Screenings of Co-op documentary Shift Change; misc.

(1) Shiftchange:  Via our former book editor, Dan Fireside (now at Equal Exchange) and others,  a new documentary about worker-owned co-ops, Shift Change, will be screened twice in the Boston area:

Where: West Village F, Room 20 Auditorium | 40A Leon Street, Boston (View a Map)

Transit: Near MFA station (Green Line) and Ruggles (Orange Line)

Event Details: Reception at 6pm with coffee from Equal Exchange and light snacks from local vendors. A Q&A with filmmakers Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin will follow the screening.



Where: Barnum 104, 163 Packard Avenue, Medford, MA (View a Map)

Transit / Parking: Take #96 bus (Medford Sq via Davis Sq) to Boston Ave & Winthrop St., walk for 8 minutes); free parking in a designated lot.

Event Details: Q&A with filmmakers Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin will follow the screening.

Click here for a full list of screenings.  The premiere happens this Thursday in Oakland.

(2) Universities Dump Adidas:  Our current issue includes an "Active Culture" piece by Sarah Blaskey and Phil Gasper about the campaign to get Adidas to pay back pay and severance to Indonesian sweatshop workers.  (I haven't posted the article to the website; order a copy of the current issue or subscribe here.) Phil Gasper (who was a great help yesterday when we had that blog meltdown--thanks again, Phil!) alerted me to two piece on the anti-Adidas campaign:   Universities Dump Adidas over Labor Abuses, from Salon, and a similarly titled piece at The Nation.  The hall of shame for this campaign goes to the athletics director of the University of Wisconsin, Barry Alvarez, who said, in response to pressure to cut the university's contract with Adidas: "Just look at the money--what we lose and what it would cost us. We have four building contracts going on. It could hurt recruiting. There's a trickle-down effect that would be devastating to our whole athletic program." The subcontracting factory refuses to pay workers back pay of $3.4 million; Adidas' agreement with the university via the Workers Rights Consortium requires them to pay "all applicable back wages found due to workers who manufactured the licensed articles."  Adidas refuses to do so. And this clown is fretting about building projects and recruiting?

(3) Education Profiteering:  Speaking of Sarah Blaskey and Phil Gasper, they have a piece just out on Counterpunch, The Teacher vs. the Billionaire: Battling for the Future of Public Schools. And Phil alerted me to a related piece by Jeff Faux at Alternet:  Education Profiteering: Wall Street's Next Big Thing?

Ok, my pledge to blog more frequently is tied to a pledge to have shorter posts with fewer items.  So that's it for now.

--Chris Sturr