WORKSHOPS

Friday, September 24
Morning Plenary, 9:00 - 10:45, UDC Gymnasium]
Workshop Session A: 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

A1. Building 39 - Room 203

Visioning a People-Based Economy
The goal of the workshop is to stimulate thinking about what just,  participatory and environmentally sustainable economic systems would look like. Several visions, which have been developed through earlier group processes, will be presented covering both global institutions and local economic structure and process. These will serve as a jumping off place for workshop participants to elaborate on the ideas presented and to share their visions. The focus of the workshop will be on the vision itself rather than on the next stage of how to accomplish the transition. Alternatives to be discussed include the General Agreement on a New Economy (GANE not GATT), Common Agreement on Investment and Society (MAI/World Bank/IMF alternative), Global Sustainable Development Resolution (Rep. Bernie Sanders et al), Alternatives for the Americas (alternative to the Free Trade Area of the Americas), and the Wuppertal Institute conceptual model.
Ruth Caplan, Alliance for Democracy/Economics Working Group; and Trent Schroyer, TOES-US

A2. Building 39 - Room 206
Welfare, Globalization & Movement Building in the U.S., 1929-1999:
Telling Our Stories on the Interactive Timeline
Our "Welfare, Globalization & Movement Building" workshop uses the interactive timeline, a valuable popular education tool, to explore the three stages of social history in America from the crash of 1929 to 1999. It focuses on the "big picture" relationship between the economy, government policy, and popular movements in their historical context. We emphasize the power of popular movements to influence policy from the bottom-up; and conclude with the importance of popular education for movement building in this moment - when the movement is scattered and still at a low point, but is building strength and needs a shared consciousness, unifying vision, and strategic direction. Participants tell stories from their personal experience within this big picture context. We derive lessons for building today's global movement for justice, equality, and social transformation.
Walda Katz-Fishman & Jerome Scott, Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty & Genocide

A3. Building 39 - Room 205
Danger! Current Trade Treaties & Negotiations
A review of upcoming developments in the negotiations of the Free Trade Act of the Americas (FTAA), the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), and the Africa Growth & Opportunity Act (AGOA).
Lori Wallach, Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch; and Orin Langelle, ACERCA

A4. Building 39 - Room 210
Holding the World Bank Accountable, Inside and Out
Activists know that we must use all means necessary to hold the World Bank accountable to its mission: poverty alleviation. And there are many ways to do this. Come and learn about new Congressional legislation recently introduced that is designed to hold the Bank accountable to complying with its environmental and social policies and to stop financing projects that include large-scale resettlement. This legislation is a great vehicle to educate Congress about the wrong-doings of the World Bank. There are internal accountability mechanism at the World Bank that allows communities that have been harmed by a Bank-sponsored project, to "file suit" with the Bank. Learn about the World Bank's independent inspection panel and the International Finance Corporation's (the Bank's private lending arm) new ombudsperson. These internal accountability mechanisms are tools for activists to  use to hold the World Bank accountable to the public.
Andrea Durbin, Director, International Program, Friends of the Earth-US and Dana Clark, Senior Attorney, Center for International Environmental Law

A5. 4340 Connecticut - Room 406
Resisting Structural Adjustment in Haiti
Haitians have been alone in the world for successfully resisting, for five years, most international attempts to impose a structural adjustment plan. Learn from leaders in that movement how they have done this. Strategize with them on how to fight, at an international level, renewed efforts to force the "death plan", as Haitians call it, onto this already devastated economy.
Haitian leaders of the anti-neo-liberal movement

A6. 4340 Connecticut - Room 414
Immigration in the U.S. and Global Economies
The workshop will outline the factors in the global economy that lead  immigrants to come to this country and their fiscal impact on those of us who are already here. It will also provide a brief overview of the rules that govern their entry and the laws that affect their lives once here. Finally, it will review the impact of immigrant laws on the rest of us. Participants will discuss the impact of immigrant enforcement on workplace protections, privacy, public health and safety, and family unity.
Josh Bernstein, National Immigration Law Center

A7. 4340 Connecticut - Room 516
The Campaign Against GAP Sweatshops
Carmencita Abad worked in Saipan sweatshops for 6 years making clothing for companies such as the GAP. She speaks all over the USA, giving a moving portrayal of what sweatshop workers' lives are like. She will talk about her experiences. Kevin Danaher, a co-founder of Global Exchange, will explain Global Exchange's campaign against GAP sweatshops which combines a lawsuit and grassroots pressure against the GAP and other clothing retailers. The campaign recently won a partial victory when eight retailers agreed to allow independent monitoring of their factories.
Carmencita Abad and Kevin Danaher, Global Exchange

A8. 4340 Connecticut - Room 412
IMF 101: The Basics of the IMF
The themes of this workshop include the role of the IMF and how it has evolved to become one of the most powerful actors in the global eocnomy, the intense debate about the real and perceived failures of the IMF, the reform agenda of international civil society groups around the world, and political opportunities to secure reform.
Carol Welch, Friends of the Earth-U.S.

A9. Building 39 - Room 209
From the Mountains to the Maquiladoras
"From The Mountains to the Maquiladoras" is a 25-minute video of a 1991 visit to Matamoros, Mexico, by a group of working-class women from East Tennessee. The video documents an early worker-to-worker exchange in which Northern and Southern workers were able to share their living and working realities and get beyond common misconceptions about the causes of trade-related job loss. After we watch the video, we'll discuss worker- to- worker exchanges and learn about TIRN's subsequent work in Tennessee to fight free trade agreements like NAFTA, fast track, the Free Trade Area of the Americas and others from an internationalist point of view.
Cheryl Brown, Tennessee Industrial Renewal Network (TIRN)

A10. 4340 Connecticut - Room 515
Ecuador
Aurelio Tuqueres-Caiza, Fundaci—n Pueblo Indio del Ecuador; and Maria Isabel Silva, University of Illinois

A11. 4340 Connecticut - Room 410
Africa: Teetering on the Bridge to the 21st Century
In 1997, Hillary Rodham Clinton visited sub-Saharan Africa and in 1998 Bill Clinton followed suit. Africa was supposed to be going through a "renaissance" so members of the U.S. Congress proposed the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). In 1998, an African country, Uganda, was the first "graduate" of the IMF/World Bank HIPC Debt Initiative. Hilllary Rodham Clinton was touched and inspired by African women, and Bill Clinton was going to "look into debt." In 1999, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the corporate-backed AGOA, a.k.a. "NAFTA for Africa." In 1999, Uganda was back to square one in terms of its debt burden. What has happened to the "African renaissance"? What do African activists have to say about the dismal, often absent, and failed U.S. policy towards Africa? What do IMF/World Bank structural adjustment programs have to do with Africa's debt burden and economic decline?
Dennis Brutus, Jubilee 2000 Afrika; Jean BakolŽ (Democratic Republic of Congo); Ezekiel Pajibo, Africa Faith & Justice Network; Coumba TourŽ, Institute for Popular Education (Mali)

Workshop Session B: 2:15 - 3:45 p.m.

B1. Building 39 - Room 203
Media Training 101
This workshop will cover basic strategies for getting your story in the news. Based on peoples' interests topics can include: strategic message development, interview tricks of the trade, how to pitch a story, and how to write a press release/advisory. We can also answer specific questions about media strategies around the annual meetings.
Shayna Samuels and Elizabeth Buchanan, Fenton Communications

B2. Building 39 - Faculty Lounge (Level 2)
Haitian Rural Development Alternatives
This workshop will focus on Haitian popular movements' broad efforts to create rural development alternatives at both micro and macro levels. Haitians are advocating a just economic policy which gives primacy to peasant production and food security. Come learn and strategize to support this vital work.
Haitian leaders in the anti-neoliberal movement

B3. Building 39 - Room 209
Brazil: Land Reform and World Bank Interference
Marina dos Santos, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST)

B4. Building 39 - Room 202
How One Congregation Is Fighting World Debt on Four Continents
This workshop will highlight the work of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, an international order of Catholic women religious based in Notre Dame, Indiana. A summary of the Congregation's work (past and present) on economic justice issues, particularly with the World Bank and IMF, will be presented. Possible education and action strategies for other U.S. and international congregations will also be offered. Resources produced by the Sisters of the Holy Cross will be provided, along with easy access to resources from other national and international groups working for debt relief and debt cancellation.
Ann Oestreich IHM, Sisters of the Holy Cross and Mary Turgi CSC, CSC Congregation Justice Committee

B5. Building 39 - Room 206
Sandinista Nicaragua
Katherine Hoyt, Nicaragua Network, Francisco JosŽ Avenda–o Garc’a, Fundaci—n Augusto C. Sandino (FACS) and Alejandro Benda–a, Center for International Studies (Managua)

B6. 4340 Connecticut - Room 515
Organizing for Social & Economic Justice in South Asia
Martha Hannan, International Development Exchange (IDEX) and Dr. Vinter

B7. 4340 Connecticut - Room 406
Creating Community Currencies
Community building aspects of community currencies, the nuts and bolts of creating one, advice, tools and resources for activists. The presenters will speak briefly on their experience with Time Dollars, Equal Dollars, Community Way. Depending on the number of participants, we will either form a circle or subdivide into small groups depending on the interests and needs of the participants.
Carol Brouillet, Making Contact; Edgar Cahn, Time-Dollar Institute; and Vanessa Williams, Equal Dollars(=$s) Community Currency and Bartering System


B8. 4340 Connecticut - Room 410
Alternatives
Erik Leaver, Institute for Policy Studies and Interhemishperic Resource Center and Someone, Co-op America

B9. 4340 Connecticut - Room 414
Tibet and the World Bank
Dana Clark, Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)

B10. 4340 Connecticut - Room 513
Students & Sweatshop Activism
Someone, United Students Against Sweatshops

B11. 4340 Connecticut - Room 412
International Financial Reform: The Realm of the Possible
The last couple of years have seen a host of new proposals for creating a  "New Global Financial Architecture." This workshop will stimulate discussion about what reforms of the global economy might be possible in the foreseeable future, and what role civil society, the IMF, World Bank, and US foreign economic policy might play in any such efforts.
Mark Weisbrot, Preamble Center and Matt Siegel, Global Financial Architecture Working Group



[Afternoon Plenary, 4:00 p.m., UDC Auditorium]
WORKSHOPS

Saturday, September 25


[Morning Plenary, 9:00 - 10:45, UDC Auditorium]

Workshop Session C: 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

C1. Building 39 - Room 113
Tobin Tax Made Simple: Taming the Global Casino, Raising Revenue for Urgent Needs
Learn why 10,000 French activists are aware and organizing on the Tobin Tax, and why a movement in Canada led to a successful vote by Members of Parliament on the Tobin Tax. The Tobin Tax is a small levy on currency transactions, which would tame the rampant excesses of short-term currency speculation, restore some national sovereignty, and raise revenue for international urgent needs. Learn how it would work, why it is considered economically feasible, and why it might be politically feasible too.
Ruthanne Cecil, Tobin Tax Initiative; Dean Baker, Preamble Center; and Pam Foster, Halifax Initiative

C2. Building 39 - Room 201
Fair Trade Activism: Coffee
This panel will discuss Fair Trade Certified coffee as an economic alternative on a large scale. Coffee is the second largest traded commodity after oil, and the US consumes one-fifth of the world coffee market, so the potential for economic and social change is extensive. Equal Exchange, TransFair and Global Exchange are promoting fair trade activism for farmers through providing a model in opposition to free trade that delivers living wages, credit and long term relationships. The missing link is the US market - we need a national activism campaign to promote massive awareness of and demand for Fair Trade Certified coffee in our communities.
Erbin Crowell, Equal Exchange; Kevin Danaher, TransFair USA; Deborah James, Global Exchange; and Mercedes Osuna, Enlace Civil, Mexico

C3. Building 39 - Room 203
Small Farmers and Cooperatives Challenging Neoliberalism: Organizing in El Salvador
This workshop will feature an organizing process in El Salvador where farm groups are crafting alternative national strategies for rural development and advocating on their behalf at national and international levels. SHARE Foundation brought together the broad coalition of Salvadoran small farmers and cooperatives and is coordinating a solidarity effort in the U.S. to accompany them with advocacy initiatives. Particularly timely, given that Hurricane Mitch made clear the need for sustainable policies of agricultural and rural development, this "bottom-up" organizing effort challenges the "maquila" answer to development promoted by most bilateral and multilateral aid donors, and addresses land issues, fair trade, and environmental recuperation.
Representatives of four Salvadoran organizations: the Agricultural Forum, CONFRAS, COACES, and the Rural Women's Permanent Working Group, plus a representative of the Share Foundation

C4.Building 39 - Clinical Library (Level 2)
Organizing for Power not Pity
This workshop will discuss organizing models for real social change and our efforts to build an economic human rights movement in the USA lead by the poor themselves. We will also discuss obstacles that we're confronting and ways in which all sections of the population can begin to see themselves in a relationship to this growing movement.
Galen Tyler and Cheri Honkala, Kensington Welfare Rights Union

C5. Building 39 - Room 210
Campaign against the World Bank: the Southern Initiative
This workshop is for representatives of global-South struggles to discuss coordination of their work against structural adjustment, debt, and free market policies, notably through an international campaign against the World Bank.
Camille Chalmers, PAPDA (Coalition for Alternative Development in Haiti) and Beverly Bell, Center for Economic Justice

C6. Building 39 - Room 118
Legislative Strategies to Reduce the Power of the IMF
Joanne Carter, Results; Marie Clarke, Quest for Peace; and Jaron Bourke, Office of Rep. Dennis Kucinich 

C7. Building 39 - Room 120
How Corruption Impoverishes the "Third World"
Corrupt ruling elites, aided and abeted by crooked corporations, organized crime syndicates, multilateral development institutions and the global banking system, are looting developing nations of money and resources. The transfer of wealth from developing nations, totaling hundreds of billions of dollars annually, is facilitated by illegal practices such as money-laundering, under-billing and tax-evasion through the international banking system. Dictators, kleptocrat officials, and larcenous businessmen steal public funds and resources, fix contracts and take kick-backs, then transfer their ill-gotten gains to "private banks" in Switzerland, the U.S., the Cayman Islands and  elsewhere. International gangs, such as the Russian Mafia, Latin American drug cartels, Chinese Triads and the Sicilian Mafia, make hundreds of billions of dollars off drug-dealing, gun-running, smuggling wildlife and other  resources, prostitution, gambling, trafficking in women, children and illegal aliens, and other criminal activities, in  the process corrupting governments and legitimate businesses through bribes and investments. They are actively facilitating the massive money-laundering throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America. The IMF, World Bank and leading private banks have turned blind eyes to the looting of the Third World. Much of the crushing debt in the developing world can be directly attributed to this pernicious system of corruption.
Craig Van Note, Monitor

C8. Building 39 - Room 204
African Women and the Impact of Economic Policy
The African Women's Economic Policy Network (AWEPON) brings together women activists for economic justice from different parts of the continent. Members will share their analysis of the roots of inadequate economic policies and their impact on African women. The workshop will also look at what difference the process of debt cancellation would mean to African women, especially in the heavily indebted countries.
Julia Mulaha and Alice Abok, African Women's Economic Policy Network (AWEPON)

C9. Building 39 - Room 206
Organizing for the WTO Meeting in Seattle
Alesha Daugthrey, Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch

C10. Building 39 - Room 209
Nicaragua: Rural Alternatives
Phil Wheaton, CREA; Scott Wright, EPICA; others?

C11. Building 39 - Room 202
Women's Labor & Economic Globalization
A U.S. woman on welfare is force to pick up garbage in workfare -- a new form of slave labor. A migrant woman from Albania finds herself forced into prostitution in Germany. A Mexican woman on the boarder with the U.S. faces sub-minimum wages and sexual harassment in order to feed her family. Come explore how women's labor is integral to the process of globalization. Who are the responsible institutions and what are the points of intervention?
elmira Nazombe, Center for Women's Global Leadership and Carol Barton, Alternative Women in Development


Workshop Session D: 2:15 - 3:45 p.m.

D1. Building 39 - Room 204
How to Organize for a Boycott of World Bank Bonds
This workshop will focus on how you can make the policies of the World Bank a local issue in your community by asking institutions such as colleges and universities, churches, labor unions and local governments to pledge not to purchase bonds issued by the World Bank, which are the source of 80% of the Bank's funding. We will distribute background materials, talk about how to get started, what resources are available and what kind of strategies might  be particularly useful in your community. We will also dicuss experiences from the anti-Apartheid divestment struggles and the campus anti-sweatshop movements which are relevant to the campaign.
Kevin Danaher, Global Exchange; Daisy Pitkin, Center for Economic Justice and a student at Macalester College; and Neil Watkins, Preamble Center

D2. Building 39 - Room 210
Latin American Alternatives in Rural Development
Representatives from grassroots movements in eight Latin American countries will report on strategies to launch new national platforms for rural development and sustainable agriculture.
Representatives from rural struggles in El Salvador, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Brazil

D3. Building 39 - Faculty Lounge (Level 2)
Changing the HIPC Initiative to Address Poverty: Implications for the IMF
The "Cologne Initiative" of the G7 calls for a greater focus on poverty reduction in the HIPC Initiative debt reduction program of the IMF and World Bank This is to be coupled with aspects of country ownership of economic policy, with civil society participation in program design and implimentation. How is the IMF responding to the directions of the G7? To what extent are changes to the HIPC Initiative a result of campaigns like the Jubilee 2000 campaign on debt? What does it mean for the IMF, which does not have social development as part of its mandate? To what extent will the changes to the debt program affect the IMF's program of economic reform for poor countries (ESAF)? Co-hosted by a long time debt advocate and by a representative of the IMF's team working on the HIPC Initiative, the workshop will begin with each giving a perspective on what the implications of the Cologne Initiative may be (10 mins each). The balance of the time will provide space for questions and answers. This forum will provide attendees with an opportunity to learn more about efforts to reduce debt, and how these efforts can be influenced by popular participation in the policy dialogue.
Derek MacCuish, Halifax Initiative; Ted van Hees, European Network on Debt & Development (EURODAD); and representative of IMF

D4. Building 39 - Room 202
Rolling Fast
Marie Dennis, Religious Working Group on the World Bank & IMF

D5. Building 39 - Room 209
Debt Cancellation Campaigns in the Global South

D6. Building 39 - Room 111
Microcredit
Sam Daley Harris, Microcredit Summit; Susan Thompson, Columban Justice & Peace Office; and Alex Counts, Grameen Foundation

D7. Building 39 - Room 114
Local Currencies II
Philip Beard, Sonoma State University, etc.

D8. Building 39 - Clinical Library (Level 2)
The Future of World Bank Energy Policy: the Case of the Chad-Cameroon Pipeline
Francesco Martone, Reform the World Bank Campaign; Dafna Laurie, Sustainable Energy & Economy Network (SEEN); and Erick Brownstein, Rainforest Action Network

D9. Building 39 - Room 201
Making Corporations Sweat: The Solidarity Model of International Labor Rights Activism
Find out why the effort to ground anti-sweatshop activism on the solidarity model is crucial to our movement. This panel will talk about important anti-sweatshop campaigns in Latin America and Asia, as well as important issues such as independent monitoring, codes of conduct, and supporting workers' struggles in the context of the solidarity model.
Trim Bissell, Campaign for Labor Rights; Katherine Hoyt, Nicaragua Network; and Melinda St. Louis, Labor Defense Network

D10. Building 39 - Room 205
Strengthening Indigenous and Women's Movements through Fair Trade
Fair Trade has played an important role in strengthening indigenous cultural traditions and providing rural women with opportunities for economic independence. This panel will examine new research about the effects of free trade on women and traditional artisans around the world, as well as offer first hand perspectives about the role of Fair Trade in Mexico and the importance of strengthening economic alternatives.
Marceline White, Women's Economic Development for Global Equality; Rosalinda Santis, Jolom Mayetik, Chiapas; and Irma Villanse F1or, Xochiquetzal, Mexico City

D11. Building 39 - Room 206
How Are They Doing? The IMF's Recent Interventions in Financial Crises: Asia, Russia, Brazil
This workshop looks at the results of the IMF's policies in each of these areas, including the policy prescriptions (e.g. fixed exhange rates and support for it in Russia and Brazil, high interest rates in Asia), their official rationale and underlying purposes, and conomic performance two years years later (Asia), one year later (Russia), and 9 months later (Brazil). Alternative policies will also be discussed.
Mark Weisbrot, Preamble Center

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