Calendar

Upcoming events

2008-2009 Events

August 2-7, 2009, UALE Northeast Region Union Women's Summer School at Stony Brook

March 30, 2009, Report from the International Labor Solidarity Conference Erbil, Iraq March 13-14, 2009 at Stony Brook Manhattan Campus.

October 14, 2008 New York Times labor reporter Steve Greenhouse talks about his book The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for American Workers in The Wang Center, Room 201.

September 29, 2008, Economic Stimulus and Economically Distressed Workers, a new study from the Center for Study of Working Class Life is released.

2007-2008 Events
June 5-7, 2008, How Class Works – 2008 Conference at Stony Brook campus
June 5, 2008, Claudia Fegan Provost's Lecture at the How Class Works Conference: Claudia Fegan, M.D. has spent her career tending to poor and elderly patients, and is an outspoken advocate for single payer health care and against for-profit managed care. She is immediate past president of Physicians for a National Health Program, which advocates a universal, comprehensive Single-Payer National Health Program and has more than 10,000 members and chapters across the U.S. Fegan is the Medical Director of Outpatient Care at Provident Hospital on the South Side of Chicago. She has lectured extensively on health care reform in the U.S. and Canada and is co-author of Universal Healthcare: What the United States Can Learn from Canada. Thursday, June 5, 2008, 7:30pm, SAC Auditorium.
April 30, 2008, book talk: Les Leopold, author of The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi, 4pm, Wang Center Lecture Hall 2. Cosponsored by the Italian Studies Program and United University Professions.
November 28, 2007, Melanie Kaye-Kantrowitz, talking about her new book, The Colors of Jews. Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz is a writer and poet, activist, scholar and teacher, as well as a pioneer in women's studies. The Colors of Jews attempts to challenge common assumptions about the definition of Jewishness by developing an account of racial politics and radical diasporism. 12:50 - 2:10 p.m., Wang Center Room 101. Cosponsored with Stony Brook Hillel and Judaic Studies.
October 11, 2007, "From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks," a one man play about Harry Bridges, founder of the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union), and the San Francisco General Strike of 1934. The play includes excerpts from Bridges's rallying speeches, his electrifying testimony at his deportation hearings, and music and video documentation of the actual events. Featuring Ian Ruskin, The Harry Bridges Project. Thursday, October 11, 2007. 4:00 pm, Wang Center Theater. Co-sponsored by The Center for Study of Working Class Life, Undergraduate College of Arts, Culture, and Humanities, Undergraduate College of Global Studies and United University Professions (UUP - Stony Brook Chapter).

2006-2007 Events
May 7, 2007, Deepa Kumar, Rutgers University, and Ron Carey, former Teamster President, book launch for Outside the Box: Corporate Media, Globalization, and the UPS Strike, 6-8 p.m. at Stony Brook Manhattan, 401 Pare Ave. South at 28th St. co-sponsored by University of Illinois Press.
March 28, 2007, Nancy Romer, Brooklyn College-CUNY, and Brooke Larson, Stony Brook, “Report from the Front – Bolivia: Workers and Indigenous Peoples United in Struggle,” 4 p.m., Wang Center Lecture Hall 2, co-sponsored by Women’s Studies and Latin American and Caribbean Studies
March 5, 2007, Houzan Mahmoud, Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq and Iraq Freedom Congress, “Women and Labor Rights in Iraq,” 6 – 8 p.m. at Stony Brook Manhattan, co-sponsored by U.S. Labor Against the War
March 5, 2007, Lulu Lolo presents “Soliloquy for a Seamstress: the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire,” 4 p.m. in Wang Center Theater, co-sponsored with the Center for Italian Studies, Women’s Studies, and the History Department
February 27, 2007, Tami Gold and Gerardo Renique show their film “Land, Rain, and Fire: Report from Oaxaca,” 7 p.m. in Wang Center Lecture Hall 2, co-sponsored with Social Justice Alliance and the Graduate Student Employees Union
February 5, 2007, Nancy Romer, Brooklyn College-CUNY, “Report from the Front – Bolivia: Workers and Indigenous Peoples United in Struggle,” 6 – 8 p.m. at Stony Brook Manhattan
November 14, 2006, Robin Romano, Romano Productions, presents an illustrated talk “The Dark Side of Globalization: Child Labor in the Cocoa Industry,” 4:30 p.m. in Humanities 1006, co-sponsored by UUP and the Humanities Institute

2005-2006 events
June 8 - 10, 2006: How Class Works - 2006 Conference, at Stony Brook Campus
March 15, 2006, pemiere NYC screening, Meeting Face to Face: the Iraq-U.S. Labor Solidarity Tour, 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., at Stony Brook Manhattan.
March 14, 2006, premiere screening, Meeting Face to Face: the Iraq-U.S. Labor Solidarity Tour, 4 p.m., Wang Center Auditorium

2004-2005 Events
June 23, 2005: Adnan Al-Safaar and Abed Sekhi, senior officers, Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, “Report from Iraq on the Situation of Working People under Occupation,” 4 p.m. in Wang Center, LH 2, co-sponsored with Stony Brook chapter of UUP
May 2, 2005, Bill Fletcher, Jr., President, Transafrica Forum, and Jeff Perry, literary executor for Theodore W. Allen and editor of A Hubert Harrison Reader, “Race and Class in the U.S.: the legacy of Theodore W. “Ted” Allen and the Questions and Materials He Left for Us.” 4:30 p.m. at Stony Brook Manhattan.
April 22, 2005, Teresa Ghilarducci, Professor of Economics, Notre Dame University, and Tim Bishop, U.S. Congressman, 1st Congressional District, NY, “What You Need to Know about the Social Security Issue,” Javits LH 102, co-sponsored with the School of Social Welfare and the Stony Brook chapter of UUP
December 1, 2004, Liza Featherstone, author of Selling Women Short: the Landmark Battle for Workers’ Rights at Wal-Mart, talking about her book, 12: 50 p.m. at Women’s Studies Colloquium Center, co-sponsored with Stony Brook chapter of UUP and Protestant Campus Ministries.
November 10, 2004, Michael Gecan, author of Going Public: Reclaiming the Full Benefits of Citizenship, talking about his book, 12:50 p.m. at Women’s Studies Colloquium Center, co-sponsored with Stony Brook chapter of UUP and Protestant Campus Ministries.
September 28, 2004: Sam Pizzigati, author of Greed and Good: Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality That Limits Our Lives, will speak on "Does America Need a 'Maximum Wage'?" noon - 1:30 at the Women's Studies Colloquium Center - lunch served. Co-sponsored with Stony Brook chapter of UUP and Protestant Campus Ministries.
September 27, 2004: Sam Pizzigati, author of Greed and Good: Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality That Limits Our Lives, will speak on "Does America Need a 'Maximum Wage'?" 6 p.m. at Stony Brook Manhattan, 401 Park Avenue South (at 28th St.), 2nd floor.

2003-2004 Events
June 10-12, 2004: How Class Works – 2004 conference
June 10, 2004: Neil Coleman, Head, Parliamentary Office of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and Rafael Freire, National Executive Council and Director of International Relations, Brazilian Workers’ Central Union (the CUT), “The Working Class with State Power in a Neo-liberal World,” opening plenary of the How Class Works – 2004 conference, in the Provost Lecture Series, 7:30 p.m. in the SAC Auditorium.
March 29, 2004: Issam Shukri, Union of Unemployed in Iraq, and Mahmood Katabchi, Committee in Solidarity with Iraqi Workers, “Iraqi Workers under Occupation: a Report from Iraq,” 4:30 p.m., Wang Center, Lecture Hall 1; co-sponsored by the Stony Brook chapter of United University Professions and the Social Justice Alliance.
February 10, 2004: Biju Mathew, New York Taxi Workers’ Alliance, “Driving Taxis in New York,” a discussion following Vivek Renjen Bald’s documentary film Taxi-vala, 4:00 p.m., Wang Center Lecture Hall 2; co-sponsored by the Stony Brook Film Society, the Department of Sociology, and the Charles B. Wang Center.
January 9, 2004: Mike Prokosch, United for a Fair Economy, “The War in Iraq, Labor, and the Economy,” an active workshop for labor educators, 9 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. at Stony Brook Manhattan.
November 25, 2003: M. Harvey Brenner, Johns Hopkins University and the Berlin University of Technology, “Economic Foundations of the Lifespan in Industrial Societies,” 4 p.m., Social and Behavioral Sciences building N-603, co-sponsored by the Department of Economics and the Public Health Program, Stony Brook Health Sciences Center.
November 19, 2003: labor delegates from New York City unions representing 1199/SEIU, AFSCME 1930, AFSCME 2627, CWA 1180, New York City Labor Against the War, the Professional Staff Congress, and United University Professions, “Report Back from the National Labor Assembly for Peace (Chicago, October 24-25, 2003),” 6 – 8 p.m. at Stony Brook Manhattan.
November 17, 2003: Dan Clawson, University of Massachusetts, discussing his new book The Next Upsurge: Labor and the New Social Movements (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), 6 – 8 p.m. at Stony Brook Manhattan.

2002 - 2003 Events
April 23 and 24, 2003: Nancy Krieger, "U.S. Inequalities in Health: What's Class Got to Do with It?". April 23 at 6 p.m. at Stony Brook Manhattan, 401 Park Avenue South (at 28th St.), second floor; April 24 at 4:30 p.m. on the Stony Brook campus, Student Activities Center room 302. Nancy Krieger is an associat eprofessor at the Harvard School of Public Health. Co-sponsored by the Provost Lecture Series.
April 7-8, 2003: Barbara Jensen, "Hidden Hurdles and Invisible Injuries: Working Class Students in Higher Education." April 7 at 6 p.m. at Stony Brook Manhattan (401 Park Avenue South (at 28th Street), second floor; April 8 at noon on the Stony Brook Campus, Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT), Melville Library. Barbara Jensen is a community and counseling psychologist in private practice in Minneapolis/St. Paul. She teaches sociology and psychology as an adjunct at Metropolitan State University and serves on the steering committee of the Minnesota Center ofr Labor and Working Class Studies. Co-sponsored by CELT.
March 28-29, 2003: Fiscal Crisis through the Lens of Class conference
March 17, 2003: Robin Alexander, Director of International Labor Affairs, United Electrical Workers Union (UE). Report from Brazil: International Labor Solidarity, the World Social Forum, and Brazillian Labor Movement (Brown Bag Lunch). Stony Brook Manhattan, 401 Park Ave. South (at 28th St.), 2nd floor, New York City.
The UE is implementing a rank-and-file based strategy of international labor solidarity. Along these lines, the UE recently sent a delegation of workers to the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, where they met with sister locals and representatives of the CUT. UE International Affairs Director Robin Alexander will discuss the union's solidarity strategy and their experience at the World Social Forum as part of a working class delegation from the United States. She will also share information and impressions they received from Brazilian workers and labor leaders on the state of the labor movement in the context of Lula's victory and the challenges it brings.
February 19, 2003, 6:00PM, Stony Brook Manhattan, 401 Park Ave. South (@ 28th St.) 2nd Floor, New York City. Lula's Brazil: Prospects And Problems.
SUMNER ROSEN'S REPORT FROM HIS RECENT TWO-PLUS WEEKS IN BRAZIL (beyond Porto Alegre)
Sumner Rosen is founder and chair of the Five Borough Institute. His recent visit to Brazil was facilitated by the ILO and the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center in Sao Paolo. He spoke with key Lula appointees, officials of Brazil's CUT labor federation, Solidarity Center staff, ILO staff, and a range of academics responding to his interest inBrazil's future prospects under a labor government, and the wide range ofproblems, domestic and international, that face this major Latin American nationand economy.
December 15, 2002, Playback Theater (NYC), a performance of improvisational theater pieces on themes of race and class, at the Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery (at 1st Street), Manhattan, 7 p.m. $10 admission.
October 23, 2002, Andrew Martin, graduate student, Pennsylvania State University, "Putting the Organization back in Organizing: The Role of Union Structure in NLRB Certification Elections," in the Stony Brook Dissertation Lecture Series on Issues of Class, co-sponsored by the Sociology Department and the Graduate School at SUNY Stony Brook
September 24, 2002, Jeff Crosby, President of IUE Local 201 at General Electric, Lynn, Massachusetts, "The U.S. War on Terror, 'Plan Colombia', and Worker Rights in Colombia", 4 p.m., SBS N 320, co-sponsored by the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center

2001 - 2002 Events
June 5-9, 2002, How Class Works conference
June 5, 2002, Leo Panitch, Distinguished Research Professor of Poliical Science, York University - Toronto, "September 11 and Its Aftermath through the Lens of Class," opening keynote session of the How Class Works conference, 8 p.m., SAC Auditorium, open to the public as part of the Provost Lecture Series
April 10, 2002, Meredith Tax, novelist , author of Rivington Street and Union Square, "Working Class Voices: Research, Responsibility, & Imagination in Fiction and History," 4:30 p.m., Women's Studies Colloquium Room (formerly the Peace Center), off the lobby of Old Chemistry. Reception precedes the talk at 4 p.m. Co-sponsored with Women's Studies, History, and the Humanities Institute
About this talk, Tax writes: A lot of my research for Union Square was oral history with CP [Communist Party USA] people. One thing I want to talk about is what kind of responsibility historians and novelists have to the people they interview and what kind of pressures they are under to conform to the worldview of their subjects.
March 12, 2002, Nadia Marin-Molina, Executive Director, The Workplace Project / Centro de Derechos Laborales, "New Latino Migrants on Long Island: The Struggle for Civil and Labor Rights," 1-2:30 p.m., LACS Conference Room - SBS N-320, co-sponsored with Latin American and Caribbean Studies
February 27, 2002, Michael Zweig, Stony Brook Economics Department, "In Time of War, Who Pays? U.S. Budget Priorities and Class Consequences," 4 p.m., Javits 105, co-sponsored by the Social Justice Alliance
November 8, 2001, Joe William Trotter, Jr., professor and director of the Center for African American Urban Studies and the Economy, Carnegie Mellon University, "African American Workers During the Industrial Era: Shifting Interpretations," 5 - 6:30 p.m., SAC 306. Co-sponsored by the Provost Lecture Series, the Department of Africana Studies and the Department of History
October 9 - December 12, 2001 Unseen America on Long Island, an exhibit of photos by immigrant Latino workers, on display at the Latin American and Caribbean Center gallery, SBS N-320, M-F 10 - 4.
September 25, 2001, "Weapons in Space: Star Wars Returns," a film by Karl Grossman, 4:30 p.m. at the Peace Center, Old Chemistry Building, co-sponsored by the Peace Center
2000-2001 Events
April 25 - May 25, 2001, Opening of Unseen America, at Gallery 1199, 310 W. 43 St., New York City, including photo images from immigrant Latino workers on Long Island
April 26, Janet Zandy, English Department, Rochester Institute of Technology, "Working Class into the Curriculum," Annual Pedagogy of Class program, sponsored jointly with the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) and the Writing Center; 1 - 2:30 p.m. at CELT, first floor Melville Library. Lunch before, noon - 1 p.m., at CELT - rsvp to 2-1030 or through www.CELT.sunysb.edu
March 8, 2001, Barbara Garson, author, "Money Makes the World Go Around: One Investor Tracks Her Money from Brooklyn to Bangkok and Back," 4:00 - 5:30 p.m. in ESS 001, cosponsored with Women's Studies
March 7, 2001, Martha Ojeda, Executive Director, Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, "Confronting Labor Conditions on the U.S.-Mexican Border, 4:00 - 5:30 p.m. in SAC 302, cosponsored with United University Professions, Women's Studies, and the Latin American and Caribbean Center
December 5, 2000. film showing, "Globalization and Human Rights," a PBS program, 4:00 - 5:30, Union Auditorium
November 7, 2000, Frank Deale, Professor at CUNY Law School, "Class and the Law," 4:00 - 5:30, Union Auditorium, cosponsored with the Pre-Law Society
October, 2000, Unseen America project begins with immigrant Latino workers on Long Island using Stony Brook Art Department darkroom
October 17, 2000, Mike Davis, History Department, Stony Brook, "Latino Immigration and the U.S. Working Class," 4:00 - 5:30 p.m., Union Auditorium

1999-2000:
December 8, Stanley Aronowitz, Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center, "The Importance of Class in 'Race, Class, and Gender'," (with the Office of the Provost)
February 14, Caroline Pari, English, Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY, "Developing Class Conscious Pedagogies," (with CELT)
March 15, Ira Shor, English, College of Staten Island and CUNY Graduate Center, "Making Class Visible: A Paulo Freire Approach to Teaching and Learning," (with CELT)
March 30, Ethel Brooks, Dissertation Fellow, International Center for Advanced Studies, NYU and the first in the Stony Brook Dissertation Lecture Series on Issues of Class (with Sociology)
noon- 1:30, brown-bag lunch and informal discussion, "Globalization: Consequences for Thinking About Class," SBS N-601
4 - 6 p.m., "Child Labor and Gendered Citizenship: Bangladesh's Garment Industry" SBS N-403.
April 1, Temma Kaplan, Olufemi Vaughan, and Michael Zweig (all of Stony Brook), "The Role of Class in 'Race, Class, and Gender'," 3 - 5 p.m. panel at the Socialist Scholars Conference, Borough of Manhattan Community College, New York City
April 6, Nadia Marin-Molina, Executive Director, The Workplace Project, "Immigrant Latino Labor on Long Island Today," (with Latin American Studies and the Latin American Student Organization), 4:30 p.m. in the Latin American Studies Gallery / Conference Room, SBS 3rd floor north.
April 11, Radhika Balakrishnan (Economics, Manhattan College), Martin Melkonian (Economics, Hofstra), and Nilufer Isvan (Sociology, Stony Brook), "Jubilee 2000: The WTO and Global Economic Justice," (with the Campus Interfaith Center), 7 p.m., place to be announced.
April 12, Radhika Balakrishnan, brown-bag lunch and informal discussion of the role of class in the global economy, noon - 1 p.m., SBS N-601.
April 17, Caroline Pari, English Department, Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY, "Developing Class-Conscious Pedagogies," (with CELT), 10 - noon with lunch to follow (rsvp to <CELT@notes> if you plan to attend), in the CELT meeting room, first floor of the library.
April 25, John J. Sweeney, President, AFL-CIO, "The Working Class and Politics in the 21st Century," (with the Office of the Provost and UUP), 4:30 in the SAC Auditorium.