This week the Southwest Labor Studies Association will convene a three-day conference at UCSB to discuss “Labor in Protest: the Legacy of the 1960s for the U.S. Labor Movement.”

Beginning at 11 a.m. on Thursday, May 5, representatives of unions, universities, and social justice groups will gather at the University Center’s Lobero, State, and Harbor rooms. Registration will be held at the UCen on Thursday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and will cost $35 for everyone except students.

For updated information, call x3907. Zaragosa Vargas and Nelson Lichtenstein, professors of history at UCSB, are the conference coordinators.

The opening plenary session and dinner on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. in the Faculty Club will feature Bill Fletcher, labor activist and president of the TransAfrica Forum. He will speak on “Rising to the Challenge: the Interconnections of the Black Freedom Movement and Organized Labor.” Dinner is a separate fee.

Conference workshops will be devoted to topics such as union reform efforts of the 1960s and 1970s, social policy and poverty programs, and new ethnic and gender leadership in the AFL-CIO. In addition, art exhibits and film screenings will commemorate the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World 100 years ago.

Mike Davis, professor of history at UC Irvine and author of “Prisoners of the American Dream,” will present Friday’s plenary speech, titled “Riot Nights on Sunset Strip” It will be at 4 p.m. in Corwin Pavilion. A reception in Lagoon Plaza will follow.

Saturday’s final workshops end at 2 p.m. The conference program is on the Web at <www.lawcha.org/eventsandmeetings/eventslink.html >.