[URPE] [NYC] NYC URPE at the Brecht Forum, Spring 2006

[Ruth Indeck]

To URPE Members and Friends:

Please forward this to anyone you think might be interested.

Please download and post this flyer at your school, job or organization:
http://urpe.org/BrechtSpring06.pdf

For our first event on retail organizing, you can choose a flyer to 
download:
http://urpe.org/RetailBW.pdf (print with black ink) or
http://urpe.org/RetailColor.pdf (full color)

Our series will take place at the Brecht Forum:

Brecht Forum, 451 West St.
(West Side Highway between Bank and Bethune)
***NEW ADDRESS***
See website for directions
www.brechtforum.org
212-242-4201

$6/$10/$15 suggested donation



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NYC Union for Radical Political Economics and the Brecht Forum present:


ORGANIZING POTENTIAL OF THE RETAIL SECTOR

Date: Tuesday, May 2, 7:30pm

Speakers: DAVID BENSMAN, MATHIAS BOLTON, JEFFREY EICHLER, LIZA FEATHERSTONE
Moderator: EDAN DHANRAJ

U.S. manufacturing employment is declining, and jobs in many other 
sectors are being outsourced to countries with cheaper labor costs and 
eliminated through "lean and mean" technological change. In this 
climate, union organizers are asking themselves where to organize next. 
Our panelists feel there is great potential for organizing workers in 
the retail sector, which includes massive distribution centers as well 
as stores. Edan Dhanraj, our panel's organizer and chair, and RWDSU 
research director Mathias Bolton have both worked in these distribution 
centers, and Mathias has been involved in organizing drives in both 
distribution centers and retail stores. RWDSU organizer Jeffrey Eichler 
led a recently-successful drive to unionize immigrant workers in a chain 
of Brooklyn sneaker stores. David Bensman has done extensive research on 
the retail sector and will describe how it functions and how it has 
changed over the years. Where Wal-Mart goes, others will follow -- it is 
the largest employer (and retail employer) in the U.S. Liza Featherstone 
will talk about the experiences of people who have been organizing 
workers at Wal-Mart.

About the Speakers:

David Bensman is a professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations 
at Rutgers University, and author of several books about labor, 
education, and social policy.

Mathias Bolton is the Director of Research for the RWDSU (Retail, 
Wholesale and Department Store Union). For 10 years he worked at a 
unionized retail distribution center where he was a rank and file 
activist and elected union representative.

Jeffrey Eichler is the coordinator of Retail Organizing in NY for the RWDSU.

Liza Featherstone is a journalist who writes frequently on labor and 
student activism for The Nation, as well as many other publications. She 
is the co-author of Students Against Sweatshops: The Making of a 
Movement (2002). In 2004, she published Selling Women Short: The 
Landmark Battle for Workers' Rights at Wal-Mart, a history of Dukes vs. 
Wal-Mart, the largest civil rights class-action suit in history.


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OIL, NUKES, MULLAHS, DEMOCRACY AND U.S. HEGEMONY:
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE IRAN CRISIS

Date: Tuesday, May 16, 7:30pm

Speakers: FARAMARZ FARBOD, REZA GHORASHI, FATEMEH MOGHADAM, TOM O'DONNELL

The long-suffering Iranian people face dual burdens: the constant 
prospect of a bloody U.S.-led intervention, and the continued internal 
rule of the mullahs. This panel examines the motivations of both sides, 
and addresses a number of questions: What is the political-economic 
basis for the persistent hostility towards Iran by the U.S. and its 
allies: Britain, France and Germany? What is the role of their long-term 
quest for oil? What are the real issues involved in the nuclear power 
dispute? What is the political economy of the present clerical regime, 
and what are the prospects for internal social and democratic 
transformation? What is the current status of women in Iran, and how are 
policies towards women used to maintain overall social control? Our 
panelists will cut through the abundance of official misinformation on 
Iran, and seek effective ways to express our solidarity with the just 
struggles of the Iranian people.

About the Speakers:

Faramarz Farbod is an Iranian-American (a native of Iran). He taught 
politics in Iran for several years in the 1990s, and has been teaching 
politics in the US (Moravian College, Bethlehem, PA) since 1998. He is 
pursuing his PhD in comparative politics at Rutgers University. His 
primary areas of interest are: American foreign policy in the Third 
World (especially in the Middle East); issues related to globalization, 
empire, capitalism, and development; politics of dissent here in 
America; and issues related to the US media.

Reza Ghorashi has a Ph.D. in economics from Fordham University and 
teaches at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. His areas of research 
and interest are international trade, globalization, and the Middle 
East, particularly Iran. He has published articles in both English and 
Farsi on the listed subject matters.

Fatemeh Moghadam teaches courses at Hofstra on Economic Development, 
Women and Development in the Middle East, Economic Development in the 
Middle East, and International Economics. She has published extensively 
on economic history, agricultural development, and women and 
development, including a book, From Land Reform to The Revolution: The 
Political Economy of Agricultural Development in Iran (1960-1979) 
(Tauris Academic Studies, London, February 1996). Her research work 
includes several field studies in Iran. Her most recent publications 
include entries in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History (New 
York, 2003), entries in Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures (to 
appear 2006), as well as articles on women and work in Iran.

Tom O'Donnell (PhD, nuclear physics) is Lecturer at the University of 
Michigan, Ann Arbor in the Science, Technology and Science Program (STS) 
and the Center for Middle East and North African Studies (CMENAS), and 
the Residential College.  He lectured on "The Global Oil System and the 
Middle East" in graduate economics at The University of Algiers and, as 
visiting professor, at The New School for Social Research in New York 
City in spring-summer of 2005.  He is currently writing a book on "The 
New Globalized Oil Order."  He is also Associate Member of the Michigan 
Center for Theoretical Physics (MCTP). He previously spent a decade as 
an industrial worker and organizer-activist in Detroit auto plants and 
on Chicago railways.


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THE POLITICAL ECONOMIES OF PALESTINE AND ISRAEL:
UNDER-EXPLORED ASPECTS OF THE CONFLICT

Date: Thursday, June 1, 7:30pm

Speakers: JEROME JOFFE, KAREN PFEIFER

 Last summer Jerry Joffe participated in a fact-finding tour of 
Palestine, sponsored by Faculty For Israeli-Palestinian Peace. He 
traveled extensively throughout the West Bank in search of a deeper 
understanding of how the economy of Palestine works, and of how economic 
circumstances frame the political prospects for peace between Israel and 
Palestine. Jerry will report on what he learned about the many obstacles 
to economic development in Palestine during the years of the Israeli 
occupation.
      Because the economies of Israel and Palestine are so closely 
intertwined, economic policies and circumstances in Israel have a strong 
effect on Palestine, above and beyond whatever is going on politically. 
Karen Pfeifer, who has studied and taught about the economies of many 
countries in the Middle East, will talk about Israel's economy: its 
strengths, its vulnerabilities, and their dialectic.

About the Speakers:

Jerome Joffe teaches at St. John's University, Division of Social 
Science, Program in Health Care Administration. His publications include 
"The U.S. Health Care System, A Reproduction Crisis" in Political 
Economy and Contemporary Capitalism (M.E. Sharpe) and articles on Long 
Term Care (Home Health Care Services Quarterly), Health Care Costs 
(Journal of Economic Issues), Physician Productivity (Public Health 
Reports) and Health Utilization (Inquiry). Jerry recently joined a tour 
of Palestine sponsored by Faculty For Israeli-Palestinian Peace and has 
written a report which is on their website.

Karen Pfeifer is a Professor of Economics at Smith College and has 
taught there since 1979. She has served as an editor of Research in 
Middle East Economics and of Middle East Report. Pfeifer's main teaching 
fields are alternative economic theory and comparative economic systems, 
with research focused on economic development and social change in the 
Middle East and North Africa. She has done research in Algeria, Egypt, 
Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Turkey, and the Palestinian Territories. Her 
most recent scholarly projects concern rebuilding devastated economies 
in the Middle East and the Euro-Med Partnership Initiative.

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