Book Talk
Buddhist Economics: An Enlightened Approach to the Dismal Science
820 Barrows Hall, Social Science Matrix at UC Berkeley 820 Barrows Hall, Berkeley, CA, United StatesTraditional economics measures the ways in which we spend our income, and doesn't attribute worth to the crucial human interactions that give our lives meaning. Clair Brown, an economist at UC Berkeley and a practicing Buddhist, has developed a holistic model, one based on the notion that quality of life should be measured by more
In the Fields of the North / En los campos del norte: Book Talk with David Bacon
IRLE Director's Room 2521 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA, United StatesPlease join us for a conversation with activist and photographer David Bacon to talk about his new book, In the fields of the North / En los compos del norte. In this landmark work of photo-journalism, Bacon documents the experiences of some of the hardest-working and most disenfranchised laborers in the country: the farmworkers who
Refinery Town: Big Oil, Big Money, and the Remaking of an American City
IRLE Director's Room 2521 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA, United StatesHome to one of the largest oil refineries in the state, Richmond, California, was once a traditional company town dominated by Chevron. This largely nonwhite city of 110,000 suffered from poverty, pollution, violent street crime, and poorly funded public services. But in 2012, when journalist Steve Early moved to Richmond, he encountered a community that
Gold Rush Stories: Seekers, Scoundrels, Loss, and Luck
IRLE Director's Room 2521 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA, United StatesIn less than ten years in the nineteenth century, more than 300,000 people made the journey to California, some from as far away as Chile and China. Dreamers and eccentrics, they included the first African American judge, an early feminist, and a self-styled emperor. Historian Gary Noy's new book, Gold Rush Stories: 49 Tales of Seekers,
In a Field of Patriarchy: Gender Politics and Freedom Dreams During the United Farm Worker Movement
IRLE Director's Room 2521 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA, United StatesAbsent in farmworker historiographies are the voices of farmworker women who speak of patriarchal and racialized exploitation in post World War II California. For many, patriarchal power originated in domestic violence, strict gender roles and autonomy-denying social conditions. Using original oral interviews, this presentation foregrounds the patriarchal relations within the Mexican farmworker community, and traces
Hard Work Is Not Enough: Gender and Racial Inequality in an Urban Workspace
In this talk, Professor Davis will discuss African American women’s experiences as bus operators in a San Francisco Bay Area transit firm from 1974-1989, during the height of affirmative action hiring. Through a series of interviews with these transit operators alongside correspondence between management and union leaders, grievance and arbitration data, as well as litigation
Pictures of a Gone City: Tech and the Dark Side of Prosperity in the San Francisco Bay Area
IRLE Director's Room 2521 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA, United StatesThe San Francisco Bay Area is currently the jewel in the crown of capitalism—the tech capital of the world and a gusher of wealth from the Silicon Gold Rush. It has been generating jobs, spawning new innovation, and spreading ideas that are changing lives everywhere. It boasts of being the Left Coast, the Greenest City,
Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade, Immigration, and Global Capital
IRLE Director's Room 2521 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA, United StatesIn Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade, Immigration, and Global Capital (Harvard University Press), Clausing makes the argument that Americans, especially those with middle and lower incomes, face stark economic challenges due to rising income inequality and wage stagnation. But these problems do not require us to retreat from the global economy. On the contrary, an open economy overwhelmingly
From Coors to California: David Sickler and the New Working Class
IRLE Director's Room 2521 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA, United StatesJoin us for a conversation with David Sickler, one of the most creative and successful union organizers in the country. Starting out working on an assembly line in Colorado’s Coors Brewery, Sickler went on to lead breakthrough campaigns that transformed the US labor movement and to become an influential labor advocate within Los Angeles City
The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder: Labor’s Last Best Weapon
IRLE Director's Room 2521 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA, United StatesWhen Steven Burd, CEO of the supermarket chain Safeway, cut wages and benefits, starting a five-month strike by 59,000 unionized workers, he was confident he would win. But where traditional labor action failed, a novel approach was more successful. With the aid of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, a $300 billion pension fund, workers
Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area
Room 370, Dwinelle Hall Berkeley, CA, United StatesDr. Peter Cole discusses his highly anticipated book - Dockworker Power. Often missed in commentary on today's globalizing economy, workers in the world’s ports can harness their role, at a strategic choke point, to promote their labor rights and social justice causes. Cole brings such overlooked experiences to light in an eye-opening comparative study of Durban,
Author Talk – Scott L. Cummings on Blue and Green: The Drive for Justice at America’s Port
IRLE Director's Room 2521 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA, United StatesHow an alliance of the labor and environmental movements used law as a tool to clean up the trucking industry at the nation’s largest port. In Blue and Green, Scott Cummings examines a campaign by the labor and environmental movements to transform trucking at America’s largest port in Los Angeles. Tracing the history of struggle in
Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor
ESC-IFPTE Local 20 810 Clay Street, Oakland, United StatesJoin us for a conversation with book author and longtime New York Times labor correspondent, Steven Greenhouse. His latest book, Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor, is an in-depth look at working men and women in America, the challenges they face, and how they can be re-empowered. About Beaten Down, Worked Up In
The Triumph of Injustice: A Book Talk with Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman
Sibley Auditorium, Bechtel Engineering Center, UC Berkeley Bechtel Engineering Center,, Berkeley, CA, United StatesSocial Science Matrix is honored to co-sponsor this upcoming book talk with authors and UC Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, focused on their new book, The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay. The book presents a forensic investigation into a dramatic transformation that has taken place
Book Talk – On the Outside: Prisoner Reentry and Reintegration
Social Research Library, Haviland Hall 227 Haviland Hall #6000, Berkeley, CAAmerica’s high incarceration rates are a well-known facet of contemporary political conversations. Mentioned far less often is what happens to the nearly 700,000 former prisoners who rejoin society each year. On the Outside examines the lives of 22 people—varied in race and gender but united by their time in the criminal justice system—as they pass
From the Edge of the Ghetto: The Quest of Small City African-Americans to Survive Post-Industrialism
Alford A. Young, Jr. will discuss his new book, which presents a case for how configurations of race, class, and gender surface for lower-income African Americans in their struggle to come to terms with post-industrialism.
Author Talk: Jamie K. McCallum on Essential
IRLE Director's Room 2521 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA, United StatesJoin us for an in-person book talk with award-winning sociologist Jamie K. McCallum on his latest book, Essential: How the Pandemic Transformed the Long Fight for Worker Justice. Co-hosted by IRLE, the Labor Center and Berkeley Sociology About the Book In Essential, McCallum uncovers the deep roots of essential workers’ rage and reveals how their