Hello, everyone, thank you for coming out tonight. Im Larry Cohen Davis shoulders, the Early Release of this book refinery town big oil, big money, and the remaking of an american city, thank you for coming out, this is part of a partnership we had going for a couple years now we are selling books and hosting events in three location this, and at this location, if you would like to pick up a calendar you can see where we have events throughout the city in addition to the ones we host at the main store of the location. Part of that is you want to drink throughout the event, treat the servers well but we think the busboys for the relationship we have going on here. I have a few housekeeping notes to get started if you will silence any cell phones, so we dont have any interruptions during the event, we will do the signing right here, the place to purchase the book in the bookstore. If you havent already there are plenty of topics out there and of the you here in the store but in the room, bring them back for the signing and the time for q a and i can carry it out and come to you with a microphone to hear the questions, comments and half the conversation so refinery town, home to one of the oldest refineries in the state, richmond, california, company town dominated by chevron, 100,000 suffer from poverty and poorly funded Public Service, one of the highest rates in the country, and jobless rates like the National Average but in 2012, moved from new england to richmond, and struggle to remain itself lose the refinery town, 15 years Successful Community organizing that raise the local minimum wage and the development project, and taxation, it is a specific tale of governance at the local level that should appeal to labor activists and scholars, and was written by bernie sanders, a timely book offers ideas for making change where it counts the most among friends, neighbors and fellow community. Activator labor journalists, organizer since 1972. A bostonbased staff member of the communication workers of america, 2000, the Administrative Assistant to Vice President of district one which presents 160,000 workers in new york and new jersey, the author of journalistic reflections, civil war and us labor, birth of a new Workers Movement and save our union, facets from the union in distress. Tonight we join in conversation with larry cohen, chair of the board for our evolution and the Democracy Initiative and past National Presence of communication workers of america so please join me in welcoming steve early. Thanks, everybody. Great to see so many friends. Steve will give some shout outs, great to be here. And actually to correct one thing, 25 years, you cut 5 years off of steves time working together, but more than fulltime is cw a. I will come back to steve in a minute. Different context about the book. I am a big supporter of reading this book, getting steve to sign the book. It fits directly in the frame of what so many people have done for so many years which is to try to figure out how can you do political work with the integrity and get some results . Here we are at a time when particularly in the last couple weeks or months to a large extent on defense, resisting, for me that is a big word in my own early life particularly. We want to be on offense, just defense. What this book is about is how folks in a town or city of 150,000 people got off of defense, chevron is doing this, chevron is doing that, chevron is ruining our water, chevron is ruining our air, chevron is ruining our political life and how they built the Richmond Progressive Alliance and for me those in our revolution, just this past election so miserably in so many ways, in melvin you will hear more about them, got elected to city council and became the fourth and fifth members of the city council out of 7 so now instead of political work, all at doral work being about resistance, now it is about governing and the other thing that is clear when you read the book everyplace is not richmond but every place has some element of richmond and to spend a lot of time doing a lot doral work, that part of political work, having some dreamlike the rpa dream for most of us doesnt make sense because when you dont have that dream it is always this one is worse than that one. Anybody feel like that when you go to vote . No one in this room has ever felt that way, right . Certainly not november. It is not totally funny but when you build Something Like the rpa, cant do it exactly like this everywhere but i would argue there are thousands of richmonds and even People Living here in washington dc, if anyone hear from the government, dont be offended but we can do better here. We got to get big money out of politics even here and you see that example in here because even though they run in nonpartisan elections which is the case in most municipalities they have to take on the Democratic Party and they had to build their own organization which ends up being 500 activists and more volunteers and a dream that they wont be dominated by chevron, that they can look at each other in a very Diverse Community, black, brown, white, mostly workingclass and most importantly to me they believe they can win and that is the inspiration in this book and that is the question as an activist on the Bernie Campaign or a revolution or anything else, not just for me, but everyone in this room, do we believe we can win . Do we believe we can win, that workingclass people can win with allies . Workingclass people . That we can build government and cities whether it is this one or that one, that really reflect the majority of the people and the aspirations and dreams of kids and parents . If we believe we can win, we get inspired like the 500 members of the rpa to stand up and fight back not just on defense against chevron but just recently adopting rent control for the first time despite the Real Estate Interests and so any more things steve will talk to you about so steve, a real treat for me to talk about my friend of at least 35 years. I lost track. He loved to correct my numbers. Though do a lot of other people. Organizing in cwa together, watching him work on what we call the triangle, he was wicked, helping people bargaining new and creative ways, building this movement, Building Political work, doing organizing which he did most of the time and helping bring in huge groups of people, starting jobs with justice, introducing me to bernie some 30 years ago. I kid him about that but we believe him out of this introduction. He is an incredible mix of someone who can i never saw anybody right so fast we first met up before the computer age, right before 19791980, stuff would appear in the newspaper in minutes and it is an amazing mix of someone who can do that and crank out books, incredibly disciplined and this is his trademark. All the decades i know him he has got this, his list and unlike some of this he completes his lists. I will keep it short. I couldnt be prouder than to introduce my friend, brother, colleague, coworker, amazing human being, steve early. [applause] change it is equally a treat to be here with my oldest and closest comrade and coworker in cwa. I first met larry 37 years ago this month in a ratty organizing office storefront in trenton, new jersey, came up from dc, he was directing a very Ambitious Campaign to organize state workers in new jersey, a little bit outside the communication workers of america, traditional jurisdiction but a Great Campaign built from the bottom up, based on the concept of organizing state Workers Organizing committee empowering rank and file people developing new leaders, maybe already here, hard to see with the blinding lights at cspan booktv, some of you know it has been for many years, international Vice President in charge of the Public Sector and related fields, was a member of the state Workers Organizing committee and worked closely with larry on the campaign. I want to thank a few other people, we get into the question period in 15 minutes, many people with years of labor, Community Organizing and political experience, we want to hear from so this is interactive, not just in speechmaking, particularly helpful in this particular project. I want to recognize my old friend, mark, on the atomic workers barred. Mark gave me a lot of essential background for the oil industry parts of the book. He then reviewed it for a great new magazine, and one of the best reviews that has appeared so far, other people locally have been tremendously helpful in the local publicity for the book, a show that i was on the other day to help with turnout for this event, we had a number of generous sponsors, turnout helpers, democratic socialists of america, the National Writers union, folks in jobs with justice and i want to recognize the esteemed helpers of jobs for justice over the years who is here in the room with us, also an author [applause] books, and another one, forthcoming about his years on capitol hill. Come back recognizing some of the people who have been so helpful. Let me follow up on what larry said about the richmond. I have been there five years ago after 30 years as a bostonbased rep in new england and i was inspired to write the book partly because of bernie. I had done a story in these times in 2012 about the growing impact and elect oral success of the investment party, the most Successful Party in the country, one bernie helped foster, many second or Third Generation leaders, people who were volunteers and supporters last fall. The of you may know the rest of the party had a major breakthrough, longtime bernie outlining zuckerman, a Progressive Party leader and state senator, became the Lieutenant Governor of vermont, the first time in 25, 30 years where an independent progressive candidate other than bernie has been elected statewide, state legislative delegation of 11 or 12 now, evenly split between members of the house and state senate, dave zuckerman, a ponytailed organic farmer, proenvironmental guy, in a few years to become a progressive governor of vermont. The story i did, bernie said that was great but we need more case studies, alexa laurel initiatives, we need to get them into the mainstream media, not just publications like in these times, i told him in the phone call that was arranged by a staff member that i moved to richmond and started to meet people in the Richmond Progressive Alliance, had up to that time richmond was the largest city in the country with a green mayor, there were important struggles going on locally against big oil and the big banks and money in politics generally and you should come out at some point and check it out which he later did. In the meantime i was able to wind up a great publisher it deacon press, it has been around for 160 years and i have to recognize this wonderful press connect originally with the Unitarian Universalist church and used here. This event was in boston it would be out of the room but among those who are religiously inclined, beacon press has a distinguished history of publishing important work on civil rights, the Labor Movement, environmental issues, black history. I am humbled to be in the ranks of James Baldwin and cornell west and howard zinn and reverend barber in north carolina, bill fletcher, the richmond story might have a lot of residence in many other company towns. They signed a contract for particularly interested in having bernie on the cover, doing the forward and that was before he got 13 million votes. The only other time in beacons 160 year history that a senator contributed a forward to one of their books. In 1971, not remembered as well as he should be, mike revell from alaska, his name on a book that was beacons alltime bestseller, multivolume series called the pentagon papers. You might remember that. This book will not sell quite as well as the pentagon papers but we are doing our best. Beacon was interested in the richmond story because of what you might call the intersection now money. This is a term that is thrown around a lot but i dont use it in the book but it does apply. This is a city where grassroots organizing in recent years, all at doral work and Public Policy initiatives are widely acclaimed, grappling and addressing issues of race, class, immigration, problems of homophobia which exist in richmond, discrimination against formerly incarcerated, Housing Affordability, lease accountability, Environmental Justice, Workplace Safety and one of the most hazardous industries, oil refineries, fair taxation of business, the largest employer, chevron curbing the influence of big money in politics particularly local politics, raising labor standards by passing minimum wage increases at the municipal level at the state or federal level, making sure Economic Development, how many people have been to the bay area recently seeing what is going on in San Francisco and oakland and berkeley for years, people moved to richmond, richmond is the city, 80 nonwhite population, workingclass for, the bay area, other cities are background for the privileged few, richmond people are free to work in a place like San Francisco or oakland but people with modest and low incomes have a hard time living there now in these places so the fight in richmond for Housing Affordability for rent control, Economic Development projects that benefit everybody in the community, not just the few but a big part of the Progressive Movement after the locally ongoing and over the last 15 years as the rpa got started 15 years ago roughly and the coalition, coalescing of typical landscapes. A lot of competitive, fractured single issue groups, organizing initiatives, some people banking on chevron about its pollution and environmental hazards and fires and Carbon Emissions as the 1980s through a group called the west county toxic coalition. There were people, latinos doing day labor organizing, and through random traffic stops, there were Serious Problems of Police Brutality and lawsuits against then predominantly White Police Department alienating itself are many decades in the community it served and people involved in homelessness and advocating for rent control in people involved in national thirdparty politics or statelevel thirdparty politics supporting green campaigns in california and nationally in 2000 when ralph nader ran and it took quite a bit of effort to get these people to set aside their single issue focus and figure out how to come together and are brought local political tent where peoples differences about the nature of socialism in the nature of capitalism and other big picture questions were set aside in the interest of pursuing a concrete agenda for local change, local improvement that proved to be because of the persistence and patience of the group achievable over the last 15 years. This was not a diversity town as we have examples from the 16s manys of people trying to take over City Government in madison, santa monica, santa cruz, berkeley, bernies wonderful Progressive Movement take over in the 1980s, those are different kinds of cities. Richmond is not a University Town is for many years it was until recently much contested, dominated by an unholy alliance of the oil company, originally standard oil, now chevron, local developers, the chamber of commerce, Building Trades organizations, police and firefighter unions. That powerful Business Funding coalition had virtually no counterweight for decades in richmond, a few Good Government liberals, oysters of integrity on city council tried to impose that coalition but not until the Progressive Alliance coalesced and people from all these different party, thirdparty backgrounds am a dissident latino and africanamerican dems, independents, came together and formed a different they facto political party, one based on a membership organization, candidates who did not take business privatizations by way of separating out. A lot of candidates in richmond, those you can count on once they were elected to stand up to corporate power. The other critical element was rpa candidates have always run as teams, it is not an individual entrepreneurial activity where somebody gets it in their head that i will be on Richmond City council. I will be up in sacramento, in the senate and i will be congressperson and the sky is the limit was that kind of person is not attracted to this model of electoral politics which it is people who believe in Building Political power collectively and put people in office, holding them accoun