Georgetown’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor will identify, nurture, train and convene a new generation of diverse, female labor leaders in a collaborative effort with Rutgers University. Funded by the Berger-Marks Foundation, the WILL (Women Innovating Labor Leadership) Empower project will involve both the Georgetown initiative and the Center for Innovation in Worker Organization at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations. “The Kalmanovitz Initiative is delighted to add this exciting new dimension to its work promoting a more just, sustainable and democratic economy,” says Joseph McCartin, the initiative’s director. “By mobilizing women of all backgrounds to steer a dynamic workers movement, WILL Empower deepens Georgetown’s commitment to advance justice and the common good.” The project begins this month, with programming in place by the fall of 2017. Lane Windham, a Fellow at the Kalmanovitz Initiative who holds a doctorate in U.S. history and spent nearly 20 years working in the union movement, will serve as project director for WILL Empower at Georgetown. At Rutgers WILL Empower will be steered by Sheri Davis-Faulkner, who holds a doctorate in American studies and has experience advancing social justice in the arenas of labor, women’s rights, and the environment. Davis-Faulkner will work in tandem with Marilyn Sneiderman, the director of Rutgers' Center for Innovation in Worker Organization. Sneiderman brings with her three decades of experience in the union movement, including 10 years as director of the National AFL-CIO’s Department of Field Mobilization. Click here to hear Davis-Faulkner discuss the new project on last Friday's edition of Arise! on WPFW. photo (l-r): Sneiderman, Windham, Davis-Faulkner and McCartin “Women are half the workforce and nearly half of all union members – they hold the power to trail blaze a stronger future for the labor movement.”
Members of the American Railway Union, led by Eugene V. Debs, refuse to handle Pullman cars, in solidarity with Pullman strikers. Two dozen strikers were killed over the course of the strike - 1894 The 189-mile-long St. Lawrence Seaway opens, making the Great Lakes accessible to Atlantic shipping. Thousands of laborers toiled for decades to make it happen; indirectly and directly, the Seaway today supports 75,000 jobs in Canada and 150,000 in the U.S. - 1959 Compiled/edited by Union Communication Services Union-busters work most effectively in secrecy, when workers don’t know the anti-union campaign is being run by high-priced legal guns-for-hire. That’s why the Obama Labor Department last year issued a union-buster transparency rule, officially known as the “persuader rule,” designed to increase disclosure requirements for consultants and attorneys hired by companies to try to persuade working people against coming together in a union. The Trump Labor Department issued a proposal on Monday that would rescind the rule and restore the cloak of secrecy to union-busters. Edith Saffa, a Holy Cross nurse fired for organizing and local labor lawyer Jon Newman discussed union-busting and the persuader rule with hosts Chris Garlock and Ed Smith on yesterday’s edition of Your Rights At Work on WPFW FM; click here to hear the show. And click here to leave a comment and tell the Labor Department that we should be doing more to ensure the freedom of working people to join together in a union, not less. - adapted from a report on the AFL-CIO Now blog; photo (top left): at Monday's rally for reinstated Holy Cross nurse Edith Saffa; (bottom right): Saffa (right, in blue) and DCNA's Sandra Falwell with back-pay check; photos by Korey Hartwich/NNU |