Lee Clarke and Henry Garrido finish Harvard trade union program

Henry Garrido, assistant associate director of DC 37, and Lee Clarke, director of the union’s Safety and Health Dept., studied from Jan. 12 to Feb. 20 in Harvard University’s intensive Trade Union Program. The program offers unionists the same advanced education that Harvard provides to executives in business and government. An interdisciplinary team of Harvard faculty teaches seminars on topics important to the labor movement, such as collective bargaining, organizing, pensions and public-sector labor relations.

“It helped me reconnect to why I do what I do for a living and showed me how much more the labor movement needs to do to help working people,” said Clarke.

“The curriculum was outstanding,” said Garrido. “For example, the historian James Green has an extraordinary ability to link events from the past to the present. And there were many impressive educators.” The program offers an opportunity to have discussions with other trade unionists, from Canadian public employees to operating engineers from Texas, he said.

“Many of the instructors were part of the Obama transition team,” said Clarke, “and it was stimulating to hear their thoughts and plans for the economic crisis the country is facing.”