Robert Weil

Robert Weil, "a Senior Fellow at the Oakland Institute, is a labor organizer and university lecturer in the Santa Cruz, California, area. Robert's work at the Oakland Institute focuses on the rapid social and economic changes in China and its relations to the rest of the world, as well as on other global issues and social movements.

"From his undergraduate years, when his concentration was in Asian Studies, Robert has closely followed developments in China, and especially the changing social conditions there. He is the author of Red Cat, White Cat: China and the Contradictions of "Market Socialism (Monthly Review Press, 1996), and many articles and papers on Chinese economic, political and labor conditions. He is a cofounder of the China Study Group, which brings together activists and academics both inside and outside that country, and has been a commentator on Chinese affairs for print and electronic media.

"Robert's work as an activist in social movements started with anti-nuclear organizing at Harvard in the 1960s. He was a staff member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and lead organizer for the Mississippi Freedom Labor Union, which conducted a strike of hundreds of cotton plantation workers in 1965. He was active in the struggle against the Vietnam War, and later organized farmworkers in upstate New York, where he also worked in the anti-Apartheid, Central American solidarity, and environmental movements.

"Robert has taught courses over the past fifteen years on Global Political Economy, Asia, the Environment, and Social Movements, and is currently a staff organizer for the lecturer and librarian union on the UC Santa Cruz campus."