This panel discussion will explore what it means to report on work and workers in the rapidly changing global economy. Thirty years ago, organized labor wielded political clout and many major newspapers had reporters assigned to cover the labor beat. These days, most consumer products in the United States are produced overseas, union membership has plummeted and most labor reporting is done by the business section.

How has globalization changed the nature of work and how does that affect our reporting? What are the major labor-related stories of our time and how well is the press covering them? And how can we broaden our vision beyond organized labor to encompass the full variety of workers and their experiences, as well as the broader economic, social, and cultural context in which these experiences take place?

Speakers:

David Bacon, a writer and photojournalist, is an associate editor at Pacific News Service and a regular contributor to KPFA radio-Berkeley. His work has appeared in The Nation, LA Weekly, the San Francisco Chronicle and elsewhere, and he is the author of The Children of NAFTA (University of California Press).

George Raine is a staff writer covering business for the San Francisco Chronicle. He recently reported on the San Francisco hotel workers strike for the Chronicle.

Karl Schoenberger, global business reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, has been a foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and other publications. He was a teaching fellow at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and is the author of LeviÌâåÁÌâåøs Children: Coming to Terms with Human Rights in the Global Marketplace (Grove Press).