The School of Industrial and Labor Relations’ fourth annual Union Days — a three-day event that addresses cutting edge issues and career opportunities in the labor movement — will begin today.
Union Days 2001 honors unionization and aims to inform students about career opportunities in the labor movement. Events will include a career fair, a panel discussion, guest speakers and a strategy workshop.
“Union Days is intended to celebrate the labor movement and to bring focus [to] issues of importance to workers and unions,” said Prof. Risa Lieberwitz, industrial labor relations.
The theme of this year’s Union Days is “Organizing the Future,” which will focus on the expansion of the labor movement to a wider range of employment, from low-wage jobs to graduate students.
“Union Days contributes to ILR students’ education through a variety of events, including bringing labor leaders to campus to address cutting edge issues in the labor movement, showing films on labor issues and presenting the Social Justice Career Fair, where union organizers from a wide variety of unions speak to students about career opportunities in the labor movement,” Lieberwitz explained.
John Sweeney, president of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), will be the keynote speaker for this year’s Union Days.
“It is very exciting that AFL-CIO President John Sweeney is the keynote speaker for Union Days 2001. As AFL-CIO president, John Sweeney personifies a new American labor movement — a movement committed to defending workers’ rights and restoring organizing as the centerpiece of trade-union activism,” Lieberwitz said.
Lieberwitz hopes that Union Days 2001 will allow students to appreciate the increasing growth of unions.
“I hope that students will learn about the resurgence of organizing by labor unions and about the exciting developments of labor unions organizing in all occupations,” Lieberwitz said.
Most of the Union Days events will be open and free to the public.
Archived article by Stephanie Hankin