Sunday September 22: Livestream International Labor Solidarity Dialogue
Sunday, September 22, 2019, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Geneva time
Sponsored by the Alliance of Middle Eastern and North African Socialists
Endorsed by New Politics
For the link to the livestream on the day of the event, go to https://www.facebook.com/
Speakers:
Kevin Lin is an activist and researcher of China’s labor movement. He co-edits the open-access journal Made in China (https://
Raga Makawi is a Sudanese labor activist and liaison for the Sudan Workers’ Restoration Movement.
Kamal Aissat is an Algerian university lecturer, trade unionist and has been a member of the national bureau of the higher education lecturers’ union. He was also a founding member with other trade-unionists of the Solidarity Committee with workers’ struggles in 2012. He has been very active in the current ongoing popular movement in Algeria.
Jose Bodas is the general secretary of the Unitary Federation of Oil Workers in Venezuela.
Frieda Afary produces Iranian Progressives in Translation and is a member of the Alliance of MENA Socialists. She has written articles in English and Persian about labor and feminist struggles in Iran, socialist feminism, Marx’s Capital, and Marxist critiques of state capitalism in the former USSR and Maoist China.
Ellen David-Friedman is a retired organizer with the National Education Association in Vermont. She is a founding member of Vermont’s Progressive Party and a member of the Labor Notes policy committee.
John Reimann has been a union activist for 35 years. He is the former recording secretary of Carpenters Local 713 in the U.S. He helped organize a wildcat strike of San Francisco Bay Area carpenters in 1999 which led to his expulsion by the union bureaucracy. He produces the blog Oaklandsocialist.com and has written various articles about solidarity with international labor struggles including Iran and Venezuela. He has visited the workers’ movement in Mexico, Pakistan, Egypt and Venezuela.
Moderator:
Selma Oumari is an Algerian French member of the New Anticapitalist Party in France and a member of the Alliance of MENA Socialists. She is involved in anti-racist struggles as well as international solidarity.
The following questions will be discussed:
- What are the various labor struggles taking place in each country represented. These will include women and oppressed minorities, migrant and slave labor?
- What is the specific character of capitalism and imperialism in each country. To what extent have labor struggles responded to these realities? To what extent have labor struggles fallen short in responding to these realities and why?
- How can labor struggles in the countries represented on this panel help each other?
- We live in an age in which state capitalism is on the rise. What types of concepts and struggles are needed to overcome both private and state capitalism? What does emancipated labor mean?
The last 25 minutes of the livestream will be for answering questions from the Facebook audience sent through the Facebook page of the Alliance of MENA Socialists.
For the link to the livestream on the day of the event, go to https://www.facebook.com/