DC Labor-Ally Intern Gathering Connects Young Workers

7/28/2016

Dozens of interns attended the second annual Labor-Ally Intern Gathering Tuesday night, representing a dozen different unions and allied organizations. Although the event was scheduled to end at 8 pm, many interns stayed over an hour later discussing international worker’s issues and how unionism is a part of the solution. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union hosted this year’s gathering, which was organized by Christian Berk, the 2016 Rutgers Goldstein intern at the Metro Washington Council AFL-CIO. One of the Rutgers Goldstein Intern’s main focuses is to network area labor interns and plug them into actions and events in the DC labor movement over the summer. Dr. Coralie Farlee, who funds the Goldstein Internship, attended the event and talked with other interns about her decades of experience fighting for social justice. Read more below

Clutching his one and a half year old daughter in his arms, Metro Washington Council Executive Director Carlos Jimenez joked about how she will be a future intern and expressed appreciation for the Goldstein intern’s work this summer building the labor intern network. Host UFCW’s Erin Regan gave a powerful and concise presentation on the Making Change Walmart Campaign, encouraging interns to get involved. United Students Against Sweatshops national coordinators were also in attendance, networking with interns to organize for worker justice when many of the interns return to school. After a round of introductions where attendees introduced themselves and talked about their work this summer, they returned to mingling and networking. If you are interested in helping design next summer's intern network program, please reach out to Amanda Pacheco at the IBEW or Marilyn Sneiderman at Rutgers.