Educating for Change: How Labor Education Centers and AFL-CIO Bodies Can Grow and Transform Together

Abstract

In order to survive and prosper today, both labor councils and labor education centers need to rethink their mission, goals, and strategies. In this report, we examine how partnerships between these two types of organizations have fostered creative transformation for both. We examine the innovative relationships between labor education programs and their respective labor councils and state federations in five states (Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Iowa, and West Virginia). These cases include those with long-standing strong relationships and those that have been recently rebuilt or rethought. In several cases, the labor education centers owe their very existence to the work of state labor leaders to who helped found them and, more recently, to maintain and expand their resources. In addition, we document the role played by the UCLA labor education program in revitalizing the Orange County AFL-CIO, as well as two key partnership programs of Cornell and the AFL-CIO in New York: the Union Leadership Institute and the New York City Capacity Building Initiative.

Transnational Competence: A Transformative Tool? A Comparison of German and Irish Political Trade Union Education Programs

“…In these times of rising nationalism and crisis of (social) democracy (Schulze-Cleven 2018), political education is becoming all the more important. Political education is not only a glue to overcome divisions, such as through race, gender, and nationality (Reynolds et al 2017), but, more broadly speaking, the “life elixir of democratic societies” (Thon 2013). “The struggle for democracy .…”

“…Yet, emotional issues are often disregarded in both transnational business and labor education. The holistic character sounds not only promising in view of humanization, but is also required for a “high quality holistic education” (Reynolds et al 2017). However, for what kind of transnational labor education could TC be used?…”