Protecting Our Right to Organize within vulnerable workplaces, featuring IATSE entertainment workers, National Writers Union Freelance Solidarity Project members, and an IWW organizer.
Saturday, October 30, 2021
4:00 p.m. Eastern
3:00 p.m. Central
2:00 p.m. Mountain
1:00 p.m. Pacific
Find event time in any timezone here
Register using the button below so you can join in the conversation via Zoom. If you’re unable to connect via Zoom, we’ll also be streaming live on Facebook and will archive the webinar on our YouTube channel.
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| Olga Lexell has lived and studied in Kyiv, Chicago, Los Angeles, London, and Tokyo. A writers' assistant and script coordinator, she is unionized under IATSE Local 871. Olga has also worked as a freelance journalist and is involved in the IWW Freelance Journalists Union. |
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Steve Ongerth, a ferry boat deckhand and captain with the Blue and Gold Fleet on San Francisco Bay, is also an author and website developer. He is an active member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and System Change Not Climate Change. He cofounded the IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus and has worked with the grassroots group No Coal in Oakland and as an advocate for people with disabilities, of which he is one.
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| Eric Thurm is a writer, organizer, and event producer whose work has appeared in The New York Times and Jewish Currents, among other outlets. A founding member of the Freelance Solidarity Project of the National Writers Union, he also organizes with Never Again Action and New York's branch of the Democratic Socialists of America. In a past life, Eric founded and ran the event series Drunk TED Talks. |
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Why is System Change Not Climate Change doing webinars and publishing articles on labor struggles?
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It's simple.
We see the struggle for climate justice through a class struggle lens. Without the organized power of labor to confront the organized power of capital, the climate justice movement will fail in its mission to prevent ecological destruction undermining the conditions for a decent life in generations to come.
There are encouraging signs of working-class resistance all around us.
Under attack for decades, workers in the United States and around the world have begun to show a new militancy and a revived sense that, if we strike, we can win. Even mainstream media are taking notice. A couple signs of the times:
- veteran labor organizer Jane McAlevey appeared on Chris Hayes’s nightly MSNBC show,
- Labor Notes’ Jonah Furman was interviewed as a labor unrest expert on ABC News, and
- the increasing willingness of U.S. workers to tell their bosses that they can "take this job and shove it" has even persuaded the New York Times that something is up.
Meanwhile, halfway around the globe, in South Korea, where many labor issues, including an out-of-control “gig economy,” are strikingly similar to those faced in the USA. More than a half million South Korean workers went out on a general strike on September 20.
After many years of setbacks, the reawakening of labor in the USA and around the world is a crucial part of the process that can put system change on the agenda and challenge capitalism's engine of destruction.
We've staged a couple of webinars that have highlighted labor's role in our ecosocialist vision. Join us next Saturday for a booster shot of labor-climate justice solidarity.
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DSA Green New Deal Campaign Coordinators Sydney Ghazarian & Ashik Siddique joined in conversation with System Change Not Climate Change. Sydney and Ashik explain why climate activists are organizing for labor law reform as a top priority for climate activists. Click on the photo to go to the webinar on YouTube.
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Labor organizer, climate activist, and historian Jeremy Brecher spoke with System Change Not Climate Change about the role of the strike weapon in fighting the deepening and intertwined crises we face. Click on the photo to go to the webinar on YouTube.
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COMMUNE, CONNECT, COLLUDE, COLLABORATE!
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