Top labor activists, students come together during campus teach-in

Marija Kowalski '98 ILR speaks with Bruce Raynor '72, secretary-treasurer of UNITE, after his speech titled "Why Unions Matter" during the teach-in Nov. 12 in 105 ILR Conference Center. Charles Harrington/University Photography

By Linda Myers

Students interested in labor activism learned from some of the top labor leaders in the United States during a Nov. 12-14 teach-in at Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR). Titled "Rebuilding Bridges: The New Connection Between Students and Labor," the teach-in featured talks by Bruce Raynor '72, secretary-treasurer of UNITE (Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees); Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO; and John Wilhelm, president of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International. There even was a union-made T-shirt commemorating the event.

The event, which included panel discussions, workshops, lectures, a sing-along and a candlelight vigil for current labor struggles, highlighted the common issues confronting student labor activists and front-line workers today and was intended to repair breaches brought about by differences of opinion on such issues as workplace diversity, prejudice and discrimination and class differences.

The teach-in, in the ILR Conference Center, was the brainchild of two campus activist groups, Cornell Organization for Labor Action (COLA) and Students Against Sweatshops (SAS), and was run entirely by them. It was supported by the ILR School, and ILR Dean Edward Lawler welcomed the labor leaders and attended many of the events.

"This conference brings together the spirit of student activism with the practical experience of labor professionals," said an enthusiastic Lawler. "This is theory and practice in action."

"It was heartening to have the dean there," said Jonathan Adler, an ILR senior who was one of the teach-in's chief organizers. Adler said he hoped the presence on campus of first-string labor leaders would give the school an opportunity to strengthen ties with them. As more U.S. jobs are exported overseas, the school has seen a shift in interest away from labor studies, he suggested; but the trade-union movement is enjoying a resurgence, fueled in part by the rise in labor activism on college campuses.

The recent successes of anti-sweatshop campaigns and the formation of groups like COLA and SAS at Cornell attest to this renewal, asserted Adler, who is a member of both groups. One of COLA's unannounced goals is to put the "L" back in ILR, he said.

However, the relationship between student labor activists and organized labor has its own built-in irritants, which often have been misunderstood in media coverage of the issues, according to Adler. "Much of this confusion may be due to the character of the relationship itself," he said. "Both groups are learning and re-learning how to work together towards their shared goals."

A much-publicized split between campus activists and union leaders occurred in the mid-1960s during the height of the Vietnam War, Adler related, when the students, who were against the war, broke with blue-collar labor leaders like Walter Reuther, who supported it. The issues that emerged during that conflict have as much to do with class difference as with politics and theory, said Adler, and they haven't gone away.

Since that time, opposing views among young college-educated activists and rank-and-file workers on racial and gender prejudice and homophobia in the workplace have exacerbated the conflict. Two workshops during the teach-in, "Class and Culture: Confronting Our Differences" and "The Labor Movement's Role in Anti-Racist Organizing,"addressed the conflict directly. In others, it emerged during discussions. In a panel titled "Strengthening Ties Toward a New Solidarity," Dominic Chan, with the AFL-CIO Organizing Institute, candidly discussed the prejudice he faces as a labor organizer who is Asian American. In a panel titled "Labor and the Left: Crossed Paths and Missed Opportunities," Nick Unger of UNITE said: "It's important [for today's student activists] to understand how working men and women feel. The best way to do that is to go out and work" for the labor movement, he said.

Raynor galvanized the students with the message that organizing matters. "We are living in a time where there is an incredible concentration of wealth" in the hands of "people like Bill Gates and Donald Trump, who make the Pharaohs look poor." Yet many workers can't afford to send their children to college and even go to bed hungry, said Raynor, adding "there's something radically wrong" with this picture. Helping workers "achieve a better life, one with dignity and respect and the economic advantages they are entitled to is one of the noblest causes," he said, to applause. "We represent what's best in America. You won't find a just society that doesn't have a strong labor movement."

Raynor urged the students to "get involved" in such programs as union summer, which involves students in union campaigns across the country and teaches them grassroots organizing techniques. "The passion you feel knowing that what you are doing helps [working] people makes it worthwhile," he said.

Wilhelm also energized the student audience when he announced: "Frankly we can't do this without you."

The teach-in drew about 120 students, two-thirds of them from Cornell, as well as an assortment of labor activists and academicians from across the country and a handful of rank-and-file workers.

In addition to Raynor, Trumka and Wilhelm, speakers at the event included Elaine Bernard, director, Harvard Trade Union Program; Denis Hughes, president, New York State AFL-CIO; Elise Bryant, senior staff member, George Meany Center; Fred Azcarate, executive director, Jobs with Justice; Tico Almedia, AFL-CIO, United Students Against Sweatshops; Tom Juravich, director, Labor Relations and Research Center, University of Massachusetts at Amherst; Jon Asmeron, Service Employees International Union; and these ILR faculty members: Kate Bronfenbrenner, director, Labor Education Research, and senior lecturer; Risa Lieberwitz and Ileen DeVault, both associate professors in collective bargaining, law and history; and Lee Adler, senior extension associate. Tom Hirschl, associate professor of rural sociology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, also participated.

One weekend highlight was a screening of Sergei Eisenstein's silent masterpiece "Strike," introduced by Jefferson Cowie, an extension associate and visiting assistant professor at the ILR School.

For Adler, who hopes to become a union organizer after he graduates next spring, one of the weekend's most important messages was inclusion. He listened to women and minority members, two groups previously relegated to the fringes of the labor movement, who are now actively involved. While "that's inspiring it's hard to see if the new generation will get past the glass ceiling and rise to leadership positions. That's what has to happen for the movement to prosper and survive," he said.