Vegetarians Unite: LaborFest 2009 coming in July!

[Guest guest]

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the SF General and West Coast Waterfront

strikes. LaborFest 2009 (www.laborfest.net) is commemorating these events with

the following public programs, which might be of interest to vegetarians who

consume food produced by farm workers:

 

July 10 (Friday) 5:30, 7:30 PM $5.00 Roxie Theatre - 3117 16th St., at Valencia,

SF

FilmWorks United International Working Class Film & Video Festival

5:30 Show

La Huelga, The Struggle of UFW (18 m) 2009 By Alex Ivany

Alex Ivany as a high school student started this project for Santa Cruz High,

fascinated by the achievements of Chavez and the early days of the United Farm

Workers Movement.

alexivany

www.reelwork.org/schedule.htm

Bracero (57 min.) 2008 By Patrick Mullins

The Bracero Program, which operated in the US between 1942-1964 has relevance

today as business and some unions are pushing this again. Otherwise known as the

" Guest Worker " program, this allowed for workers to be brought into the US and

to work under specific farm owners and others. Their exploitative conditions

were intensified as a result of this program. This film gives a real life look

at the workers and how the program really worked. This documentary puts a human

face on the lives of these " guest workers " and raises the issue of why unions

should continue to support this type of program.

pmullins

www.cherrylaneproductions.com

July 13 (Monday) 7:00 PM (Free) Modern Times Bookstore - 888 Valencia St., SF

Beyond The Fields

By Randy Shaw

Author Randy Shaw has written about the legacy of the thousands who worked for

the farm workers and their role in the rest of the labor movement. Many of the

UFWA activists later left the union and went to work in other unions becoming

organizers and leaders. This important part of the legacy of the farm workers is

unknown to most but is a significant factor in the labor movement today. Many

unions including those in the Bay Area are part of this history.

July 14 (Tuesday) 5:30, 7:30 PM $5.00 Roxie Theatre - 3117 16th St., at

Valencia, SF

FilmWorks United International Working Class Film & Video Festival

5:30 Show

The World According To Monsanto (109 min.) 2008 French

By Marie-Monique Robin

Marie-Monique Robin has produced a powerful and frightening film in

understanding the danger on a global level of out of control genetic engineering

and the food industry. Workers, farmers, consumers and the environmentalists are

all threatened by the unregulated development and growth products from this

industry. The US media have censored the role of Monsanto and other biotech

companies in spreading genetically engineered products that are harmful to

workers in the laboratory, farmers and consumers around the world.Injured

biotech worker David Bell who worked at Agraquest in Davis, which was owned by a

former Monsanto Pest Division molecular biologist Pam Marrone, is one of the

victims of this unbridled development and cover-up by the biotech industry.

http://wideeyecinema.com/?p=105

www.MonsantoFilm.com

7:30 Show

H-2 Worker (68 min.) 1990 US

by Stephanie Black

Stephanie Black has a record of making films about the real costs of economic

development including Life and Debt about the economic destruction in Jamaica

because of IMF policies. In H-2 worker, we learn about the real labor conditions

of agricultural workers who are brought to the US and then used virtually as

slave labor in the H-2 program. These workers who are brought in to Florida's

Lake Okeechobee area from Jamaica and the Caribbean are the " slave " workers of

America providing great profits for the agricultural owners and misery for the

workers and their families. It also is connected with the efforts in California

by some leading politicians to bring back the " guest workers " program.

http://www.lifeanddebt.org/h2worker/

 

July 20 (Monday) 7:00 PM (Free) Modern Times Bookstore - 888 Valencia St., SF

Dust-Bowl Okies in US Culture - Reading and discussion

By Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

How did a people so filled with a populist and socialist tradition in Oklahoma,

and in the early years as Dust Bowl migrants in California, come to form the

most conservative constituencies in California bringing men like Richard Nixon

and Ronald Reagan to state and eventually national power? Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz,

author of Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie, will discuss and read from her own work and

that of the late Wilma Elizabeth MacDaniel (the " Okie Bard " of the Central

Valley), Woody Guthrie, Merle Haggard, and John Steinbeck.

http://www.reddirtsite.com/