Featuring insightful guests and no-holds-barred topics, we’ll discuss everything from being LGBTQ and Black at work to corporate clapbacks.
Saturday, Aug. 24, 2019
Location: Gymnasium
How to Clap Back and Not Lose Your Job
10 am – 11 am
Hosted by: Carmen Berkeley- Civitas Public Affairs Group & Neneki Lee- Service Employees International Union
Moderated by Tanya Wallace-Gobern, National Black Worker Centers Project
Need to have a tough conversation with your boss? Push back against unfair treatment? Favoritism? Heavy work load? Check out the conversation of these workplace veterans, all with deep experience in social and economic justice organizations and unions. Learn some techniques for truth telling that relieves, rather than builds, tension in your conversation. Listen to their advice for maintaining your sense of humor in the face of an irritated employer. Find out how to take a righteous stand without jeopardizing your future.
LGBTQ and Black at Work
11:15 am – 12:15 pm
Hosted by: Erica Smiley- Jobs with Justice & Joan Joans- National LGBTQ Workers Center
Moderated by Sunu Chandy- National Women’s Legal Center
A round table discussion modeled after Jada Pinkett Smith’s Red Table Talk on Facebook, this session, which focuses on barriers confronting LGBTQ workers and remedies, features prominent LGBTQ activists who, after their moderated discussion, invite the audience to make comments and ask questions.
Green Jobs, Black Work
2 pm – 3pm
Hosted by: Jacqui Patterson- NAACP & Ericka Symmonds- GRID Alternatives
Moderated by Maya Goines- AFL-CIO
Seasoned environmental activists, who have examined the lopsided impact of environmental degradation on the Black community, also discuss how green jobs will affect the crisis of under- and unemployment. Modeled on Jada Pinkett Smith’s Red Table Talk, this session begins with a discussion moderated by AFL-CIO around the table, and then audience members are invited to join in.
Black and Brown in the Workplace
3:45 pm – 4:35 pm
Hosted by: Neidi Dominguez- International Brotherhood of Painters & Allied Trades (IUPAT) & Robin Williams- United Food and Commercial Workers
Moderated by Maya Goines
Union civil rights leaders, who keenly understand the impact of workplace racism and discrimination on workers of color and the entire workplace, discuss ways workers can collaborate to challenge workplace discrimination and its discontents. Participants are invited to observe the discussion, and then join in.
Sunday, Aug. 25, 2019
Location: Gymnasium
Black Voices, Black Votes: A Discussion about Keeping Promises
10 am – 11 am
Hosted by: Maryland State Senator Cory McCray & Amtyh Osunbunmi Asili- Working Families Party
Moderated by Nakisha Lewis, AFL-CIO
Maryland State Senator Cory McCray and the Working Families Party Organizer Amtyh Osunbunmi Asili discuss with the AFL-CIO’s Nakisha Lewis the record of elected officials representing Black voters, how well officials respond to community needs, why accountability is necessary to the exercise of power for communities, and how to improve accountability of elected officials.
Knocking the Hustle
11:15 am – 12:15 pm
Hosted by: Lester Spence- Author & Clair Watson-Minson- Workforce development strategist, AFL-CIO
Moderated by Isaac Gobern, AFL-CIO
Author and Johns Hopkins Professor Lester Spence and Workforce Development Strategist Clair Minson consider how a certain kind of hustle, epitomized by the phrase, “I’m not a business man; I’m a business, man,” describes an economy that demands workers transform themselves into entrepreneurs as they grapple with an economy that rewards a smaller and smaller portion of the population. Spence has tracked the effects of this transformation on African American communities, and criticizes the act of hustling itself as a tactic used to demobilize and disempower the communities most in need of empowerment.
Making the Just City: Gentrification & Community Health
2 pm – 3 pm
Hosted by: Dominic Moulden and Serita El-Amin- One DC
One DC’s organizers Dominic Moulden and Serita El-Amin share information and ideas about their campaign to link gentrification to poor community health outcomes driven by instability, displacement and loss of relationships. One DC uses research and action to increase availability of public funding and affordable housing in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C.