LaborTech 2015 Presenters
Kavena “Kav” Hambira is a visiting Fulbright Scholar and emerging independent filmmaker from Namibia. With a background in Labor Relations and enthusiasm for documentary film, he aims to produce insightful content that advances the cause of The Working Class. His recent short film on ILWU Local 10’s May Day protest can be freely viewed atkavenafilm.com
Todd Davies is an Associate Director and Lecturer at The Symbolic Systems Program at Stanford University.
Steven Hill is a Senior Fellow with the New America Foundation and his forthcoming book, Raw Deal: How the “Uber Economy” and Naked Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers, will be published by St. Martin’s Press this October. He is a veteran journalist and author of four other books, including the internationally praised Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age, which was selected as one of the “Top Fifteen Books of 2010″ by The Globalist. His articles and media interviews have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Financial Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Die Zeit, Project Syndicate, Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Politico, Mother Jones, Huffington Post, Salon, Slate,BBC, C-SPAN, Fox News, NPR, PBS, Democracy Now, Austrian Public Broadcasting and many others. He lives in San Francisco, CA.
Javier Córdova is a Puerto Rican activist and union leader. He has participated in numerous social movements in the island, including environmental movements, struggles for women’s rights, democratic rights and union’s rights. He is a member of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of Haiti. Javier is the President of the Chapter of the Puertorrican Association of University Professors (APPU) at the University of Puerto Rico, Arecibo campus. He is a member of the National Board of APPU and a member of its Executive Committee. Javier is also leader of the Working People’s Party (WPP), a political organization founded in 2010 and who participated in the electoral process in PR in 2012 and who is currently working in the inscription to participate in the elections of 2016. The WPP aims to organize the working class in its own political party independent of the two major political parties that represent the employers.
Gail Glick has been litigating employment disputes in Los Angeles since 1994. She and her partners founded the AK+G partnership with a continued commitment to the exclusive representation of employees in all aspects of employment law disputes and resolutions. Since 2002, Gail has focused her practice on representing employees in employment discrimination and retaliation, wrongful termination, defamation, unfair competition and wage and hour law. Gail’s warm nature, writing acumen and attention to detail are particular assets to the partnership and its clients.
Gail has represented a wide variety of workers, including artists, bank tellers, bookkeepers, CEOs, CFOs, comptrollers, custodians, clerical employees, delivery persons, entertainment executives, factory workers, finance professionals, grips, human resource professionals, investment professionals, lawyers, librarians, managers, mariners, orthopedists, office managers, ophthalmologists, pharmacists, pharmaceutical sales representatives, plumbing sales representatives, professors, psychologists, registered nurses, respiratory therapists, retail managers, rocket scientists, salespersons, social workers, super market executives, teachers, trainmen, and videographers.
Gail prides herself on her ability to pursue each case with a sensitivity to the unique needs of each client. When appropriate, she aggressively litigates with a view toward a trial. In other instances, her training and experience in mediating disputes allows her to effectively represent her clients with a conciliatory approach. She has achieved numerous six and seven figure settlements without the necessity of trial.
From 1995 through the summer of 2002, Gail focused her practice on the representation of defendants. She defended employers in all aspects of employment law disputes at the firms of Reish Luftman McDaniel & Reicher (2001‐ 2002) and Musick, Peeler & Garrett LLP (1995‐2001). She spent her first year of practice at the small Westside litigation firm that is now known as Silver & Field.
In 2006, Gail honed her trial advocacy skills in the prestigious Trial Advocacy Project (“TAP”) of the Los Angeles County Bar Association and tried three cases to unanimous guilty verdicts for the Long Beach Prosecutor’s Office.
John Parulis is a long time professional multi-media activist who started at Greenpeace, filming many important campaigns aboard the Rainbow Warrior, including it’s last voyage, and has worked with the ILWU, and the KPFA Multi-Media team where he streams live news and media events. He is one of the organizers of LaborTech and is also a member of CWA Media Workers Union Freelance Unit.
Jack Linchuan Qiu is associate professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is also Deputy Director, Centre for Chinese Media and Comparative Communication Research, School of Journalism & Communication, CUHK. He researches on information and communication technologies (ICTs), class, globalization, and social change. His publications include Working-Class Network Society (MIT Press, 2009), Mobile Communication and Society: A Global Perspective (MIT Press, 2006). Some of his publications have been translated into German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean. Besides academic projects, he also provides consultancy services for international organizations such as the OECD. He is also author of “Locating Worker-Generated Content (WGC) In The World’s Factory”
Ruth Silver Taube is a Supervising Attorney of the Workers’ Rights Clinic at the Katharine & George Alexander Community Law Center, an Adjunct Professor of Santa Clara University School of Law, and a Special Counsel for the Legal Aid Society – Employment Law Center. She teaches a Workers’ Rights’ class at Santa Clara University School of Law that investigates retaliation claims filed with the Labor Commission. She is the Coordinator of the Santa Clara County Wage Theft Coalition, a founding member of the Bay Area Equal Pay Collaborative, Legal Services Chair of the South Bay Coalition to End Human Trafficking, and an alternate delegate to the Santa Clara County Human Trafficking Commission. She has partnered with the Vietnamese American Bar Association of Northern California, the Filipino Bar Association, and the Pilipino Association of Workers and Immigrants to establish monthly community law clinics for Vietnamese American clients and quarterly clinics for Filipino clients. Prior to law school, she was a journeyman machinist, President of IAM Local 547 in District 93, and a Senior Field Representative for SEIU 535. After law school, she served as a law clerk to the Honorable Ronald M. Whyte, District Court Judge, Northern District of California, San Jose Division and worked as a federal mediator for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and as a panel mediator for the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. She is a frequent speaker on wage theft; employment law issues in human trafficking, equal pay, and domestic violence cases; and ERISA disability benefits. She previously taught at Njala University College, in Sierra Leone, West Africa with the Canadian Peace Corps. In 2013, she was the keynote speaker at the Vietnamese American Bar Association of Northern California’s dinner and received the Unsung Hero Award from the Santa Clara County Victim Support Network and the Commitment Award from the Alexander Community Law Center. In 2015, she received the Pro Bono Advocate of the Year award from WorkSafe.
Steve Zeltzer is one of the founders of LaborNet and LaborTech.net. He produces labor video documentaries and also produces a KPFA Pacifica labor radio show called WorkWeek Radio
“World Factory” And Chinese Workers In The Global Economy From Theater To Music And Honoring the Chinese Workers Who Built the Transcontinental Railway.
Stanford University July 26, 2015 7:30 PM
Builing 200, Room 2 (main lecture hall)
https://25live.collegenet.com/25live/data/stanford/run/image?image_id=35
Chinese workers are the largest working class in the world and 260 million of these workers are migrant workers from throughout the many regions of China. They play a central role in the world economy because China has become the central link in the “World Factory”.
“Grass Stage” which is the production company that helped develop this play about the role of the migrant Chinese worker in this global production chain.
Playwright Zhao Chuan visited Manchester, England and from this visit developed the play reflecting the experience and lives of the Chinese workers who make the many products we use in the United States and throughout the world.
Zhao Chuan wrote on the work ‘to imagine a kind of theatre…first, it doesn’t come from the need for artistic re volition in formalistic terms but the need to improve the understanding of the relationship between theatre and people. The main concern of this kind of theatre is social life, not by ways of reflection but that of penetration and more substantial interventions, as question or even interrogation. Such reality is absolutely not naturalistic imitation, ingratiation or duplication. In certain way, this kind of theatre is approaching the truths of self, individuals, and social groups, and the process of interrogation is theatre which then becomes a method to reflect on life and its problems.’ (Zhao Chuan, “ Interrogating Theatre”, Dushu, April 2006)
Segments of this play will be performed at Stanford and also there will be musical performance by
Xu, Guojian who is with the Beijing Migrant Workers Home. Head of New Worker’s Art Troupe and Chairman of Trade Union in Pi Village Community, Leader of Workers’ Museum, and Director of Spring Festival Gala for and by Migrant workers.
Also Dong, Jun, leader of “Zhongdiyin Cultural Center for Workers”. Initiator, leader, vocalist, and percussionist of Zhongdiyin Worker’s Band will perform.
The lives and artistic expression of this new young working class is a growing development in China and their songs tell the story of the lives and their struggles in the new China.
There will also be a presentation by Stanford lecturer Hilton Obenziner who is Associate Director, Stanford Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project about the building of the Transcontinental Railway on the 150th anniversary of it’s construction by the 50,000 Chinese workers who came to America to build it. These Chinese workers played an important and critical role in building America and also led the first and largest strike at that time in California history starting on June 25, 1867. We honor them for the work they did in building America
http://web.stanford.edu/group/chineserailroad/cgi-bin/wordpress/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/tcrr-strike/
Sponsored by LaborFest , LaborTech
For more information contact (415)282-1908