Brown Bag Lunch on Precarious Work and Movement Building, with Oscar Olivera from Bolivia

Please join us for a brown bag lunch discussion with one of Latin America's most well known and innovative labor and social movement organizers, Oscar Olivera, based in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

WHERE AND WHEN: Friday, June 14, 12:00 p.m. - 2:00 pm, Cornell Conference Center, 16 East 34th Street, NY, between 5th and Madison, Sixth Floor.

The NYC Chapter of the Labor Congress for Latin American Advancement(LCLAA) is co-sponsoring this event.

ABOUT OSCAR:

Oscar Olivera helped establish La Coordinadora de Defensa del Agua y de la Vida (the Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life) – a coalition of workers, environmentalists, artisans, peasants, market vendors, and neighborhood organizations. The organization was a significant force in the victorious movement against the privatization of the Cochabamba's water reserves in 2000.

As the former Executive Secretary of the Bolivia's Federation of Factory Workers, Oscar has a lot of experience in organizing among both precarious and formal sector workers, a country that has seen a decline of its traditional trade union base at the same time as new social movements have emerged. One theme he is interested in discussing is "precarious employers" -- how the global dynamics of backward pricing and retail domination can create areas of common interest among small companies and workers employed by those companies. Both are locked into precariousness in ways that makes traditional union organizing difficult, but could open up new possibilities for solidarity and action.

Learn more about Oscar Olivera:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2006/olivera301006.html
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/globallaborinstitute/events/waterforall.html

If you are able to attend or participate by phone, please RSVP to GLI summer fellow Zach Cunningham.