One of initiatives progressives have laid out as a priority for the Obama administration and this Congress is the Employee Free Choice Act. But this battle will not just be fought in corridors of power in Washington—far-reaching PR campaigns are already underway on both sides. What role will the Netroots play in passing the Employee Free Chioce Act in 2009? How can unions and their allies beat back the fear-mongering coming from the corporate interests, and what role is there for online activism in that fight? What messaging tools will be employed by pro-employee choice groups, and how can the Netroots stand up to the GOP echo-chamber?

Watch the live stream by clicking here.

Friday, May 8, noon to 2 p.m.
AFL-CIO, George Meany Room
815 16th St. NW
Washington DC, 20006

Admission is free. Beverages will be available at the event. Click here to RSVP for the event.

Moderator:
Christopher Hayes is the Washington DC Editor of The Nation and a fellow at the New America Foundation. Since 2002, he's written on issues including union organizing and economic democracy, the culture of right-wing email forwards, the worldview of the anti-globalist right, and the culture of technology. His essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, The American Prospect, The New Republic, The Washington Monthly, The Guardian, and The Chicago Reader. From 2005 to 2006, Hayes was a Schumann Center Writing Fellow at In These Times. He grew up in the Bronx, graduated from Brown University in 2001 with a BA in Philosophy and now lives in Washington DC with his wife, Kate.

Panelists:
Stewart Acuff is a Special Assistant to the President at the AFL-CIO and is traveling the country in support of the campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act. Previously, Acuff served as Organizing Director at the AFL-CIO; AFL-CIO President John Sweeney noted Acuff’s “strong leadership skills and a deep passion for the potential of unions to lift working people's lives.” As organizing director, Acuff coordinated strategies to help working men and women join and form unions across the federation's 53 member unions. He has been a community organizer and union organizer for 25 years, except for a brief stint as a truck driver.

Michael Whitney is an online organizer with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Michael manages the online campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act as part of SEIU's Change that Works program. He got his start in online politics on Howard Dean's presidential campaign as one of the co-founders of Generation Dean, a web-based youth outreach organization. Michael is a contributor to techPresident.com, the Huffington Post, and his overly active Twitter feed.

Rebecca Wasserman is the Government Relations Manager for American Rights at Work, a non-profit organization working to restore, guarantee, and promote the freedom of workers to form unions. Rebecca drives American Rights at Work’s efforts to educate and support those in Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Department of Labor as they promote the right to organize. This work includes coordinating a variety of tactics, such as briefings on Capitol Hill and rapid response to individual members, in addition to field and media efforts that can impact policy solutions. Previously, Ms. Wasserman was the President of the United States Student Association, an organization that has been the recognized voice for students in the nation’s capital for more than 60 years. She had the opportunity to give testimony before the Education and Workforce (Labor) Committee, served on the board of National Jobs with Justice, and nearly doubled the organization’s foundation budget. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Ms. Wasserman was heavily involved in campus activism that focused primarily on racial and economic justice.

Laura Clawson graduated from Wesleyan University, has a PhD in sociology from Princeton, and has taught at Dartmouth College and the Princeton Theological Seminary. She is a Contributing Editor for Daily Kos under the pseudonym "MissLaura" and currently a senior writer at Working America, community affiliate of the AFL-CIO.