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(On-line registration is now closed. Walk-ins are welcomed.) - MCLE MATERIALS / SUGGESTED READINGS
“Working for Change: Low-Wage Earners at the Tipping Point”
October 24 – 25, 2013
110-Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley School of Law
“Working for Change: Low-Wage Earners at the Tipping Point” will highlight effective strategies for removing barriers to workplace equality that low-wage workers confront by harnessing the expertise of legal practitioners, policy makers, scholars in law and other disciplines, union organizers, non-profit organizations, funders and workers in dialogue with one another.
Much has changed since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 but discrimination in the workplace continues to be a significant problem. Courts have constricted the capacity of the law to advance equality for workers with devastating impact on low-wage workers and their access to justice. Globalization, the decline of unions, the vulnerability of undocumented workers to discrimination and harassment, cuts in funding for civil rights enforcement, the increasing price of legal services, and limitations on class actions have only contributed to the hurdles that low wage workers face in asserting their rights to a workplace free of discrimination.
At the same time, advocacy and organizing efforts to challenge the discrimination faced by low-wage workers are gaining momentum. Across sectors, ranging from domestic workers to restaurant workers to retail, low-wage workers are gaining momentum in efforts to change policy, practice and culture. Symposium participants will discuss how the removal of structural and legal barriers to the enforcement of civil rights for low-wage workers can be bolstered by collaborative approaches such as practitioner/academic/organizing partnerships to develop new legal theories and strategies, mulch-disciplinary working groups, and sophisticated policy and law reform campaigns.
The Hon. Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Memorial Lecture will set the tone for the symposium and will be delivered by David Lopez, General Counsel at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and ReNika Moore, Director of the Economic Justice Group at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 24, 2013.
MCLE credit will be available.