COMM-ORG members--

You may find this June conference of interest. I'm including three documents, separated by ***s: a basic description of the conference, a call for workshops, and a conference registration form. Through an oversight, we neglected to send this out to you earlier, and the official deadline for proposing workshops was March 15. We now encourage you to submit proposals through March 26. If you can only put together a half-baked proposal by then, send us a half-baked proposal and start the discussion. And regardless of whether you propose a workshop or activity, we hope you'll consider coming! For added information, visit our web site: http://www.plannersnetwork.org

For the conference planning committee,

Chris Tilly Department of Regional Economic and Social Development University of Massachusetts at Lowell *********************************************************************

Working for a Decent Living: Bridging the Gap Between Labor and Community

Planners Network Conference, June 17-20. 1999 Lowell, Massachusetts

It is a critical time for work and workers in the United States. Most workers are putting in longer hours, at lower wages, in less stable jobs. Inequalities by race and education are widening, and gender inequality persists as well. New, harsh work requirements and time limits push welfare recipients into dead-end jobs. Anti-immigrant policies intensify the second-class status of undocumented workers, and of all immigrants. At the same time, the U.S. labor movement is newly revitalized, and community-based campaigns such as those for living wage ordinances have scored many successes.

At this critical juncture, the June 1999 Planners Network conference will explore the connections and intersections between community and work. There are many such connections. Community and labor initiatives/organizing can both be more effective if they collaborate, but too often these different approaches are disconnected or even working at cross-purposes. Successful community economic development depends on expanding and improving employment. This can encompass anything from commercial area development, to skill training, to living wage ordinances. Residential location, school quality, and transportation and communication options also affect what jobs are available to a given community. Environmental planning often confronts widely perceived tradeoffs between jobs and environmental protection. Immigrant communities, communities of color, rural areas, and single mothers all face particularly daunting labor market challenges. And the unpaid work needed to keep families and communities functioning is too often devalued or ignored. Finally, planners, community organizers, and agency staff are themselves workers, in some cases unionized, with their own set of workplace issues.

The conference will take place at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, June 17-20, 1999. Lowell, cradle of the U.S. industrial revolution, has a long history of immigration, labor struggles, and creative economic development initiatives. Lowell's National Park showcases the textile industry of a century ago, with a focus on work life. Recent Latin American and Southeast Asian migrations have changed the face of Lowell and neighboring communities, and a vital and diverse set of community organizations have sometimes collaborated with government officials and at other times struggled against them. The University's Lowell campus is home to innovative programs focusing on economic and social development and environmental stability. Other area educational institutions, including the College of Public and Community Service at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, known for its work in participatory planning, will be contributing to the conference, as will a variety of community organizations and agencies in the Lowell and Boston areas. The Massachusetts labor movement, which has actively pursued labor-community collaborations, will also take part. Lowell is within commuting distance of Boston by car or commuter rail.

Planners Network is an association of practitioners, activists, educators and students involved in physical, social, economic and environmental planning in urban and rural areas who work to promote fundamental change in our political and economic systems. We believe that planning should be a tool for allocating resources and developing the environment in order to eliminate the great inequalities of wealth and power in the contemporary world, rather than to maintain and justify the status quo. This includes in particular racial injustices and discrimination by gender and sexual orientation. We believe that planning should be used to assure adequate food, clothing, shelter, health care, jobs, safe working conditions and a healthful environment. We advocate public responsibility for meeting these needs as the private market has proven incapable of doing so.

Conference speakers will include: · Kathy Casavant, Secretary-Treasurer of Mass. AFL-CIO · Teresa Córdova, Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic justice and Associate Professor of Community and Regional Planning, University of New Mexico, · Bill Fletcher--Education director, US AFL-CIO. · Gilda Haas--Director, Strategic Action for a Just Economy and Director, Community Scholars Program, UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Welfare. · Lydia Lowe, Chinese Progressive Association, Boston

Want to get involved? We ask you to do the following:

· Propose a paper, workshop, or activity! Our main theme is linking labor and community, but papers/workshops/activities on other themes are welcome as well. Activities can include tours, charrettes, meetings with local groups, participation in ongoing community events, etc. · Spread the word! Post this information, or pass it on to other interested folks. Recruit participants. · Get your organization to be a co-sponsor or endorser! For information on what's involved in co-sponsoring or endorsing, contact one of us. · Join the local planning committee, if you are in the Lowell/Boston area. The local planning committee will work on planning the content, lining up co-sponsors and keynote speakers, fund-raising, logistics, and recruiting attendees. We will keep meetings at a minimum and try to do most of our work through email and phone conversations. Let Marie Kennedy or Chris Tilly know if you are interested.

To volunteer, offer suggestions, or for further information, contact a member of the Conference Planning Committee:

Marie Kennedy, Co-Chair, Planners Network Steering Committee Center for Community Planning, College of Public and Community Service, University of Massachusetts, 100 Morrissey Blvd., Boston MA 02125-3393 617-287-7262; 617-287-7274 (fax); 617-983-3202 (home); marie.kennedy@umb.edu

Patricia Nolan, Co-Chair, Planners Network Steering Committee Neighborhood Capital Budget Group, 303 S. Dearborn, Chicago, IL 60621 312-939-7198; panolan@iilds.com

Ken Reardon, Planners Network Steering Committee Department of Urban and Regional Planning, 312 Temple Buell Hall, 611 Taft Drive, Champaign IL 61820 217-244-5384; 217-244-1717 (fax); kmjr@uiuc.edu

Chris Tilly, Planners Network Member and Conference Planning Committee Department of Regional Economic and Social Development, University of Massachusetts, Lowell MA 01854 978-934-2796; 617-983-3202 (home); chris_tilly@UML.edu

The conference is co-sponsored by: Massachusetts AFL-CIO o Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning o Pequod Fund o Tufts University, Department of Urban and Environmental Planning o University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning o University of Massachusetts at Boston, College of Public and Community Service o University of Massachusetts at Lowell, College of Arts and Sciences/Department of Regional Economic and Social Development

and endorsed by: Chinese Progressive Association/Workers' Center (Boston) o City Limits Magazine o Coalition for a Better Acre (Lowell) o Dollars and Sense Magazine o Greater Roxbury Workers' Association (Boston) o Harvard University Trade Union Program o Hispanic Office of Planning and Evaluation (Boston) o Immigrant Workers Resource Center o Massachusetts ACORN o Massachusetts Jobs with Justice o Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy o Merrimack Valley Project o Merrimack Valley Urban Resource Institute o Shelterforce Magazine o United for a Fair Economy o University of Massachusetts at Boston, Institute for Asian American Studies o University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Labor Relations and Research Center o University of Massachusetts at Boston, Labor Resource Center o University of Massachusetts at Lowell, Labor Extension Program o William Monroe Trotter Institute o Women's Institute for Housing and Economic Development (list of sponsors and endorsers still in formation) *********************************************************

Call for workshops and activities

WORKING FOR A DECENT LIVING: BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN LABOR AND COMMUNITY

Planners Network Conference, June 17-20. 1999 Lowell, Massachusetts

Planners, community and labor activists and advocates, researchers, academics, students:

We invite you to submit a proposal for the June 1999 Planners Network conference, "Working for a Decent Living: Bridging the Gap between Labor and Community." We encourage you to propose a full workshop or activity, but proposals for individual presentations are also welcome.

We have broken the conference into several themes, described on the following page.

Our goal is a set of working sessions, in which participants will truly grapple with how to "bridge the gap between labor and community." To this end, we place a premium on proposals that emphasize interaction with all participants. (We expect that most workshops and activities will attract 10-20 participants.) This does not mean we will reject all proposals that involve an audience simply listening to presentations, but it does mean we will favor proposals that include more extensive interaction. (We will post the tips at http://www.plannersnetwork.org/ on the Web. If you do not have Web access, let us know and we will send you a copy.)

Please return the workshop/activity proposal form by March 26, and we look forward to reading your ideas!

In solidarity,

Marie Kennedy, College of Public and Community Service, University of Massachusetts-Boston, Planners Network Steering Committee Patricia Nolan, Director of Research, Neighborhood Capital Budget Group (Chicago), Planners Network Steering Committee Ken Reardon, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, Planners Network Steering Committee Chris Tilly, Department of Regional Economic and Social Development, University of Massachusetts-Lowell

Workshop and activity themes Working for a Decent Living: Bridging the Gap between Labor and Community

Workshops and activities will take place in four segments, all built around the challenge of linking up labor and community issues and movements, in the following sequence 1) Successful strategies 2) Building new connections 3) Working through conflicts and challenges 4) Future strategies The idea is to start by identifying common interests, examine conflicts, and then move to future strategies.

Here are some possible examples in each category, with some overlap:

1) Successful strategies Education and job training o Affordable housing as an issue for workers and unions o Job creation in environmental industries o Living/livable wage o Occupational safety and health and community environmental protection o Part-time and contingent work o Planners in unions o Plant closings/retention (especially community services such as hospitals) o Unions as investors/lenders o Unions developing housing

2. Building new connections Anti-racist organizing o Bringing people of color and women into the building trades, into union leadership o Community groups organizing unions directly o Community support for union organizing o Confronting globalization o How unions have learned from community organizing, and vice versa o Immigrant rights in workplace and community o Linking job demands to development o Reindustrialization o Supports and services needed for work (such as child care, transportation) o Sweatshops at home and abroad o Transportation planning as a link between community and workplace o "Union cities" o Unions and worker ownership o Welfare and workfare organizing o Microenterprise

3. Working through conflicts and challenges Jobs vs. the environment o Jobs for construction workers vs. sustainable, community-controlled development o Overcoming anti-immigrant sentiments o Race and gender as barriers to access to unions o The strings attached to welfare-to-work funding o Unionization of community-based agencies o Working with businesses while defending worker rights

4. Future strategies Building class consciousness and working class culture o Coalitions: labor-community, labor-interfaith, labor-environmental o Community income statements, community currencies o Confronting racism and sexism in workplaces and communities o Electoral strategies, including third parties o Full employment o International solidarity o Regional strategies from the bottom up o Roles for planners in labor/community coalitions o Setting comprehensive standards for development o Unions refusing to do work that is destructive to communities

Name(s):

Affiliation(s):

Mailing address:

Office phone: ( ) Fax:

Email:

Home phone: ( )

Title of proposal:

This proposal is for:

( ) A presentation

( ) A complete presentation workshop (3-4 presenters; presentations should be brief and designed to stimulate discussion)

( ) A complete self-organized discussion workshop (semi-structured discussion of a topic, no formal presenters)

( ) Community or labor tour/off-site presentation (should be reachable from Lowell/Boston area)

( ) Charrette (intensive brainstorming/problem-solving session with community or labor group or agency) If you list presenters other than yourself, we ask you to obtain permission from them (please also include names, affiliations, addresses, phone numbers, and emails). Please develop panels that reflect a racial, gender, age, and practitioner/academic balance, as well as a geographic mix where possible.

This proposals fits the following conference theme(s):

Brief description of the content of the presentation/workshop/activity:

Brief description of the significance of the presentation/workshop/activity to progressive planning and/or the theme of "bridging labor and community"

Specific issues raised for group discussion by the presentation/workshop/activity, and plans for encouraging interaction and participation.

Please return by March 26, 1999 to Marie Kennedy or Chris Tilly, 35 Rodman St. #2, Jamaica Plain MA 02130, , fax 978-934-4028 (for questions, email or call 617-983-3202) *******************************************************

Planners Network Conference: June 17-20, 1999, Lowell, Massachusetts Working for a Decent Living: Bridging the Gap Between Labor and Community

Registration Form

Please Print and Mail

Name _______________________________________________________

Affiliation ____________________________________________________

Address _____________________________________________________

City ______________________________ State _____ Zip ____________

Phone (days) _______________________ Fax _______________________

Email _____________________

******************************************************************** Registration fees (meals included)

( ) High income (>$50,000) $100 per person before April 15

$110 per person after April 15

( ) Middle income $80 per person before April 15

$90 per person after April 15

( ) Low income $40 per person before April 15

$50 per person after April 15

( ) One day registration $40 per day

____ Total registration fees

If you will need child care at the conference, please indicate here Number and ages of children: ______________________ Days child care will be needed: _____________________

Date and time arriving __________________________________ Date and time departing_________________________________ (We need this information for lodging and meal planning purposes) *************************************************************** Housing fees and reservations

o Single rooms ($33.00 per person, per night) Total persons: ____________ Number of nights: ____________

o Double rooms ($23 per person, per night -- bunked beds) Total persons: ____________ Number of nights: ____________

o Linens ($10 per set, duration of stay) includes sheets, towels, blankets Number of linen sets: ___________ Total: _________________

o Micro-fridge ($10 for duration of stay) Check if you want a micro-fridge: ____ Total: ______________

_____ Total housing fees

If there is someone else registering for the conference whom you would like to room with, please indicate here:

__________________________________________________________

If not indicating a specific roommate, please let us know your gender: ( ) M ( ) F ********************************************************************* Special events

o Boat tours of industrial revolution-era Lowell canals ($6 per adult, $4 children) will require advance reservations, but cannot be scheduled yet. Check here _______ if you wish to be re-contacted about boat tours. (Other tours will also be available at the conference) ************************************************************************

Join Planners Network for an extra $25! You will get the newsletter and other informational mailings for a year, and support our work.

_____ Total Planners Network dues ***********************************************************************

Payment enclosed _____ TOTAL

Full payment must accompany registration. Please make checks payable to: Planners Network Send to: Planners Network, Attn: Joan Fenlon University of Massachusetts at Lowell Durgin Hall 106, 35 Wilder St. Lowell, MA 01854