Public Employee Press

Course on history of public workers' unions

With topics like the Boston police strike of 1919, the role of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Memphis sanitation strike, and the challenge of organizing in Puerto Rico, a new Ed Fund course in the history of U.S. public-sector unions has attracted tremendous student interest.

Ramona LaCen, a Local 1549 member at Gouverneur Hospital who just completed the class, called it "Fantastic!" For Sarah McCall, a Local 1113 member, learning about the heroic struggles of the labor movement has been a revelation. "It's opened my eyes," she said. "What unions have done for us is amazing."

The students also review DC 37's own struggle to organize thousands of municipal workers and the history of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, DC 37's parent union.

Veteran labor activist and educator Gene Carroll teaches the class, which uses documentary films to introduce students to union history.

Shown recently were "The Grand Army of Starvation," "Locked Out" and "Labor's Turning Point," about the 1934 Teamsters strike in Minneapolis that catalyzed the passage of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.

The classic "At the River I Stand," on the 1968 strike by 1,300 AFSCME sanitation workers in Memphis received powerful help from Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated on April 4 as he supported the workers.

Every time Carroll shows the film it evokes an emotional response from students.

"They're stunned to learn that those Memphis workers were members of their own union and that King died helping them fight for fair treatment on the job," Carroll explained. Several of his students have broken down in tears.

Guest lecturers are another essential part of the classroom experience. Leaders like Ed Ott, the former executive director of the New York City Central Labor Council and now a Distinguished Lecturer at the City University of New York's Murphy Institute, shares his trenchant analysis of the city's labor movement.

The course is offered by the Education Fund in collaboration with Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations and CUNY's Joseph Murphy Institute.

It is open to all members of DC 37 and is part of Cornell's 16-credit Labor Certificate program.

To enroll in the class next semester, call Rosezetta Johnson at the Ed Fund at 212-815-1675.