2007
September:
Free Trade vs Fair Trade.
Green Mountain Global Forum, VT.
What is the difference between free and fair trade? Why should we care? What exactly is free trade? Who benefits from US free trade policies and who shoulders the costs? Are fair trade business models and campaigns a workable alternative to free trade policies? Staff economist James Heintz gave a presentation and led a discussion about these questions with eighty attendees from the area.
August:
Introduction to Political Economy.
Center for Political Education, CA.
Suresh Naidu facilitated a series of workshops for local activists covering a broad range of topics, including a critique of neoclassical microeconomics, the domestic macro economy, the international financial crisis, and trade with Marxist economics mixed in when appropriate. The last class focused on discussing social democracy and alternatives to capitalism.
Shifts in Frameworks and Policy Implications: Keynesian versus Neoliberal Economics.
Drum Major Institute, NYC.
Tom Masterson and Amit Basole co-facilitated a workshop for the Drum Major Institute, which brings together young people of color interested in going into public policy work. Participants looked at how shifts in economic ideology impact public policy choices.
July-August:
Social Wealth Online Course.
Three CPE staff economists offered an online course through the Continuing Education program at the University of Massachusetts. The course, taught by Nancy Folbre, Michael Ash and Heidi Garrett-Peltier, provided an introduction to the concept of social wealth. Students read and wrote about caring labor and the care economy, environmental justice, global warming, and the intellectual and cultural commons.
April:
Western Massachusetts Social Forum.
CPE was heavily involved in organizing the Western Mass Social Forum, which brought together close to 200 people. The forum included 30 workshops on a wide variety of issues such as an introduction to neoliberalism, economic alternatives, food security, healthy food, toxics in our communities, queer youth and the prison industrial complex, Israel and Palestine, the federal budget, immigrant workers, war, labor, local currency, direct action and organizing. Most of these workshops were facilitated by local grassroots organizations and activists. CPE led workshops on neoliberalism, food, the federal budget, the war, labor, and economic alternatives.
2006
July:
Rising Caseloads, Shrinking Resources: What’s Driving These Trends?
Social Welfare Institute, Monmouth, N.J.
Amit Basole and Radhika Balakrishnan facilitated a workshop for social workers. This workshop was organized through a connection with the University of the Poor.
What Kind of Development?
Institute for Training and Development, Amherst, MA.
Tom Masterson facilitated a workshop for 15 young people from Pakistan on economic development.
Project 2050.
University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Project 2050 is a performing arts program organized by the New World Theater at UMass which brings together artists, scholars and youth of color to explore inter-generational, interracial, and cross-cultural dialogue. Amit Basole and Emily Kawano facilitated two workshops on the “Political Economy of Race, Class and Gender” with a crowd of 40 young people. Amit also participated in this program for two weeks as the economics scholar.
April:
Popular Economics and Popular Education.
School for International Training, Brattleboro, VT.
Tom Masterson and Emily Kawano facilitated this exploration of the relationship between popular economics and popular education.
“Tent State” University.
University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
CPE staff economists facilitated four workshops at this week long “Tent State University” teach-in: The Real Cost of War; Pushing Neoliberal Economics in Iraq; World, U.S. and Western Mass Social Forums; and Why We Have Money for War but Not for Schools.
Shining a Light on Poverty.
Keene State College, Keene, NH.
Tom Masterson and Emily Kawano facilitated two workshops: the Roots of Poverty and Poverty, Race and Education.
Legislative Breakfast.
Massachusetts Nurses Association.
Michael Ash facilitated a workshop on the changing landscape of health care, focusing on factors that have led to understaffing, dangerous working conditions, high stress and rapid turnover in the nursing profession.
February -June:
Workshops for SAGE: Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Elders.
Amherst, MA.
- Connect the Dots: What’s the Connection Between Wal-Mart, the War in Iraq, the Healthcare Crisis, and Privatization?
Facilitated by James Heintz and Emily Kawano. This was a local event to provide a framework for understanding many of the critical social and economic issues that we currently face. About 100 people attended.
- Introduction to the Economy.
Jerry Friedman and Emily Kawano facilitated this workshop with around 15 participants. Participants engaged in discussions and participatory exercises that explored worker exploitation, profits, inequality, and the inter-linkages between race, class and gender.
- Economics of Fear (War and Prisons).
Geert Dhondt and Anita Dancs facilitated this workshop with around 15 participants. The workshop focused on how a culture of fear is being promoted in the U.S. This culture of fear is exploited to expand prisons, guard labor and martial responses to everything from school discipline to undocumented immigrants. Fear is also used to create a war culture – to justify the war in Iraq, the war on terror, and Homeland security.
- Alternatives to Corporate Globalization.
Emily Kawano facilitated this workshop which started off with a critical overview of the mainstream neoliberal model of corporate led globalization. This discussion was followed by a participatory exercise using stepping stone cards that gave participants exposure to a wide range of economic alternatives. The workshop wrapped up with a discussion of how these alternatives might fit together to form a systemic alternative to neoliberal globalization.
2005
May:
Free Trade and Women Consultation.
Amherst, MA.
The purpose of this consultation was both to provide information and analysis about trade liberalization and gender and to hear from local groups about the impact of trade liberalization on their communities or constituencies. A variety of organizations participated: Arise, Anti-Displacement Project, Sweatfree Communities, AFL-CIO, Labor Programs at UMass Amherst and UMass Lowell, NE Small Farms Institute, Grassroots International, Institute For Community Economics, Population & Development Program and Civil Liberties and Public Policy at Hampshire College, and Witness for Peace. Presentations were given by staff economists Diane Flaherty, Brenda Wyss, and Stephanie Luce.
April:
WILD (Women’s Institute for Leadership Development) Social Security Workshop.
Staff economist Liz Stanton facilitated a workshop on Social Security at the WILD conference.
April-May:
Training for Trainers – Economic Empowerment.
Holyoke, MA.
CPE worked closely with the Community Education Project to provide five Training for Trainers workshops for Adult Basic Education (ABE) teachers in Holyoke. The five workshops included: Economic Timeline; Political Economy of Health, Local to Global Health: HIV/AIDS; Budget Activism; and a wrap-up curriculum development session.
In the final session the ABE teachers shared curriculum that they have developed using material from our training. For example, one teacher is using the timeline as a way to structure student research into their own family histories and the larger economic forces that influenced Puerto Rican migration.
