School of Industrial and Labor Relations Hosts Annual Union Days Conference

The School of Industrial and Labor Relations kicked off its annual three-day Union Days this Wednesday, bringing together various union leaders to talk about this years topic, “Workers Without Borders.”
The event included a guest panel including Ben Norton, grad, of the Cornell Graduate Student Union, Alex Ivovic representing the University of Toronto Graduate Student Union, Scott Marsland of Cayuga Medical Center nurses and Patrick Quinn, Patricia Greenberg and Ruth Heller of Service Employees International Union Healthcare 1199 NE. Norton’s talk focused on his experience organizing students while in England and the difficulties international students face here at Cornell. “In England, I got involved with helping to organize people on campus to go and help protest against the British government as they increased university fees,” he said. “The experience has been very different in America. When I was in England, I was trying to get people to volunteer to get heckled by heavy-handed police.”
The labor issues in the U.S. are different than those in England, according to Norton.