A Toast to the National Labor College Class of 2006

by Tula Connell, Jun 27, 2006

Kurt Staudter, a member of the Electrical Workers in Vermont and one of 122 students who graduated from the National Labor College (NLC) last weekend, describes how completing his degree deepens and expands his commitment to fighting for an American way of life that includes justice and fairness for all workers.

The 2006 graduates include members of 33 unions who received 106 Bachelor of Arts degrees and 16 master’s degrees through the NLC’s partnership programs with the University of Baltimore and the American University.

You knew right off that this wasn’t going to be one of those same old cookie-cutter graduations that are played out each year all over the country. Sure the same festive air was about the place, but these were no young adults giddy with the excitement of getting the undivided attention of their friends and family for a day. The graduates at the National Labor College are deeply committed professional unionists on the front lines fighting a war to preserve the very existence of the middle class in this country. While most colleges march their twenty-somethings into graduation in sandals and shorts with brightly decorated mortarboards to the tune “Pomp and Circumstance,” these serious adult learners marched to the powerfully haunting sound of a bagpipe and a chorus of “Hold the Fort.” Overwhelming was the feeling that this wasn’t an ending, but the eve of a major confrontation. These were warriors taking a break between battles and not just kids wondering how they are going to pay off their students loans with an entry-level wage.

The night before graduation, the college held a barbecue that gave our friends and family a taste of what we got every time we left them back home and came for our week in residence. It wasn’t just the excellent cuisine that was special, but the camaraderie, the opportunity to network with other driven activists and a chance to be among folks asking the same questions and fighting the same fights. It is what attracts the students to the college, and what will ultimately lead to rebirth of the labor movement.

At the National Labor College something very important is happening, and it should scare the hell out of every Fortune 500 CEO, and for that matter, it should be a wake-up call to our leaders too entrenched in outdated and failed strategies. Unions are not just talking amongst their own locals anymore, they’re not just talking at the highest levels of different unions anymore, at the NLC rank-and-file members, upper-level and middle-management leaders in local, district and international offices; some of the most respected names in the labor-academic community are talking together and finding solutions to the crisis in organized labor. This is very powerful stuff, and all through the weekend you just knew these women and men weren’t here just to celebrate their accomplishment but were making contacts that will serve them well for the rest of their careers fighting for economic justice. It was a kind of working celebration.

However, they had every right to celebrate as does any adult learner that swallows hard, fights back the anxiety and sits down in a classroom after decades of being away from school. Looking at the graduates there was a justified pride in their accomplishment. Early on in one of the classes a professor asked, “Why are you here?” Overwhelmingly, the answer was “I’m doing it for myself!” These labor leaders who take the thankless jobs of being stewards and elected officers and toil for countless unpaid or even unacknowledged hours for the members just to be treated with disrespect or scorn, finally decide to do something for themselves. But the joke is on them, because now they are better prepared to fight the fight and win. The collective energy and enthusiasm brought together by this graduating class is truly awesome. None of these activists are ready to quit, and the NLC experience has a way of revitalizing them with new ideas and tactics that are already being used all over the country. They just don’t come home with a diploma but with a truckload of new ammunition.

A funny thing happened over the course of the day. You knew that as students we brought experiences and knowledge to the classrooms, but you always just wrote it off as your background. Talking with the professors, administrators and dignitaries like AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, you realize that these people we respect and hold in such high regard are honestly humbled by what those of us in the trenches do each day. In that humility, you discover our commitment to the cause of worker prosperity is the glue that makes all of us an undividable force. From the president of the federation to the angry member that blasts off a letter to the editor, there is a fire that burns for justice in all of our souls, a fire that has burned for generations, and with the newly minted graduating class of 2006, the fire now burns a whole lot brighter.

So I raise a glass to toast my brothers and sisters in the NLC Class of 2006. I, too, feel humbled to be among you—congratulations. But I also raise a glass to the unequaled professors and administrators that demanded the best of us and to those visionaries at the AFL-CIO with the commitment to make the National Labor College part of the solution—thanks. In the words of Ralph Chaplain, “We can bring to earth a new world from the ashes of the old. For the union makes us strong.”

Solidarity!

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