The 2012 Labor Notes Conference, Solidarity for the 99% is May 4-6, 2012, Chicago, Illinois. Joe Berry urges us to use the occasion for a contingent faculty meeting and to support local contingent faculty actions such as those at EWU. Conference Workshops and meetings begin 1 p.m. Friday, May 4, and end at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 6. More information online at Conference page and in attached document. Call Labor Notes at 313-842-6262 • conference@labornotes.org. Register online at: www.labornotes.org/conference.
Joe Berry writes,
Contingent faculty activists, friends and allies,
Please see the attached announcement for the biennial (that's once every 2 years) conference put on by Labor Notes. This year, for the first time it will be in Chicago (instead of Detroit) which is a major center of contingent faculty activity, as everyone on these lists knows already. I have been invited to organize a session on Friday, the first day of the conference, for contingent activists to get together. We can have as much time as we want and they will give us a special day rate, though I hope many folks, especially from Chicago and the Midwest, come to the whole conference. Some details are below and more will be forthcoming. Mark your calendars. thre is always a gathering of all campus workers, which is also useful for us.
The other reason for this early message from me is that I do not want to make all the decisions about our session by myself. We need to decide how long we want, what times, topics, logistics, organizing for it, etc. I (we) need a committee. Already Susan Titus, Pres. of the AFT adjunct union at Wayne State in Detroit (UPTF, AFT 477) and a Labor Notes conference veteran, has volunteered to serve. I hope some others will volunteer. (especially some from Chicago area). We need a conference call soon to make a few of these decisions. I think this is a major opportunity for us as a movement and we should take advantage of it collectively.
We can also use this occasion to build for COCAL 2012 in August in Mexico City. Anytime we can get contingent activists together regionally, nationally, or internationally, it always turns out to have been worth the trouble in building the movement, mutual sharing, education and solidarity. I also hope this can be a shot in the arm for the very important struggles taking place in Chicago. Also, maybe we can do an action at East West University to support their organizing battle there (and maybe at Columbia College and Roosevelt U too, which are all within a couple of blocks of each other downtown on Michigan Ave. Maybe we could even get the whole conference to do an action there, which is a traditional part of Labor Notes conferences
Please mark your calendars and send me an email if you can join the planning committee for our contingent faculty session. Labor Notes' key slogan is "Putting the Movement back into the Labor Movement" and that is what we have been doing in our not-so-little corner of the faculty and teacher union movement. We have a lot in common with the 2-3,000 folks who come to these conferences. ]
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In solidarity, Joe Berry.
Will this be part of Chicago Spring?
ReplyDeleteBy Chicago Principles, there is room for everybody