Pre-Registration $7 Latin American and Caribbean Studies (LACS), Center for Latino, Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CELAC), Journals and Conferences/Office of Research, Office of Affirmative Action, Dean's Office–College of Arts and Sciences, Office of Academic Affairs, Office of Finance, President's Task Force on Sweatshop Labor, Women's Studies Department, Graduate Student Organization/MCAA (GSO), United University Professions (UUP), The Solidarity Committee of the Capital District/Jobs with Justice.
On-Site Registration $ 10
Students Free(First 20 UUP members will have their registration fees waived)
SPONSORS:
ENDORSERS:
New York Labor Religion Coalition, Labor Council for Latin American Advancement/Capital District Chapter (LCLAA),
CONFERENCE CHAIR
Prof. Fernando Leiva (LACS)
University at Albany
(518) 442-4891
fleiva@albany.eduCONFERENCE WEB PAGE
http://www.albany.edu/faculty/fleiva/workersconf.htmlOver the last two decades we have witnessed profound economic, political and cultural transformations – a shifting of productive structures, social identities, and labor strategies. Neoliberal economic restructuring, the deployment of export platforms and regional integration agreements (NAFTA, MERCOSUR and a looming FTAA) seem to be producing a growing divorce between "economic growth" and "social integration". "Globalization" has brought about increasing levels of social vulnerability for the majority of Latin American workers. Yet, at the same time — through firm relocations, internationalized production and distribution networks, increased flows of capital, commodities and labor, international trade/investment agreements, and cross-border solidarity campaigns, globalization is also increasing the interconnectedness of North, Central, South, and Caribbean societies and social actors.
By focusing on Latin American workers, the conference will explore the profound implications that the accelerated internationalization of production and capital flows are having upon poverty, inequality and "citizenship" in the region. Critically analyzing the class, gender, and cultural dimensions of such restructuring, the conference seeks to explore how transformations experienced by the working classes in one part of the Americas, become vital for understanding — and effectively acting upon — what is happening within our own communities in another point of the hemisphere.
5:30 Welcome 5:45 Film: Bread and Roses (110') A young Mexican woman, Maya, illegally crosses the border into Southern California to be with her sister. Without official papers, she finally finds a regular position at the cleaning company where her sister works. Soon, a representative of the organization Justice for Janitors, shows up, trying to convince the workers to unionize, and it is through this struggle that we see Maya come to political awareness.
7:30 Panel: Struggling for Workers' Rights and a Living Wage in the 21st Century
- Oscar Best (Social Welfare-University at Albany) Executive Secretary of the President's Task Force on a Sweatshop Labor
- Yanira Merino, Organizer, (Laborers International Union of North America) Born in El Salvador, as a teenager her parents sent her to the U.S. to escape the war ravaging her country. Involved in solidarity work, she was was kidnapped by Salvadoran rightwing paramilitary groups operating in Los Angeles. Surviving that ordeal, she went on to organize Central American workers in the North Carolina poultry industry. Today she is an organizer for LIUNA.
- Amber Martin, student activist (University at Albany) Participant in the mobilizations that initiated the Sweatfree SUNY on campus.
- Aspacio Alcántara (Centro Independiente de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agrícolas (CITA) Florida, New York). Born in the Dominican Republic, Aspacio Alcántara is the founder and director of CITA, an organization initiated and run by farmworkers and former farmworkers, based in the Hudson Valley. CITA seeks to empower farmerworkers working in New York state. Operating out of the back of a Mexican grocery store in Florida, CITA was able to to get the first collective bargaining agreement for farmworkers in New York state history.
- John Funiciello, Chair of the Solidarity Committee of the Capital District/Jobs with Justice.
8:30 – 9:30 Conference Registration (Campus Center Assembly Hall) 9:00 – 9:30 Continental Breakfast 9:30 – 10:00 OPENING (Assembly Hall)
- Carlos Santiago, Provost and Vicepresident for Academic Affairs
- Liliana Goldin, Chair, LACS
- Fernando Leiva, Conference Chair
10:00 – 12:00 Panel 1: Restructured Workplaces, Households and Communities and the Expansion of Transnational Capital
What structural changes is globalization bringing about in workplaces, in labor markets, households and communities? How is this reorganization of production and employers' increasing reliance on a more "flexible" labor force changing social relations in the spheres of production and social reproduction? What are the implications?
Moderator:
Panelists:
- Chris Bose, (Sociology/LACS) University at Albany
- Juan Pablo Pérez Sáinz, Senior Researcher Flacso-Costa "Labor and Capitalist Development in Central America: An Update"
- Hector Figueroa, Service Employees International Union
12: 00 – 1:30 LUNCH BREAK 1:30 – 3:00 Panel 2 Changing Identities: Ruptures and Continuities Between Latin America's "Old" and "New" Working Classes
Transformations in the age, gender, and skill composition of the labor force of the export-sector, along with the combined effects of increased job insecurity and consumerism, are recasting what it means to be a "worker" in Latin America. This second panel addresses the complex processes through which male and female workers forge their identities and recognize themselves as social actors. Panelists will link their analysis of shifting/recasting identities in either one of the two following directions:
Moderator:
- Transformations in the makeup of the working classes and their impact on the re-emergence of the labor movement in the region.
- Implications for analytical categories and theoretical approaches
Panelists:
- Robert Carmack (Anthropology/LACS)
- Altha Cravey, (Geography, University of North Carolina) "The Politics of Geographic Scale"
- Carmen Diana Deere, (Economics, UMASS-Amherst) "Agrarian Class Relations under Neoliberalism: Old and New Social Movements"
- Liliana Goldin, (Anthropology/LACS-UAlbany) "Maya Maquilas: Industrial Production in Rural Guatemala"
3:00 – 3:30 Coffee Break 3:30 – 5:15 Panel 3 Workers Rights and Regional Integration: Public Policy and Labor Strategies
What obstacles confront workers, workers' movements and unions as they attempt to become protagonists in shaping Latin America's present and immediate future? What labor strategies hold hope for the re-emergence of labor as a collective social and political actor in the first decades of the 21st century? What are the lessons learned so far?
Moderator:
Ray Bromley (Geography & Planning/LACS ) Panelists:
- Henry J. Frundt, (Latin American Studies, Ramapo College) "How Can Sweatshop Labor Codes Be Used to Protect Workers?"
- Judith Marshall (Steelworkers Humanity Fund-Canada) "Mining in the Americas: Developing New Labor Responses"
- Kjeld Jakobsen, (Director of International Relations, Central Unica de Trabalhadores CUT-Brazil)
5:15 – 5:30 Closing of Conference
PANELISTS
Aspacio Alcántara, founder and director of the Centro Independiente de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agrícolas/Independent Support Center for Agricultural Workers (CITA), providing training and support to agricultural workers in New York's Hudson Valley as they strive to defend their rights.
Altha Cravey (Geography, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). ), author of Women and Work in Mexico's Maquiladoras (Rowan & Littlefield, 1998).
Carmen Diana Deere is a development economist specializing in Latin American agricultural development issues. She is past President of the national Latin American Studies Association (LASA) and is currently Director of the Center for LatinAmerican, Caribbean & Latino Studies at Umass-Amherst. Her latest book is Empowering Women: Land and Property Rights in Latin America (Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 2001).
Héctor Figueroa, a political economist, he is with Service Employees International Union.
Henry J. Frundt (Latin American Studies, Ramapo College). Secretary of the Latin Anerican Studies Association's Labor Section, author of Trade Conditions and Labor Rights : U.S. Initiatives, Dominican and Central American Responses (University of Florida Press, 1998).
John Funiciello, Chairman of the Solidarity Committee of the Capital District/Jobs with Justice
Liliana Goldin (Chair, LACS, University at Albany). Her latest book is Identities on the Move: Transnational Processes in North America and the Caribbean Basin (University of Texas Press, 1999).
Kjeld Jakobsen, International Affairs Secretary of the Brazilian Confederation of Labor (CUT). A member of the Metalworkers Union, as the representative of Brazil's Central Unica de Trabalhadores (CUT), the most powerful workers' organization of Latin America, Kjeld Jakobsen has participated in all of the international gatherings.
Judith Marshall (Steelworkers Humanity Fund) is an educator and writer who has worked for many years on social justice and solidarity issues. She spent eight years in Mozambique where she was involved in workplace literacy programs. She returned to Canada in 1984 where she did a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto. Her thesis was published as a book entitled: Literacy, Power and Democracy in Mozambique. For the past decade, she has worked with the Steelworkers Humanity Fund, a labour interntational development fund created by the Canadian Steelworkers in 1985.
Amber Martin, a student at the University at Albany, Amber Martin had played a key role in the emergence of the student anti-sweatshop movement on campus.
Yanira Merino, Organizer with the Laborers' International Union of North America. Yanira has a vast and rich experience organizing Latin American workers both in North as well as Central America.
Juan Pablo Pérez Sáinz (Senior Researcher/ Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), Costa Rica. His most recent book is From the Finca to the Maquila. Labor and Capitalist Development in Central America, (Westview Press, 1999).
Make checks out to: Latin American and Caribbean Studies Department Mail to: Latin American and Caribbean Studies Attn: Workers and Globalization Conference Registration
Social Sciences # 250
University at Albany
1400 Washington Avenue
Albany, NY 12222
All artwork by Rini Templeton
Student