We will have an economy that serves Wall Street or we will have an economy that works for the rest of us--- we can't have both just like we can't have both war and full employment.

We encourage the use of the proposed Full Employment Act of 1945 pushed by the CIO unions and authored by liberal Texas Congressman Wright Patman and the associated hearing testimonies to broaden this discussion: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015081304209;seq=10;view=1up

We also call to your attention the excellent Op-Ed piece by Bob Herbert, “Losing Our Way,” his last piece in the New York Times (March 25, 2011), which declares:

"The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely."
We ask: What ever happened to William Winpisinger's "Rebuild America Act" and the “peace dividend?” The AFL-CIO should bring back to life its Committee on Conversion--- from military production to producing for human needs; swords into plowshares is what was advocated by the International Association of Machinist's former President, William Winpisinger. Where is this advocacy for peace and reordering our Nation's priorities now?

Thank you for allowing us to offer our critique of the AFL-CIO's “White Paper” and our alternative perspectives.

In solidarity and struggle. Uniting People (UP) for peace, equality, full employment, universal health care and protection of the environment.
                                                                              
Blog: http://unitingpeopleworks4us.blogspot.com/      

Contact by e-mail: uniting_people@lists.riseup.net

An alternative agenda for labor

Our organization is distributing this in union circles and beyond in preparation for the AFL-CIO's National Convention in September:

Sisters and Brothers, Fellow Workers;

Uniting People (UP) is a new national organization for Peace, Full Employment, Universal Health Care and Protection of the Environment. We appreciate the invitation extended by the AFL-CIO to all people and organizations to comment on its White Paper, “Prosperity Economics, Building An Economy For All” by Jacob S. Hacker and Nate Loewentheil, intended to create discussion about the direction of organized labor and the kind of country we all want to live in where peace, social and economic justice for working people prevail.

Democracy--- as well as social, economic and environmental justice--- require no less than a full and broad discussion of these important concerns and issues.

We agree with the concept of “prosperity economics” by “building an economy that works for everyone.” There are several very basic facts left out of this “White Paper” and it is very hazy, vague and nebulous as to what our concrete and specific goals and objectives are to be and what kind of movement and struggle it will take for the working class--- organized and unorganized together--- to create a prosperity economics for us all.

The “White Paper” does not clearly articulate our main enemy: Wall Street. The “White Paper” doesn't reflect the fact that we, as working people, are engaged in a social, political and economic struggle for power with the intent to replace Wall Street's dominance over every aspect of our lives--- in our schools, at work and in our communities.

Let's state right up front workers create all wealth but workers have had no say in how this wealth is distributed and used. This needs to change. Democracy requires no less.

Let's also put it right out there before the American people that militarism and wars are squandering the wealth of our Nation to such a large extent we don't have the resources to solve our many domestic problems. These dirty imperialist wars are killing our jobs and our standard of living just like they kill people.

Militarism and wars are a major contributing factor to the world-wide collapsing capitalist economy. No nation can continue to endlessly use the wealth of its nation to prepare for wars and to fight wars. This is sheer insanity.

Wall Street's greedy drive for profits results in wars which exacerbates our problems.

Detroit goes broke; the rest of our cities are sure to follow as Wall Street wallows in profits.

Working people go without adequate health care; insurance and pharmaceutical companies get fabulously wealthy. Shorter workweeks/longer vacations with no cut in pay create jobs and would keep us healthier, too.

Our public institutions like public education fall apart, crumble and collapse just like our roads, highways and bridges because we are constantly feeding a war machine intended to fight never-ending wars waged to protect Wall Street's assets and profits.

Prosperity for all begins with the recognition peace is required to achieve full employment.

Full employment is about the government seeing to it that jobs are created for all at real living wages. It is about putting people to work by creating massive universal social programs like Medicare for All, not job destroying legislation like Obama-care as detrimental to our health and jobs as wars without providing real health care reform while pushing the price of health care up instead of its stated intent to push prices down.

Eliminating militarism and wars eliminates the largest carbon footprint contributing to global warming and climate change as the Military Industrial Complex wastes our precious resources in a huge, monstrous complex that ruins our environment--- power generation, mining, manufacturing, the resources like oil and gas required to fight wars. Preparation for war, and war itself, creates a mammoth sized carbon footprint destroying our living environment while creating massive joblessness and poverty and ill health for our people as our air, water and land gets polluted.

The Wall Street selected politicians talk about “jobs, jobs, jobs” when their hidden agenda is really “profits, profits, profits” and “war, war, and more war.”

The time has come to make politicians legislatively responsible for full employment and peace because prosperity economics requires: peace and full employment--- a healthy people and a healthy environment.

Therefore, we propose that a central goal of the American labor and working class movement needs to be the building of an economy for all that is inseparably linked to peace and full employment which must include:

A Minimum Wage tied to all cost of living factors indexed to inflation. Jobs or a living income for all.

Medicare for All. Protect, defend and expand Social Security programs.

Legislation prohibiting lockouts and scabbing. Repeal of “At-Will Employment” legislation--- the primary obstacle to worker empowerment and union organizing.

Price controls are needed for food, gas, home heating fuels and electricity.

A healthy economy means a healthy living environment and a healthy planet. We need a quality of life index.

The two-party system is a trap for working people. We must free ourselves from the Democrats and Republicans. A working class based people's party is required if we are going to have a prosperity economics that works for all of us. We can learn a thing or two about health care and politics from our Canadian Brothers and Sisters.

We are now at a crossroads.

We will have an economy that serves Wall Street or we will have an economy that works for the rest of us--- we can't have both just like we can't have both war and full employment.

We encourage the use of the proposed Full Employment Act of 1945 pushed by the CIO unions and authored by liberal Texas Congressman Wright Patman and the associated hearing testimonies to broaden this discussion:

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015081304209%3Bseq%3D10%3Bview%3D1up

We also call to your attention the excellent Op-Ed piece by Bob Herbert, “Losing Our Way,” his last piece in the New York Times (March 25, 2011), which declares:

"The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely."

We ask: What ever happened to William Winpisinger's "Rebuild America Act" and the “peace dividend?” The AFL-CIO should bring back to life its Committee on Conversion--- from military production to producing for human needs; swords into plowshares is what was advocated by the International Association of Machinist's former President, William Winpisinger. Where is this advocacy for peace and reordering our Nation's priorities now?

Thank you for allowing us to offer our critique of the AFL-CIO's “White Paper” and our alternative perspectives.

In solidarity and struggle. Uniting People (UP) for peace, full employment, universal health care and protection of the environment.

Working class fightback.

Labor Fight-Back Conference.

This is a letter I sent to the initiators of the Labor Fight-Back Conference...

Attention:

Ken Riley President South Carolina AFL-CIO Donna Dewitt Retired President South Carolina AFL-CIO Charity Schmidt Co-President University of Wisconsin-Madison Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA) Executive Board, South Central Federation of Labor, Wisconsin
Kevin Gundlach President Wisconsin South Central Federation of Labor

Re: Labor Fight-Back Conference   http://www.laborfightback.org/

We need a working class based progressive people's party in this country similar to the socialist New Democratic Party in Canada. We can build on the successes of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party which elected two socialist governors, Floyd B. Olson and Elmer Benson along with Communist Congressman John Bernard. The Progressive Party of Henry Wallace also provides a place to pick up from.

We need to examine what workers get out of Democratic super majorities like here in Minnesota where this Democratic super majority will not even consider:

* Rescinding "At-will Employment" legislation which is the main obstacle to union organizing.

* Anti-scab legislation.

* Anti-lockout legislation.

* A living wage which is a real living wage based on all cost of living factors as monitored by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics indexed for inflation and re-calculated quarterly.

We need a plank in any program for full employment which requires the president and Congress to be responsible for attaining and maintaining full employment along the lines of the defeated "Full Employment Act of 1945;" the entire act along with the complete 1,000 plus page transcript of Congressional testimony can be found here:

http://fullemploymentnow.blogspot.com/

A working class based program for real change should include:

* Peace--- end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and shutdown the 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil.

* A National Public Health Care System - ten million new jobs.

* A National Public Child Care System - three to five million new jobs.

* Works Progress Administration - three million new jobs.

* Civilian Conservation Corps - two million new jobs.

* Tax the hell out of the rich and cut the military budget by ending the wars to pay for it all which will create full employment.

* Enforce Affirmative Action; end discrimination.

* Raise the minimum wage to a real living wage.

* What tax-payers subsidize in the way of businesses, tax-payers should own and reap the profits from.

* Moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions.

* Defend democracy by defending workers' rights including the right to collective bargaining for improving the lives and livelihoods of working people.

* Roll-back and freeze the price of food, electricity, gas and heating fuels; not wages, benefits or pensions.

* Defend and expand Social Security.

* Wall Street is our enemy.

How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?

Climate change is like war, poverty and unemployment... without peace we aren't going to solve this problem either.

Let's talk about the politics and economics of livelihood for a real change.

Hundreds of thousands of casino workers are employed in the loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos of the hideous Indian Gaming Industry at poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws in an industry where a bunch of wealthy white mobsters own all the slot machines and table games and have divided among the "families" the various associated businesses including hotels/motels, restaurants/bars, gas station/convenience stores, clothing boutiques/gift shops, golf courses/theme parks. These rich white mobsters run off with all the profits leaving Native Americans in greater poverty as they exploit all casino workers. This is an industry intentionally spun by politicians under terms of "Compacts" operating in violation of all standards established by the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights in return for lucrative campaign contributions.

An alternative to lockouts needs to be considered; one such alternative would be plant/workplace occupations.

Some form of general strikes needs to be considered as a response to reactionary anti-labor government measures.

I would like to share with you a "Letter to the Editor" I wrote that has been published in a number of Minnesota newspapers:

Once again with President Barack Obama's State of the Union Speech we got another politician hypocritically talking about "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs."

If just one job was created every time some politician opened their mouth and started talking about "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs" we wouldn't have any unemployment in this country and everyone who wanted to work would have a decent, living wage job.

So, what is the main obstacle to full employment? Accountability from the very politicians who mouth the words "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs" whenever they want to get elected, re-elected or want thunderous applause then go about their business forgetting about jobs as they go looking for their next bribe from a Wall Street lobbyist who views unemployment as the way to keep all wages down which pushes profits up.

What we need in this country is a real "Full Employment Act" which mandates--- by legislation and law--- that the President and the United States Congress must maintain full employment as part of their responsibility to the American people.

What good is a government that gets us into war after war but can't even assure full employment for the very people it taxes?

Wars cause government debt and deficits; peace and full employment eliminate debts and deficits.

Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

I would note that the New York Times refused to publish a "Letter to the Editor" along similar lines in response to this editorial:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/opinion/more-jobs-higher-pay-in-obamas-second-term.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

Any talk about jobs with living wages is meaningless unless the government is forced to become legislatively responsible for full employment; this is the only way to assure accountability.

Also, see my "Letter" in "Labor World" (September 1, 2010; page 7); in this same issue on page 1 isreference to anti-scab legislation. 

http://www.laborworld.org/documents/Sept-1-2010Av5.pdf

I would also like to call to your attention the work of the New Progressive Alliance which is in league with much of what you are advocating:

http://newprogs.org/

I also call to your attention the excellent article, "Losing Our Way" by then New York Times columnist Bob Herbert:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/opinion/26herbert.html

On a final note, but most important of all, I would like to suggest that this important Conference should concern itself with the struggle to enforce Affirmative Action since people of color, women and the handicapped are being denied jobs to which they are entitled. Here in Minnesota, where affirmative action has never been enforced since President Lyndon Johnson signed into law Federal Executive Order #11246, the Democratic Governor, Mark Dayton, who made an election promise to enforce Affirmative Action and then made a mockery of his campaign promise by appointing the vile racist, Mark Philipps, whose job it is at Krause-Anderson to assist clients in evading Affirmative Action, only to be forced into removing Philipps, has now brought forward another racist mockery of his campaign promise to enforce Affirmative Action by bringing forward unenforceable "voluntary goals." The Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party with its super majority--- Democratic Governor, Democratic House and Democratic Senate--- cannot even be relied on to enforce Affirmative Action when it comes to spending billions of dollars in public funds.

Democrat Mark Dayton as a candidate campaigning for governor on affirmative action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBuBDqQx0xI

Even Richard Nixon declared:

"A good job is as basic and important a civil right as a good education . . . which would require such [affirmative] action by law, was both necessary and right... would require federal contractors to show affirmative action' to meet the goals of increasing minority employment."

"Neither the President nor the Congress nor the conscience of the nation can permit money which comes from all the people to be used in a way which discriminates against some of the people."

It is pathetic and disgusting we can't even expect Obama or Minnesota Democrats with a super majority to take a stand at least as vigorous in defense of Affirmative Action as Republican President Richard Nixon. If this doesn't tell us why we need an alternative working class based progressive people's party I don't know what it would take.

Thanks for considering my concerns.

Yours in the struggle,

Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,

Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell: 651-587-5541

Primary E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

E-mail: alan.maki1951mn@gmail.com

Blog: http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/