BUILDING WORKER POWER
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Clare Hammonds UMass Amherst Labor Center
Dylan Hatch UMass Amherst STPEC (Social
Thought and Political Economy)
Mary Hoyer Wellspring Cooperative
Emily Kawano Wellspring Cooperative
Nellie Marshall-Torres Wellspring Cooperative
Boone Shear UMass Amherst Department of
Anthropology
Nellie Taylor UMass Amherst Labor Center
Eve Weinbaum UMass Amherst Labor Center
Program Printed on March 20th, 2023
Email: buildingworkerpower2023@gmail.com
Tag us in your photos with #BuildingWorkerPower, and on
Facebook: https:/
/tinyurl.com/3vr432xv
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BUILDING WORKER POWER
through Solidarity, Cooperation, and Care
In this time of economic crisis and ecological collapse, workers of all
kinds are rejecting the alienation and violence of racial capitalism.
Spurred on through the ongoing global pandemic, a “great
resignation” of workers are refusing to return to jobs that pay too
little and demand too many hours; workers at giant corporations are
seizing collective power through union organizing; the collective
ownership of worker-owned cooperatives are attracting an increasing
number of workers and communities; the younger generations are
increasingly questioning whether “work”—under the power and
direction of the ruling class—makes any sense at all.
Massachusetts (and Western Massachusetts) has a rich history of
radical labor organizing, from the union co-op work of the Knights of
Labor to Communitarian projects; from the Bread and Roses strike to
the legacies of W.E.B. Dubois; and from the Communist Party of
Massachusetts to the Underground Railroad. Today, Massachusetts
has one of the higher union densities of any state in the union, as well
as the third most worker-owned cooperatives. Statewide coalitions
and local initiatives are building relationships and power between and
among unions and cooperatives, and between organized labor and
communities. And the University of Massachusetts is home to one of
the only graduate programs for labor leaders in the U.S. as well as the
only post-secondary degree for worker-owned cooperatives.
These various projects direct us towards questions and possibilities
for working and being in the world beyond instrumental notions of
wage-labor, competition, and economic growth; and towards a world
rooted in solidarity, cooperation, and care.
This conference explores the deep histories, current happenings, and
future possibilities of collaborations between union organizing and
worker-owned cooperatives. Through these conversations and
learnings we aim to build connections that can advance projects for
worker power and social change in Massachusetts and beyond.
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PROGRAM CONTENTS
General Meeting Information
Conference Overview
Plenary Events and Speakers
Acknowledgements and Co-Sponsors
Friday, March 24
Saturday, March 25
9:00-10:30am Session A
10:45-12:15pm Session B
2:00-3:30pm Session C
3:45-5:15pm Session D
Sunday March 26
10:00-11:30am Sessions E
11:45-1:15pm Sessions F
Special Events
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General Meeting Information
Location of Meeting Events
Conference events will be held on the campus of the
University of Massachusetts Amherst at the following
locations: the UMass Amherst Conference Center, the Old
Chapel, and the Integrative Learning Center (ILC). See the
conference map and program schedule for more details
Registration and Help Desk
Registration materials—including conference program,
badges and discounted parking passes are available at the
following times and locations:
Friday March 24
4pm-7pm ILC (Integrative Learning
Center)
Saturday March 25
7:30am-12pm Old Chapel Lobby
1pm-6pm Old Chapel Lobby
Sunday March 26
7:30am-12pm Old Chapel Lobby
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Parking
Discounted parking is available for conference registrants at
$6.50/day in the Campus Center Parking Garage, located at
1 Campus Center Way, Amherst MA 01003. Hotel UMass
guests will receive a complimentary parking pass to the
Campus Center Parking Garage at hotel check-in.
After 5 p.m. on Friday and throughout the weekend, campus
guests can park in many surface lots around campus
without having to pay or having to obtain a permit. If you
wish to park in a surface lot after 5 p.m. on Friday or
anytime on Saturday you should avoid any spots marked as
“Restricted” or “Reserved” and avoid any lots marked as
being “24-hour restricted parking”.
HOW TO USE DISCOUNT PARKING PASSES
Before getting in your car to leave for the day, take your gate
ticket and the parking coupon to one of the garage pay
stations (located on levels 2, 3, and 4). Enter your gate ticket
and, when prompted, scan the parking coupon. This will
offer you a discounted rate of $6.50/day (at most), valid for
one exit. The pay station will return your gate ticket to you.
Return to your car and follow signs to the garage exit. Insert
your validated gate ticket to lift the exit gate as you drive
out of the garage. This process will need to be repeated each
day you attend the conference.
ACCESSIBLE PARKING
Attendees with a valid state-issued reserved accessible
license plate or placard may park in any marked
Handicapped Space or any unrestricted, unreserved space
or lot, at no charge, as long as your plate or placard is clearly
displayed at all times during your stay. To locate reserved
accessible parking, visit the UMass Parking Map, select the
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blue parking icon on the right, and click the "Handicapped
Parking" option.
Wifi
Free Wifi will be available for use throughout UMass’s
Campus. Login details will be provided at registration.
Name Badge
Please wear your name badge, provided at registration, for
entry to all Building Worker Power Conference activities
and for the duration of the conference.
Pronoun stickers for badges
At registration you will find stickers to add to your badges
that let people know what pronouns you use. If you aren’t
familiar, pronouns are the identifiers like “she” and “him”
and “they” that we regularly use in conversation to identify a
person. We are including pronoun stickers to let others
know what pronoun we want used when referring to us, and
so we do our best not to assume anyone’s gender.
Local Transportation and Shopping
There are multiple transportation options to get you from
campus to amenities and attractions in the surrounding
area. Amherst center, with local shops and restaurants, is a
15-20 minute walk or a 5 minute drive from campus. If you
find you need to visit a grocery store, large retail store, or
pharmacy during your stay, numerous options are located
on University Drive and Russell Street (also known as Route
9) in neighboring Hadley, about a 5-10 minute trip from
campus by car or bus. Retailers include CVS, unionized Stop
and Shop, recently unionized Trader Joes, Target, and more.
Local buses, operated by the Pioneer Valley Transit
Authority, run regularly between Amherst center and the
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University, with additional services traveling throughout the
Pioneer Valley, including Northampton, Springfield, and
Greenfield. If you'd rather take a car, UMass has partnered
with Zipcar to bring on-demand car sharing services right
to campus. The area is also serviced by a variety of cab
companies, including Uber, Lyft, Celebrity Cab Company
and Taxi Express. There are also a number of bicycle rentals
around campus, including ValleyBike Share and Hampshire
Bicycle Exchange.
Eating on Campus
A continental breakfast with coffee and tea will be available
for conference registrants on Saturday, March 25, from
8:00-9:00 am in the Old Chapel Multipurpose Room.
Cash meals will be available on Friday and Saturday evening
and all lunchtimes in the UMass dining facilities. Thanks to
the hard work of our unionized dining services staff
(AFSCME 1776), UMass is proud to be home to the number
one ranked college dining program in the country.
Campus Eateries and Hours
Friday, March 24th
● Blue Wall in CC
(11am-9pm)
● Harvest Market in
CC (8am-9pm)
● Worcester Dining
Commons (7am-
12am)
● Hampshire Dining
Commons
(7am-9pm)
Saturday, March 25th
● Continental
Breakfast in OC
(7:30am-9:00am)
● Harvest Market in
CC (8am-9pm)
● Worcester Dining
Commons (7am-
12am)
● Hampshire Dining
Commons
(7am-9pm)
Sunday, March 26th
● Harvest Market in CC
(8am-9pm)
● Worcester Dining
Commons (7am- 12am)
● Hampshire Dining
Commons (7am-9pm)
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Worcester Dining Commons is open Friday to Sunday from
7:00 AM - Midnight and is an option for weekend lunch and
dinner. At this world-class dining facility the cost for
breakfast is $10.50, lunch is $14.00, and dinner is $17.00
Hampshire Dining Commons is open Friday to Sunday from
7:00am - 9:00pm and aims to be one of the healthiest and
most sustainable dining commons in the country. Here you
will be able to find minimally processed foods and more
plant-based items at peak season, less red meat and more
sustainable seafood. The cost for breakfast is $10.50, lunch is
$14.00, and dinner is $17.00.
Harvest Market is open Friday - Sunday from 8am-9pm and
is located on the main concourse of the Campus Center. It is
a full service market serving healthy, sustainable, and
delicious fare for on the go customers. The hot bar often
features Indian, Ethiopian, traditional American, and many
other world cuisines, and the salad bar is always stocked
with in-season ingredients and freshly prepared salads.
Personal and Family Needs
Child care (Old Chapel Multipurpose Room) is available on
Saturday, March 25th from 9am-12:30pm and from
12:30-5:15 pm. Advance sign-up is required.
Lactation Station (CC 802) is a room for anyone who needs
to nurse, feed a child or pump milk during the conference.
All-Gender Restrooms are available in Old Chapel: 01A,
110C; ILC S187 and Student Union 217, 219 next to the
Campus Center.
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Code of Conduct
All attendees, speakers, sponsors and volunteers at our
conference are required to agree with the following code of
conduct. Organizers will enforce this code throughout the
event. We expect cooperation from all participants to help
ensure a safe environment for everybody.
Our conference is dedicated to providing a harassment-free
conference experience for everyone, regardless of gender,
gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation,
disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity or
religion (or lack thereof). We do not tolerate harassment of
conference participants in any form. Conference
participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or
expelled from the conference without a refund at the
discretion of the conference organizers.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the
conference organizers at the Help Desk in the Old Chapel or
by email at buildingworkerpower2023@gmail.com
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Map of Conference Locations
For full campus map, see registration packet, or visit:
https:/
/my.umass.edu/campusmap
For GPS directions, please head toward 1 Campus
Center Way, Amherst, MA 01003 for Campus Center,
Hotel UMass, and the UMass Parking Garage
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Exhibitor/Vendor Tables
Friday Tabling- ILC 1st Floor Lobby 5-7pm
Worx Printing
Wellspring Co-op
Equal Exchange
UMass Labor Center
PM Press*
Common Share Food Co-op
Coalition for Worker Ownership and Power (COWOP)
Pride at Work
MA Solidarity Economy Network
Massive Bookshop*
PM Press*
Prison Abolition Collective (PAC)
The Shoestring
Saturday Tabling- Old Chapel 5-6:30pm
Worx Printing
Wellspring Co-op
Equal Exchange
PM Press
UMass Labor Center
Massive Bookshop*
Great Falls Books Through Bars
Coalition for Worker Ownership and Power (COWOP)
Hardball Press*
Pride at Work
MA Solidarity Economy Network
Bolshevik Tendency
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Conference Overview
Friday, October 24
4:00-7:00pm Registration and Help Desk, ILC
(Integrative Learning Center)
9:00-9:00pm Art Mural Project, Old Chapel
7:00-9:00pm Opening Plenary: Building Worker
Power for Systems - ILC N151
Kali Akuno, Co-Director of
Cooperation Jackson
Chris Smalls, President of Amazon
Labor Union
Moderators: Eve Weinbaum, UMass
Labor Center, Co-President
MSP/MTA, Nellie Marshall-Torres,
Wellspring Cooperative
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Saturday, October 5
7:30-5:00pm Registration and Help Desk,
Old Chapel
7:30-9:00am Breakfast pastries, coffee and tea,
Old Chapel
9:00am-10:30am Sessions A, Campus Center [CC],
Old Chapel [OC],
Integrative Learning Center [ILC]
10:45am-12:15pm Sessions B, Campus Center [CC],
Old Chapel [OC],
Integrative Learning Center [ILC]
12:15-1:45pm Lunch (on your own)
2:00-3:30pm Sessions C, Campus Center
[CC], Old Chapel [OC],
Integrative Learning Center [ILC]
3:45-5:15pm Sessions D, Campus Center [CC],
Old Chapel [OC],
Integrative Learning Center [ILC]
5:15-6:30pm Dinner (on your own)
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Saturday, October 5 - Continued…
6:30pm-8:30pm Saturday Plenary: Building Union
and Cooperative Power
Old Chapel, Great Hall
Chloe Chassaing, White Electric
Kevin O’Brien, WorX Printing
Randy Zucco, Collective Copies
Moderator: Rebecca Lurie, CUNY
School of Labor and Urban Studies
9:00-11:30pm Plenary Reception and Social
Campus Center Marriott Room
Sunday, October 6
9am-1:30pm Art Mural Project, Old Chapel
10:00am-11:30am Sessions E, Campus Center [CC],
Old Chapel [OC]
10:00am-12:00pm Labor Center Alumni Brunch, CC
Marriott Room
11:45-1:15pm Sessions F, Campus Center [CC],
Old Chapel [OC]
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Plenary Events and Speakers
Opening Plenary: Building Worker Power for
Systems Change
Friday, March 24, 7:00-9:00pm, ILC N151
Kali Akuno is a co-founder
and director of
Cooperation Jackson,
which is an emerging
network of worker
cooperatives and
supporting institutions.
Cooperation Jackson is
fighting to create economic
democracy by creating a
vibrant solidarity economy
in Jackson, MS that will
help transform Mississippi
and the South. You can find
more information about Cooperation Jackson at
www.CooperationJackson.org.
Kali served as the Director of Special Projects and External
Funding in the Mayoral Administration of the late Chokwe
Lumumba of Jackson, MS. His focus was supporting
cooperative development, sustainability, human rights and
international relations.
Kali Akuno is an organizer, educator, and writer for human
rights and social justice. He is the former Co-Director of the
US Human Rights Network. Kali also served as the
Executive Director of the Peoples' Hurricane Relief Fund
(PHRF) based in New Orleans, Louisiana after Hurricane
Katrina. And was a co-founder of the School of Social Justice
and Community Development (SSJCD), a public school
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serving the academic needs of low-income African American
and Latino communities in Oakland, California.
Kali is also the co-editor of "Jackson Rising" and the newly
released "Jackson Rising Redux", and the author of numerous
articles and pamphlets including the Jackson-Kush Plan: the
Struggle for Black Self-Determination and Economic
Democracy", "Until We Win: Black Labor and Liberation in
the Disposable Era", "Operation Ghetto Storm: Every 28
Hours report" and "Let Your Motto Be Resistance: A
Handbook on Organizing New Afrikan and Oppressed
Communities for Self-Defense".
Chris Smalls is the founder
and president of the Amazon
Labor Union, an
independent, democratic,
worker-led labor union at
Amazon in Staten Island. He
is also the founder of The
Congress of Essential
Workers (TCOEW), a
nationwide collective of
essential workers and allies
fighting for better working
conditions, better wages,
and a better world. Mr. Smalls was formerly an Amazon
warehouse supervisor, helping open three major
warehouses in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut
during his five years with the company, but he was fired in
2020 after organizing a protest against the company’s
unsafe pandemic conditions. Both his firing and the unsafe
conditions have become the subject of an ongoing lawsuit
by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
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Moderators:
Nellie Marshall-Torres is the
communications and programs
associate at Wellspring Cooperative
and is on the Massachusetts
Solidarity Economy Network
(MASEN) steering committee. Her
thinking around co-ops and
solidarity economy is influenced by
her experience working in a
worker-owned co-op, co-op
development, and co-op network
cultivation. Her interest in co-ops is
rooted in a larger project for
collective care, changing our ways
of being and relating , and a post-capitalist world.
Eve Weinbaum is on the faculty in
the Labor Center at the University
of Massachusetts Amherst. She is
co-president of the Massachusetts
Society of Professors, the union
representing faculty and librarians
at the University of Massachusetts
Amherst (MTA/NEA). She is the
author of “To Move a Mountain:
Fighting the Global Economy in
Appalachia" and currently working
on a book called “Successful Failures.” She has been an
organizer with unions including the Amalgamated Clothing
and Textile Workers Union and UNITE, and currently active
in several labor and community coalitions including the
Western Massachusetts Area Labor Federation.
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Saturday Plenary: Building Union and
Cooperative Power
Saturday, October 25, 6:30-8:30pm, Old Chapel Great
Hall
Chloe Chassaing is a longtime
barista who helped organize
and unionize her workplace,
White Electric Coffee, in
Providence, Rhode Island.
Through co-worker and
community support, the cafe
became the first successfully
unionized in the state, with an
independent union, CUPS
(Collaborative Union of
Providence Service-workers).
When the business was
subsequently put up for sale,
she and her co-workers
pivoted to purchase the shop
and reopened it as a worker-owned cooperative cafe.
Chloe’s passion for justice is inspired by her fierce and
loving parents, an Afro-Haitian/Lebanese immigrant father
and a working class paraplegic mother, both of whom
showed her how to speak up. Chloe believes in the power of
community organizing, solidarity, democracy &
transparency, in the workplace and beyond. She is excited to
be part of the growing cooperative economy, co-imagining
& co-creating beliefs into action. When not dreaming &
scheming, Chloe loves food, animals, humor, the outside
world, our inner thoughts, plants, words, naps, new places,
quirkiness and care.
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Kevin O'Brien is the
founder and managing
member of worker-owned
union cooperative Worx
Printing in Worcester, MA.
Worx is a third generation
evolution of the Union
Co-Op Model codified in
1worker1vote by the
United Steelworkers and
the Mondragon
Cooperative. For 28 years,
he has been dedicated to
cooperating with others to advance anti-sweatshop
movement policies and practices in the apparel industry.
His experiences have helped thousands of Labor Unions,
Nonprofits and Political Campaigns to lift awareness,
advance campaigns and programs, and improve fundraising
results using ethically manufactured branded merchandise.
Randy Zucco has been a
member of Collective Copies
for 25 years. He has been on
the board of the Cooperative
Development Institute, was a
founder and founding board
member of the United States
Federation of Worker
Cooperatives, a board member
of the East Conference for
Workplace Democracy, a
founding member of the Valley
Alliance of Worker
Cooperatives, and was among the first delegation to
represent the United States internationally at CICOPA (ICA)
in Oslo, Norway in September, 2003. His entire career has
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been dedicated to participating in, growing in
understanding of, and spreading the gospel of worker
ownership.
Moderator:
Rebecca Lurie is currently on
faculty with the Urban Studies
Department and the founder of
the Community and Worker
Ownership Project at the City
University of NY School for
Labor and Urban Studies.
She was a founding member of
the worker-owned cooperative,
New Deal Home Improvement
Company and City Roots
Contractors Guild. She began
her working career as a union
carpenter and transitioned into
worker education through the
union’s apprenticeship program and the construction
industry.
Rebecca has collaborated on numerous initiatives in NYC,
including pre-apprenticeship programs, a Bronx green jobs
network, a kitchen business incubator and the design of
Best for NYC. She was a founding member of the board of
the Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative, is on the
board of the Democracy at Work Institute and serves on the
executive committee of the Union Coop Council/US
Federation of Worker Coops. She is Trustee Emerita with
the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture. She holds a
Master’s in Organizational Change Management from The
New School, a certificate in Adult Occupational Education
from CUNY and is certified in Permaculture Urban Design.
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Acknowledgements and
Co-Sponsors
The Building Cooperative Power Conference would not
be possible without the generous efforts of
comrades,friends, colleagues and co-workers.
Special thanks to our sponsors who have helped make
our conference plenaries, events, and sessions
possible!
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Acknowledgements and
Co-Sponsors Continued…
23

Daily Conference Schedule
Friday, March 24
4:00-7:00pm Registration and Help Desk
ILC Ground - Floor Lobby
5:00-7:00pm Books, Vendor, and Organization
Tabling
ILC Ground - Floor Lobby
Next to N151
7:00-9:00 Friday Plenary: Building Worker
Power for Systems Change
ILC N151 Auditorium
Kali Akuno, Co-Director of
Cooperation Jackson
Chris Smalls, President of Amazon
Labor United
Moderators:
Nellie Marshall-Torres, Wellspring
Cooperative
Eve Weinbaum, UMass Amherst
Labor Center
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Saturday, March 25
9:00am-9:00pm Art Mural Project
Old Chapel - Multi Purpose Room
9:00am-10:30am Sessions A: Campus Center [CC],
Integrative Learning Center [ILC],
Old Chapel [OC]
A1. Winning the Fair Share Amendment:
CC 803 Movement Building through Tax
Justice Campaigns
● Jenn Kauffman (State Revenue
Alliance)
● Ian Rhodewalt (Western Mass Area
Labor Federation)
● Max Page (Massachusetts Teachers
Association)
This panel reviews the historic win last November in
Massachusetts of the "Millionaires Tax." For more than a century
in Massachusetts everyone has paid the same income tax rate,
from those who rake in millions to those working a minimum wage
job. On November 8, the Raise Up Massachusetts coalition, led by
unions and dozens of community and faith-based organizations,
won passage of the Fair Share Amendment. It’s a change to the
state constitution that will institute a 4 percent surcharge on
annual income over $1 million, with the proceeds dedicated to
public education, public transportation, and road and bridge
maintenance. This panel will explore the organizing and
communications strategies that were used as well as consider
what we can learn. How did workers and communities
successfully engage and educate their communities to combat and
overcome the billionaire funded opposition.
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A2. Building Black Worker Power: A
CC 804-08 Cross Industry Panel on the Black
Worker Struggle & Organizing to
Build BlackWorker Power
● Ethel Everett (WMALF Racial
Justice Committee)
● Karla F. Mitchell (President CARE
AFSCME Local 17)
● Contina Brookes (Operating
Engineers Local 98 & Member Policy
Group on Tradeswomens Issues)
● Ethel Everett (SEIU Local 509, DCF
Chapter President)
● Katelyn Roberson (BSN RN
Healthcare)
● Cynthia Davis (SEIU Local 509
DMH Chapter Rep)
●
In this panel we will hear directly from black labor activists
working in various sectors to speak specifically to the topic of the
black worker struggle and organizing for black worker power.
Each presenter will reflect on the challenges and experiences
they’ve had as black workers and labor activists and their efforts
to organize for power and tackle racial justice issues in their
workplace and community. Each panelist will be asked to reflect
on the question – what does it mean to support black worker
organizing at this moment in time in our unions, workplace, and
communities?
A3. The Working Class Needs a Workers
CC 805-809 Party: Lessons and Prospects for
Independent Socialist Politics from
the Workers Party of Massachusetts
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● Aidan Mastroianni (Workers Party
Executive Committee and member
of the Western MA Workers Party)
● Brandon Griffin (Workers Party
Candidate for State Representative
in the Plymouth 7th District)
● Nick Giannone (Workers Party of
Massachusetts)
● Laura Saylor (Workers Party
Candidate for State Senate Bristol
& Norfolk)
The Workers Party of Massachusetts was formed in early 2020 by
working class socialists from a variety of political tendencies. The
audience will learn how we came to agree on a revolutionary
socialist program, established ourselves as a political designation
in Massachusetts, navigated the electoral system to run
independent socialist candidates for legislative and statewide
offices, and how this electoral work has helped us to build a
statewide party that organizes far outside the comfort zones of
the existing left. We hope to share our experiences to facilitate
greater participation in electoral politics by revolutionary
socialists.
A4. Class Struggle on the Waterfront:
CC 903 Lessons from the ILWU
● Jason Wright (Bolshevik Tendency)
● Christopher Lichtenberg
(Bolshevik Tendency)
On May 1, 2008 25,000 dockers belonging to the International
Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) shut down every port
from San Diego to Seattle to protest the occupation of Iraq. One
of all too few anti-war strikes in U.S. history, it was not the first
time the ILWU, one of the most militant unions in the U.S.,
engaged in labor action directed toward political ends. In 1999 the
ILWU conducted a similar action in solidarity with the imprisoned
27

former Black Panther, Mumia Abu-Jamal. Previous actions also
included 1973 boycotts to protest Pinochet's U.S.-backed
right-wing coup in Chili and 1984 actions against apartheid in
South Africa, winning praise from Nelson Mandela. The origins of
this militancy did not spontaneously arise among the multiracial
dockers union. From the 1934 West Coast strike, one of the
foundational struggles of the CIO, to the Cold War tribulations of
ILWU leader Harry Bridges, to the work class-struggle program of
the Militant Longshoreman led by Bolshevik Tendency supporter
Howard Keylor, workers who identified as revolutionary Marxists
played important roles in injecting class-struggle politics into the
union in a manner that offers important lessons for the future.
A5. System Change and the Solidarity
CC 905-09 Economy
● Emily Kawano (US and MA
Solidarity Economy Network,
Wellspring Cooperative)
● Aliana Pineiro (Boston Impact
Initiative, MA Solidarity Economy
Network )
Participants will learn about the solidarity economy - what it is,
how it is growing throughout the world and discuss concrete
examples.
A6. Can We Democratize Evil
ILC N101 Corporations? A Public Policy
Exploration
● Sarah Assefa (Coalition for Worker
Ownership and Power)
● Alex Papali (Center for Economic
Democracy)
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● Aaron Tanaka (Center for
Economic Democracy)
What if all corporations in MA had to share profits
(stocks/ownership) with workers, had workers in governance on
their boards, and also had organized workers negotiating directly
with management? They would function quite a lot like worker
owned cooperatives! Could a change in law get us there? In this
workshop, we'll explore a range of policy proposals (workers
elected to corporate boards, mandatory stock transfers to
employees, and worker-management councils) as potentially
additive policy fronts that together could ignite a united labor and
co-op movement. These corporate policy reforms would extend
the reach of worker ownership and workplace democracy into
large mainstream companies, while also strengthening the
position of labor unions in the US. We'll learn about existing
policies and proposals, and examine their critiques. We'll also
create space for the co-imagination of a policy reform roadmap to
bring worker ownership, management and governance to the 99%.
A7. Lessons About Care in Organizing
ILC N111
● Fu-Yu Chang (Umass Amherst,
Department of Anthropology)
● Lynette Arnold (UMass Amherst
Department of Anthropology, Trans
Asylum Seekers Support
Network/TASSN))
● Jeff Coyne (Recovery & Harm
Reduction, Tenants Union of W.
Mass)
● Urgyen Joshi UMass Alliance for
Community Transformation–
UACT)
● Alla Sonder (Trans Asylum Seeker
Support Network/TASSN)
● Volha Verbilovich (UMass
Anthropology Department)
29

We can’t really talk about worker power without talking about
care. When workers work and fight to acquire power it is a
manifestation of care. When workers care for each other it is a
way of acquiring power. In this session we open a conversation
about the many ways that workers and community organizers
enact, receive, and share care. We define care simply as providing
for others (Aulino) and examine the specific practices through
which care is enacted in different organizing contexts, as well as
the contradictory consequences of care.
A8. Funding for Unionized Cooperatives
ILC S211
● Zac Chapman (New Economy
Coalition
● Mark Fick (Shared Capital)
● Maggie Cohn (Co-op Fund of the
Northeast)
● Dara Kagan (Amalgamated Bank)
● Fred Rose (Wellspring Harvest
Co-op)
● Ellen Vera (Co-op Cincy) (virtual)
One of the most formidable issues confronting worker co-op
start-ups or transitions is how to pay for planning and purchase of
the enterprise. This comprises several different types of
funding--worker and community contributions, grants, loans,
equity. Find out about how this is achieved in real situations.
A9. Mitigating extractive economic
Old Chapel relationships with communes,
Great Room co-ops, and mutual aid & Coalitions
for Black Trade Unionists: Boston &
Reproductive Labor in Rebellion
30

● Kelly Miller (University of
Massachusetts Amherst)
● Abe Gruswitz (GEO Collective)
● Jamie Wallace (International Union
of Poisoned Painters
& Allied Trades)
The solidarity economy offers many different ways to counter or
mitigate the extraction of capitalist economic relationships. These
relationships include - employer/employee, landlord/tenant,
buyer/seller, investor/enterprise, lender/lendee, and
environmental extraction. We will explore these relationships and
the contexts of care in the solidarity economy, because all of these
contexts and all of these relationships need to be addressed for
systemic change to happen. They will learn about the history and
the evolution of the Coalition Of Black Trade Unionists
Organization. I will present my research on union women's
auxiliaries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and then lead
a discussion on how reproductive labor can be incorporated into
labor organizing strategy. The audience will learn that women's
auxiliaries performed both reproductive and public-facing
organizing work for unions and that these roles were closely
related and inseparable. The audience will also learn about the
strengths of organizing entire communities instead of just
workplaces and will brainstorm ways the modern labor movement
can better embrace this organizing model.
10:45-12:15pm Sessions B:
Campus Center [CC]
Integrative Learning Center [ILC]
Old Chapel [OC]
B1. Lemonade 50¢: Imagining
CC 803 Economies Without Markets
● Alix Gerber (Smith College)
31

● Eleni Andris (Designing Radical
Futures)
As workers take control of their own labor and resources, we have
an opportunity to imagine the kinds of economies we want to
build together. In the United States, lemonade stands are a symbol
of a child’s first foray into Capitalist markets– a way to teach
pricing, profits and entrepreneurship. Building on this symbolism,
this workshop will use the lemonade stand as a setting for
participants to dream freely about future economies without
markets. First, participants will experience three interactive
stands that distribute lemonade via gifting, democratic planning
and algorithmic selection. After a discussion about this
experience, facilitators will guide participants through a process
of creating their own lemonade stands to explore different ways of
distributing resources. Participants will work collaboratively with
drawing and roleplay to envision the economic alternatives they
dream of.
B2. From UPS to Amazon: Building
CC 804-08 Worker Power in the Logistics
Industry
● Val Zuhkov (Teamsters)
● Corey Levesque (Teamsters)
● Paul Weiskel (Teamsters Union)
The COVID19 pandemic brought us into the age of the logistics
worker. Workers from Amazon to UPS were hailed as heroes and
essential workers. At the same time as these companies were
making record profits, their workers continued to deal with
excessive overtime, unsafe working conditions, mental stress, and
wide disparities in compensation. Countless headlines show that
delivery drivers and warehouse workers are taking collective
actions and building worker power. 2023 is an opportunity for
workers to take action on a scale not seen in generations. Come
hear from workers in the industry and learn about opportunities
to get involved in this key part of the labor movement.
32

B3. Beyond the Press Release: Getting
CC 805-09 the Best Coverage of Your Worker
Movement
● Dusty Christensen (The
Shoestring)Sierra Dickey (The
Shoestring)
● Brian Zayatz (The Shoestring)
Make your story irresistible and make allies with the media. As
both workers and journalists, the leaders of this workshop aim to
prepare workers and organizers for bringing their stories to the
media. The workshop will train audience members on how best to
present their stories to the media, with topics including gaining
the attention of overworked reporters, understanding what
constitutes a public record and how journalists can help uncover
new information, and the importance of boosting rank-and-file
sources. The workshop will consist of 30 minutes of presentation
and 30 minutes of small-group work in which participants will
practice making a media strategy for a relevant worker movement.
Given the participatory nature of this workshop, we expect that
many questions will be answered over the course of the workshop
and we may not fill the entire 90 minute slot.
B4. Employee-based Health Care:
CC 903 Employee Benefit or Weapon of the
Class War?
● Patricia Healey (Massachusetts
Nurses Association)
● Rose Roach (Labor Campaign for
Single Payer) (virtual)
● Jon Weissman (Mass-Care: the
Massachusetts Campaign for Single
Payer Health Care)
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It’s been clear for decades that trying to negotiate health care
benefits is a failed strategy. Why let our bosses determine our
access to health care? Let’s discuss a path forward that
recognizes health care as the human need it is, take it off the
bargaining table and away from employers as a bludgeon during
strikes, save money in the process, and strategize how that money
could be better used for salaries, defined benefit pensions, and
any number of other working class priorities. This path requires
labor's full participation in the Single Payer movement and we'll
learn lots of ways to do that.
B5. Building an internationalist,
CC905-09 revolutionary future through
worker and community organizing
● Celina Della Croce (Tricontinental:
Institute for Social Research,
Anti-Imperialist Action Committee)
● Sean Manion (Brockton Interfaith
Community / Cooperative
Cultivators of Greater Brockton)
This session will explore how organizers can apply revolutionary
theory and practice in their efforts to build truly transformative
movements for worker power. We will cover international
examples of cooperatives/communes which have successfully
incorporated revolutionary strategy and dealt significant blows to
the capitalist power structure – such as the example of
Venezuela’s communes building “power from below” through a
network of centrally coordinated, working-class led communities,
devising and enacting their own solutions to their most urgent
needs. Our workshop will look at models such as these that offer a
vital lens for organizers to look at the seeds of a more humane and
34

just future that exist in the world today and expand our view of
what is possible as we wage struggle in their own local contexts.
B6 Somatic Strategies for Cooperative
ILCN101 Organizing
● Alex Rodríguez (Catalyst
Cooperative Healing)
● Marina Rodríguez (Catalyst
Cooperative Healing)
● Brittany Méndez (Catalyst
Cooperative Healing)
●
In this 90-minute workshop, the co-founders of Catalyst
Cooperative Healing, a mental health worker cooperative based in
Holyoke, will guide participants through body-based exercises
that have served us to connect and engage in the formation of our
worker cooperative. Marina will provide a brief overview of the
polyvagal theory lens on human nervous system co-regulation
that informs these practices. The three presenters will also share
our vision for how worker cooperatives can transform care labor,
as well as the opportunities present for this work in Western
Massachusetts. This will guide discussion / q&a with the
audience.
B7. Digital Organizing to Build Worker
ILC N111
Power and Win: Transforming
Followers into Advocates Through
Paid & Organic Content
● Janae Knospe (Worker-owner,
Samara Collective)
● Erin Naomi Burrows (Samara
Collective)
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Samara Collective, a worker-owned strategic communications
firm, has been collaborating with unions in MA, OH, and CO to
harness the power of digital organizing to better understand their
membership, engage members in actions and recruit champions
of specific campaigns. Attendees will learn about how to maximize
the tools of both paid and organic social media to get in front of
the right people at the right time and turn passive followers into
activated organizers. Pulling from traditional organizing methods
and layering in cutting edge digital tactics, Samara Collective
provides mentorship and coaching to increase visibility, test
effective messaging, share inspiring stories and move members up
a ladder of engagement. Learn about specific case studies, lessons
learned and how Samara Collective is supporting a new generation
of digital organizers to build worker power and win meaningful
gains for today’s labor movement.
B8. Movement Economies:
ILC S211 Transformation and Change
● Steve Dubb (Nonprofit Quarterly)
● Rithika Ramamurthy (Nonprofit
Quarterly)
Organized by editors and building on stories that NPQ has curated
over the past year, this session will uplift economic justice
strategies in both the labor movement and in the
community/cooperative ownership space. This session will
highlight “Bargaining for the Common Good” as a growing
strategy among labor unions and emerging worker cooperative
and community ownership strategies. We will also discuss
questions we are exploring for our upcoming summer 2023
economic justice magazine regarding how movements can and are
integrating economic justice into their social transformation work.
In short, we are interested in exploring questions regarding what
strategies are necessary to build worker power and advance
economic system transformation. This session will begin with a
brief presentation but will be highly participatory and
conversational to allow for the entire group to take a deep dive
36

into identifying practical strategies to advance solidarity economy
work.
B9. Worker Co-op Start-Up Guide
Old Chapel
Great Room
● Matt Feinstein (US Federation
Worker Co-ops; Global Village
Farms
● Monica Garcia (Common Share
Food Co-op)
Co-ops can embody values of justice, equity and cooperation
towards a just transition. This workshop is for people starting a
mission based enterprise interested in the worker co-op model or
those looking for a succession strategy and considering employee
ownership. The presentation describes key steps toward getting
off the ground, and where problems often occur. A special focus
will be on successful union worker co-ops and the benefits of
union-cooperative collaboration. It includes chapters on building
your group's democratic capacity, business, and environment of
support, in a participatory conversational format. Attendees are
offered 30 minutes of free consulting after the webinar from the
US Federation of Worker Cooperatives. Examples and strategies
center BIPOC movement-connected co-ops in the northeast.The
workshop will also include the unique challenges of creating a
consumer and worker owned cooperative with the participation of
Monica Garcia from Common Share Food Cooperative
2:00-3:30pm Sessions C: Campus Center [CC],
Integrative Learning Center [ILC],
Old Chapel [OC]
37

C1. Disability Justice and Labor Justice
CC 803 Part 1: Building an Accessible
Movement
● Elizabeth Pellerito (UMass Lowell
Labor Education Program)
● Mitchell Manning (PSC-CUNY)
● Kelly Hopkins (University of
Massachusetts Amherst, Labor
Center)
This workshop explores the concept of liberatory access, what it
means for the labor movement, and how to put it into practice.
Together we will examine the ways in which capitalism links
disability and labor, and think about what that means for both
movements in the future. We will also explore principles of
disability justice, a framework that moves beyond the struggle for
individual rights and independence to a broad fight for liberation
through interdependence. Finally, we will work together to
identify principles and practices for organizing workers and
non-workers during the mass-disabling event we are currently in
the midst of., The largest minority group in the United States is
people with disabilities - 26% of the population and, with the
advent of Long COVID, that number is rising. As with any identity
at the intersection, disability compounds the inability to find and
retain employment. Big Labor unions have been less than
receptive to including marginalized groups and this is particularly
true with people with disabilities. In this session we will address
three primary areas for inclusion: Organizing, Bargaining, and
Unions as Employers. We will discuss how accessibility is good for
everyone, why the ADA can and should be included in CBAs, how
unions as employers need to practice humane accessible working
conditions, and more. This workshop is appropriate for union
staff, union members, and anyone interested in accessibility and
inclusion.
38

C2. What Would it Take to Topple CC
804-08 Amazon? Strategic Chokepoints and
Labor Strategy
● Chris Smalls (Amazon Labor
Union)
● Olivia Geho (Strategic Corporate
Research and VA Education
Association)
● Tom Juravich (UMass Labor
Center)
● John Womack (Harvard University)
What would it take to topple Amazon and other corporate
behemoths? How is it possible to organize those working on the
margins? In the new book Labor Power and Strategy, historian and
organizer John Womack argues that the labor movement should
focus on exploiting the chokepoints in capitalist networks of
production and distribution. Womack will summarize his analysis,
followed by responses from labor researchers Olivia Geho and
Tom Juravich and Amazon organizer Chris Smalls. The audience
will also be asked to brainstorm how the labor movement can
design and execute smart, strategic, effective campaigns to build
working-class power and solidarity. Participants will come away
with new ideas for organizing workers and community supporters.
C3. Actualizing the Cooperative
CC 805-809 Difference in Home Care
● Fay Strongin (The ICA Group)
● Katrina Kazda (The ICA Group)
Backed by four years of sector benchmarking data, we know that
home care cooperatives provide better jobs to caregivers than
non-cooperative agencies. Home care cooperatives pay better
wages, go above and beyond state minimum required training,
reduce isolation, and provide meaningful opportunities for
39

caregivers to engage in ownership, advocacy, and career growth.
While these are meaningful gains for an industry that is rooted in
slavery, and has been upheld by systematic racism and sexism,
values driven employers continue to struggle for long term
sustainability in order to provide caregivers their dues. To make a
career in caregiving a desirable profession, we must meaningfully
transform the industry, and the path to transformation is
cooperation.
C4. Fairness to Farmworkers: The CC
903 History of Agricultural Experiences
in Federal and State Laws
● Claudia Quintero (Central West
Justice Center (CWJC)and the
Fairness for Farmworkers
Coalition)
● Maya McCann (Central West
Justice Center)
The session will discuss the history of farmworker exclusions and
the legislative advocacy effort undertaken to improve the working
conditions and rights of farmworkers in MA. Attendees will hear
about the effects these exclusions have on farmworkers' lives and
the food-supply chain. Finally, presenters will share strategies,
challenges, and ideas for pushing forth the legislation and invite
the audience to share in building power for farmworkers.
C5.
CC 905-09 Moving the Message: Higher Ed
Co-op and Labor Education
Programs
● Clare Hammonds (UMass Labor
Center)
40

● Rebecca Lurie (City University of
New York School for Labor and
Urban Studies)
● Valerie Voorhies (UMass Amherst
Department of Economics,
Coordinator for Certificate in
Applied Economic Research on
Cooperative Enterprise)
● Sonja Novkovic (Saint Mary’s
University) (virtual)
This session will explore the development and implementation of
coop education programs. Presenters from three universities will
discuss the development of their programs and also how we can
grow these offerings for both graduate and undergraduate
students.
C6 Talking Circles for Cooperators
ILC N101
● Ernesto Cruz (Mass Cooperating,
Coalition for Worker Ownership
and Power)
● Karen Ribeiro (Coalition for
Worker Ownership and Power,
MassCEO)
Talking Circles are powerful ways for communities to come
together around important topics. Participants will receive a
teaching in the ancient wisdom of this Indigenous process.
Facilitating with circle process in small groups is a way to find
creative and generative pathways forward. Experiences of being
spoken over, spoken for, and invisibilized are harmful and limiting
to the energetic spirits of frontline worker communities. This
workshop in community -- will support movement building by
supporting individuals in the movement. A collection of growing
edge moments will take place. To those of us in the worker
movement, trials and tribulations, high expectations that go
41

unmet, and much more are part of the dynamic process of
working cooperatively. The participants will engage in small group
talking circles to reflect on current or prior experiences in
movement building or in working cooperatively. All who are ready
to explore their growing edges are encouraged to participate.
C7. Democratic Economic Planning:
ILC N111 How to Use Technology to Overcome
Capitalism
● Guillermo Murcia López (CibCom)
● Rodolfo Monico (CibCom)
● Leone Castar (Physics grad
student, Clemson University)
(virtual)
Democratic planning of the economy is a feasible alternative to
market capitalism to decide what and how to organize the
production and reproduction in our societies, where direct
workers democracy will substitute the current rule of the
capitalist class. Our group, CibCom (short for "Cibercomunismo",
or Cyber-Communism) is a Spanish speaking group trying to
promote the discussion, research and awareness of the feasibility
of democratic economic planning through cybernetics in order to
overcome capitalist market economies. We want to present such
an alternative to English speaking worker audiences in order for
them to know that overcoming capitalism is not only necessary, it
is something that is possible with our current level of
technological development.
C8. Worker Ownership and Social Equity
ILC S211 in Rhode Island’s New Cannabis
Industry
42

● David-Allen Sumner (Break the
Cycle Cooperative Hub)
● Sam Marvin (United Food and
Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local
328)
● Tyler Brown (Reclaim Rhode
Island and Gursky | Wiens
Attorneys at Law)
● James Jasper (Farm Bug Co-op)
● Tripp Hopkins (PVD Flowers)
● Andre Dev (PVD Flowers)
The audience will learn from members of the Rhode Island
Cannabis Justice Coalition about their collective efforts to create
worker-owned cannabis cooperatives in the state following last
year’s legalization. The presentation will include insights from:
PVD Flowers, a worker-owned cannabis dispensary start-up;
Break the Cycle Cooperative Hub, a space for the formerly
incarcerated population to become worker owners using the
cooperative business model; United Food and Commercial
Workers (UFCW) Local 328; and Reclaim Rhode Island, an activist
organization instrumental to the push for cannabis legalization. By
learning about this exciting project, the audience will be
transformed to be able to imagine new possibilities for the
cannabis industry, union co-ops, and reparations.
C9 Rooting Solidarity Economy: Land
Old Chapel Stewardship as Pathway for
Great Room Resilience, Autonomy and Liberation
● Emily Kawano (US and MA
Solidarity Economy Network,
Wellspring)
● Kali Akuno (Cooperation Jackson)
● Blair Evans (Incite Focus)
43

This workshop will look at 2 cases where community owned land
is leveraged through a community land trust model to build a
solidarity economy ecosystem. Interconnected elements include
affordable housing, co-op businesses, regenerative agriculture,
community production including cutting edge digital fabrication,
and space for community and cultural activities.
3:45-5:15pm Sessions D: Campus Center [CC],
Integrative Learning Center [ILC],
Old Chapel [OC]
D1. Disability Justice and Labor Justice
CC 803 Part 2: Building Accessible Actions
● Elizabeth Pellerito (UMass Lowell
Labor Education Program)
● Mitchell Manning (PSC-CUNY)
● Kelly Hopkins (University of
Massachusetts Amherst, Labor
Center)
This interactive workshop will explore the question of access:
what does access look like in our movement, and how can we
make sure that our activism is as widely accessible as possible?
What would it look like to reimagine access as a framework for
organizing rather than a checklist of tasks to do before a meeting
or event? We will draw on participants’ experiences as well as a
radical accessibility lens to frame our understanding of collective
action. Together we will practice designing collective actions that
are accessible themselves and operate from a demand for access.
Participation in Part 1 of this workshop series is not necessary in
order to participate in Part 2.
D2. Incarceration and Cooperatives:
44

CC 804-08 Worker-owned Cooperative
Businesses for Those Impacted by
Incarceration
● Tarshire Battle (Roots2Empower.
Break the Cycle Cooperative Hub)
● Trisha Oliver (Break the Cycle
Cooperative Hub)
● David-Allen Sumner (Break the
Cycle Cooperative Hub)
● Justin Thomas (Roots2Empower,
Break the Cycle Cooperative Hub)
● Tunji Yerima (Break the Cycle
Cooperative Hub)
People with criminal records are locked out of good jobs, and the
system of mass incarceration serves as a crucial “engine for
ensuring American inequality” (Hinton 2021). Born in systemic
racism, our system of policing and imprisonment continues to
disproportionately impact Black people, Indigenous people, and
other people of color (BIPOC). This roundtable features two
organizations dedicated to creating avenues to racial and
economic justice by seeking to build worker-owned cooperative
businesses for and with formerly incarcerated people.
Roots2Empower and Break the Cycle Cooperative Hub, both based
in Rhode Island, will discuss their efforts and the challenges they
face as they seek to create community-wealth building and
democratic workplaces. Participants will also discuss Break the
Cycle’s new report, titled “Worker-Owned Cooperatives for the
Formerly Incarcerated: Avenues for Racial and Economic Justice.”
D3. Cross Border Strategies to Secure
CC 805-809 Remedy for Workers in Global
Supply Chains
● Liana Foxvog (Workers Rights
Consortium)
45

Unions and labor rights organizations are connecting across
borders to design, negotiate, and win enforceable contracts in the
supply chains of multinational corporations in the global apparel
industry. Building on the success of the International Accord, an
unprecedented worker-driven social responsibility agreement
that has made workplaces safer for more than two million
garment workers in Bangladesh, unions recently succeeded in
getting major brands like H&M, Tommy Hilfiger, and Zara to
expand the agreement to cover hundreds of factories in Pakistan.
In addition, drawing on lessons from the Accord, 260 civil society
groups from dozens of countries came together during the
pandemic to press apparel brands to negotiate an enforceable
agreement with unions on wage theft and the right to organize.
The session will share the vision for this next binding agreement
and highlights from momentous victories in the past year that
secured millions of dollars in wages that had been stolen from
thousands of workers.
D4. Building the Next Generation of
CC 903 Organizers & Strike to Win! A UC
Strike Discussion
● Drew Weisse (UFCW Local 1459)
● Artemis Duffy (Lady Killigrew Café,
UFCW 1459)
● Parker Kellner (Lady Killigrew
Café, UFCW 1459)
● Stella Genis (Mt. Holyoke College,
UFCW 1459)
● Gillian Petrarca (Mt. Holyoke
College, UFCW 1459)
● Kevin Sun (GEO/UAW Local 2322)
This presentation will cover the recent strike by graduate student
and postdoctoral workers in UAW 2865 and UAW 5810 at the UC
system, with a supplementary reader edited by Kevin Sun. The
presentation will pull on analyses articulated by a radical section
46

of UC strikers, who argued that the strike was cut short, with a
concessionary contract being voted through. The strike was an
opportunity to make radical demands backed up by new, creative
forms of organizing which do not merely *demonstrate* power,
via spectacle and media attention, but *exercises* power through
the withholding of labor and the subsequent accumulation of
administrative and economic crisis in the university. The UC strike
shows us a political pathway towards a reorganization of social life
that withers away the power of those responsible for the social
crises we face daily. The session will aim to pull out generalizable
strategies and practices from the UC strike and discuss with
attendees how they apply to our own contexts.
D5 Worker Voice & Nonprofit Burnout
CC 905-09 Prevention
● Betsy Leondar-Wright (Staffing
the Mission project of Class Action;
also Associate Professor of
Sociology at Lasell University)
● Ayushi Vig (Staffing the Mission)
(virtual)
● Gabriel Cabán Cubero (Staffing the
Mission) (virtual)
Nonprofit employers, constrained by their funders, often violate
their own values by overworking and underpaying their staff.
What should nonprofits do to make jobs more sustainable?
Staffing the Mission gathers answers and disseminates solutions
throughout the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. In surveying
nonprofit employees, we discovered that poor communication is
one of the greatest factors in burnout. Whether unionized or
non-union, in a hierarchical structure or a more horizontal
organization, staff want greater voice in decisions and more
transparency from management. By the conference date, we will
have published an online toolkit, Sustainable Jobs for Organizers
(with All Due Respect), with field-tested methods for improving
workplaces. The toolkit’s recommendations go beyond
47

compensation, hours and DEI to also give tips for worker voice via
unionizing and worker-self-directed and distributed leadership
models. The workshop will offer recommendations for making
nonprofit jobs more worker-friendly and give participants
opportunities to apply them.
D6 Unions Involved in Co-op
ILC N101 Development
● Ra Ciscitiello (SEIU HealthWest)
(virtual)
● Rebecca Lurie (City University of
New York School for Labor and
Urban Studies)
● Kevin O’Brien (WorX Printing)
● Dennis Olsen (UFCW)
Several unions are actively pursuing worker ownership around the
country, in addition to more traditional organizing. Some are
designating staff to facilitate the planning process. Learn more
about how and where this is working, and how we can encourage
more work like this.
D7. Meeting Well: Harnessing the
ILC N111 Power of Effective, Strategic
and Connective Meetings
● Jen Sandler (The Stoke Collective,
UACT (UMass Alliance for
Community Transformation))
● Lily Brown (The Stoke Collective)
● Coqui Negron (The Stoke
Collective)
Meeting Well is a participatory training to help you have more
connective and strategic meetings. You will learn key tools and
skills to enhance meeting practices and engagement, as well as
48

basic facilitation tools, to engage you in harnessing the power of
effective meetings. This workshop is relevant to everyone who
meets, but especially those in co-ops or labor organizations who
want to create a healthy, dynamic, and welcoming culture where
people feel like they can bring what they know to the table,
collaborate well with others, and participate fully in building and
sustaining the work!
D8. Abolitionists of the World, Unite!
ILC S211
● Terrel James (GEO/UAW Local
2322)
What is the relationship between workers and the police? Why is
the movement for Cops Off Campus connected to labor
organizing? How should unions respond to anti-black violence?
These are some of the questions that abolitionist labor organizers
must contend with given that the carceral state continues to
produce violent and unsafe workplaces. In this workshop, we will
collectively explore these questions and think through how
workers can use their labor to abolish police and prisons. Panelists
for this workshop will include graduate student workers,
university staff/faculty, and undergraduate student activists and
they will share how they define abolition and its relationship to
the workplace. Then, workshop participants will dialogue and
work collectively to identify the sites for abolitionist struggle in
their own workplaces. While many of the panelists will be
speaking from the context of the university all abolitionists are
welcome to share their experiences, knowledge, strategies, and
tools.
D98. Who are you Working for?:
Old Chapel Resurrecting Passion for STEM
Great Room and Living your Values
● Steve Fernandez (UMass Amherst,
PSU)
● Sarah Brownell (PSU)
49

● Brady Bell
● Kathryne Lovell
Today, the cost of public institution education puts students in a
level of debt that compels them to get jobs that conflict with their
values and limit their joy. Along those lines, many colleges market
themselves not based on fulfillment and happiness after
graduation, but based on access to higher salaries. STEM
professionals are often unaware of the existence of employment
opportunities in worker cooperatives. Consequently many work
in large corporations where they lack autonomy, flexibility, and
participation in decision making and are subject to exploitation,
dehumanization, and complicity in actions that conflict with one’s
values. Please join us for an integrative panel session in which we
welcome open conversation and questions with professionals in
tech co-ops, followed by small group discussions where
participants have an opportunity to network and explore the
realities of working in co-ops.
6:30-8:30pm Plenary: Building Union and
Cooperative Power
Old Chapel
Great Room Chloe Chassaing, White Electric
Kevin O’Brien, WorX Printing
Randy Zucco, Collective Copies
Moderator:
Rebecca Lurie, CUNY School of
Labor and Urban Studies
9:00-11:30 Plenary Reception and Social
Campus Center
Marriott Room
50

Sunday, March 26
10:00-11:30am Sessions E: Campus Center [CC],
Old Chapel [OC]
E1. Rising to Own it: Insights from
CC 803 Worker Owners & Aspiring
Worker Owners
● Sarah Assefa (Coalition for Worker
Ownership and Power)
● Nilton Alice (Cruel Society)
● Thomas Ratte (Northeast Biodiesel
Workers Cooperative)
Worker owners and aspiring worker owners (Participants of Rise
to Own It) share some reflections about some of the opportunities
and bottlenecks to workers becoming worker owners, and thriving
in worker ownership. Based on two convenings in 2022 where
these presenters met with about 45 other worker owners and
aspiring worker owners and discussed these issues of challenges
and opportunities for worker ownership and the change we want
to see within us, between us and around us to make sure more
people can become and do well in worker ownership.
E2. Cafe Workers Organizing: Sharing
CC 804-08 Stories & Solidarity
● Chloe Chassaing CUPS
Cooperative (White Electric Coffee)
● Grace Harvey (Seven Stars Bakery
in Providence)
51

● May (Circus Cooperative Cafe /
former Darwin's United)
● Jordie Adams (Starbucks)
Hear from cafe workers who are part of the growing movement to
organize, unionize, democratize, and cooperative our workplaces.
We've all learned so much along the way from: what worked and
what didn't, anti union tactics used to try to divide us, and the
power of collective action & community solidarity. The first part of
the event will be a panel presentation by several café workers,
followed by a chance for discussion and questions. Bring your own
experiences and insights, as we build networks to support each
other in our overlapping efforts for workplace justice.
E3. Working Class Environmentalism
CC 805-09
● Amy Calandrella (IUOE 98,
Western Mass Area Labor
Federation)
● Kevin Young (UMass Amherst
History Dept)
● Tom Estabrook (UMass Lowell and
MTA, SEIU 509)
● Dave Foley (SEIU 509)
Workers and environmentalists have long been pitted against each
other. However, there is also a forgotten tradition of
working-class environmentalism. What is “working-class
environmentalism” and how are some unions practicing it today?
This session will include organizers from the building trades,
education, and social service sectors. They will discuss how the
labor movement can organize workers around both immediate
workplace issues and bigger-picture problems like the global
climate crisis, and how unions can address those problems at the
bargaining table and beyond. Part of the session will consist of
small-group discussions about how the labor movement and
non-labor organizations can exercise leverage over polluters.
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Participants will help generate creative ideas for building the
working-class environmentalist movement.
E4. Fighting for a Cooperative College
CC 905-09
● Patrick Burke (UAW Local 2322)
Faculty, staff, students, alumni, and union leaders of Goddard
College in Vermont will discuss the strategy and vision for
transforming the college to a multi-stakeholder cooperatively run
higher education institution.
E5. Land, Labor, Livelihoods
OC Great Hall
● Kali Akuno (Cooperation Jackson)
● Ethan Miller (Land in Common)
● Boone Shear (Umass Amherst
Department of Anthropology)
Building Worker Power suggests a common-sense and necessary
collective effort. But it also invites closer consideration, what kind
of work? And what kind of power? What sort of politics are called
for in this moment of deepening fascism, ecological collapse and
potential transition? How do we strategically orient our
movements beyond a liberal context of ‘good jobs, economic
growth, and development’ and towards a horizon of collective
liberation for all beings and relations? This session invites an
imaginative conversation, both speculative and strategic, that
takes measure of the potential for labor, worker-owned
cooperatives, solidarity economies, and communities to
instantiate what Ed Whitfield describes as liberated zones. We
ground this conversation in relation to two projects that are
rejecting the imperatives of colonial capitalism, and creating the
conditions for community determination through efforts to
decommodify land and relations: Land in Common and the
People’s Network for Land and Liberation.
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11:45am-1:15pm Sessions F:
Campus Center [CC]
Old Chapel [OC]
F1. Adaptation & Resilience: Sharing
CC 803 and Strategizing for a Better
Western MA Co-op Ecosystem
● Cress Horton (Pedal People,
Catalyst Cooperative Healing)
● Nellie Marshall-Torres
(Wellspring Cooperative, MA
Solidarity Economy Network)
We’re inviting past and present worker-owners and non
worker-owners to connect, share, and strategize on culture and
power within co-ops. We are trying to step away from the
development framing that centers more co-ops = better, and
instead reflect on how we’re relating to one another within our
co-ops. What’s been difficult? What's been good? What are the
relationships within your co-ops between workers and
worker-owners? How do capitalist power dynamics permeate
co-ops and how can we unlearn this and reskill? What can we
learn from each other’s experience? As a valley-wide co-op
community, how can we work together to embrace co-ops as part
of a transformative movement? We want to carve out a space for
worker-owners to be in conversation and visioning with past
workers and non-worker owners. We think this will generate some
really important reflection and connection for our spaces,
practices, and movement!
F2. Owning Our Tech & Platforms in
CC 804-08 Solidarity
● Micky Metts (Agaric Technology
Collective)
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After a short presentation on the future of the Internet and
solidarity, we will form a talking circle to discuss paths to discover
free technology and how to contribute your ideas to build our
collectively owned technology. You will learn how to find existing
tools and how to get involved creating the platforms we use, with
or without tech skills.
F3. Solidarity-In-Action: A New Set of
CC 805-09 Open-Source Resources for Building
Union Cooperatives
● Camille Kerr (Upside Down
Consulting, Rutgers University)
● Sanjay Pinto (Rutgers University)
● Maru Bautista
● Ra Criscitiello (SEIU HealthWest)
● Jamila Medley
A collaboration of cooperative developers, labor advocates, and
racial justice practitioners has come together to build a new set of
open-source online tools for union co-op development. The tools
cover 4 modules: (1) Setting your project up for success: finding
alignment, collective visioning, and understanding the power and
privilege in the room ;(2) Feasibility: Assembling the people power,
financial model, and capital access you need to succeed in line
with your values; (3) Designing your democracy: membership,
governance, and decision-making; and (4) Building your labor
relationship: finding the right union, assembling your bargaining
team, and designing your CBA. In this session, we will walk
through the the process and challenges of building a union co-op
and introduce this new action kit as resource.
F4. Roundtable on Co-ops and Solidarity
CC 903 Economy with Elected Officials
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● Emily Kawano (MA Solidarity
Economy Network, Wellspring
Cooperative
● Paul Mark (Massachusetts Senate)
This roundtable will focus on a discussion with elected officials in
WMass to strengthen awareness and support for the worker
co-op and solidarity economy movement locally and on the
statewide level.
F5. Life as a Building Trades Worker:
CC 905-09 Challenges and Possibilities for Our
Unions and Industry
● Blair Gimma (IBEW Local 7)
● Amy Calandrella (IUOE Local 98
and WMALF)
This session will be a short presentation followed by a question
and answer session of 3-4 building trades workers. We will share
briefly the work that we do, how we got into our line of work, and
the organizing we are currently involved with. The audience will
then have the opportunity to ask questions of the building trades
workers in order to understand more fully the challenges we face,
strategies for collaboration, and points of solidarity. The overall
goal is for participants to understand the nature of our work and
unions and begin the relationships necessary for future
collaboration.
F6. Grounded in Difficult Conversations
Old Chapel
Great Hall
● Adrián Roman (Boston Center for
Community Ownership)
How co-ops are organized often leads to more discussion and
diversity of opinion. In addition, due to a transition from business
as usual in ways of leadership, sharing leadership can evoke
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conflict. In this workshop I will offer tools to regulate emotions
and stay grounded in conversations that arise out of these
situations.
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Special Events
Art Mural Project
On Saturday, March 25th from 9am-9pm in the Old Chapel
Multipurpose Room
All day Saturday and Sunday there will be an ongoing mural
project where attendees are encouraged to create a square
that processes what you’re learning in workshops or
captures your visions for a new economy/world using any
combination of words and visuals. Together, our squares will
form a story quilt-inspired mural that reflects our collective
visioning for a post-capitalist world.
Art is such a powerful, important tool of
community-building, learning, imagining, and building our
projects, especially when done in community. We want to
complement more classroom-style learning with a space for
creativity and integration. And together we’ll build
something really beautiful!
Building Worker Power Plenary Reception, Music,
and Social
On Saturday March 257 from 9-1130pm, all are invited to
attend an informal gathering in the Campus Center Marriott
Room. l. There will be music, festivities, fun and a cash bar.
Labor Center Brunch
On Sunday, March 26th from 10am-12pm in the Campus
Center Marriott Room the Labor Center will host a brunch
for alumni, current students and their guests. Please
register for the brunch in advance:
https:/
/airtable.com/shrBCQeCMnmJLrQTD
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​
​
Follow this QR code to support the work of Cooperation
Jackson in fighting against reactionary legislation, state
violence, and white supremacy, and fighting for
community autonomy, social well-being, and worker
power.
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