Labor Journalists Will Look Behind the Scenes Before G-20 Meets

by James Parks, Aug 3, 2009

Two weeks before the G-20 summit rolls into Pittsburgh to discuss the global economic crisis, labor journalists from across the country will come to the Steel City to document the real economic picture for workers without the hype.

As part of its biennial convention, Sept. 10-12, the International Labor Communications Association (ILCA) will create a 48-hour “media center” to serve as the nerve center of a special project about Pittsburgh’s workers, their organizing and bargaining campaigns, their victories and how their stories illustrate the deeper economic shifts affecting us all.

After a day of training and a morning of briefings by Pittsburgh activists, the journalists will form teams and fan out over the city covering workers’ stories. When they return, they will use the media center to write and post stories, blogs, photo galleries and other media.

The registration deadline is Aug. 7. Click here to register for the convention and here for more information on the convention.

ILCA President Steve Stallone says the convention’s slogan, “The Power of Labor Journalists United,” demonstrates the collective power of the labor media when it works together to tell workers’ stories.

ILCA’s Labor Media Center project will not only show how we can use technology to tell workers’ stories ourselves, but also demonstrate the collective power of labor media to both the journalist participants and other unionists. We are the largest alternative media in North America and we need to start having the influence commensurate with that.

The ILCA set up its first Media Center at the group’s October 2005 convention in New Orleans. More than 100 journalists saw firsthand the devastation and impact of Hurricane Katrina on the lives of workers. Their cumulative work in articles and pictures disputed the popular media impression that the city had “come back.”

The convention will feature some high-profile speakers and newsmakers. United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard will deliver the keynote speech, while American Prospect editor and Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson will deliver a major lecture.

Delegates also will honor the best in labor journalism with the 2009 Labor Media Contest Awards. The top prize, the Max Steinbock Award, will go to Dania Rajendra, an assistant editor for the Clarion, the publication of the Professional Staff Congress at City University of New York (CUNY)/AFT Local 2334, for her story, “At CUNY, Adjunct Health Care is Broken.”

In the article, Rajendra tells the story of six CUNY adjunct workers whose health was jeopardized because of arbitrary decisions by the health care provider and the college based on the bottom line at the expense of the workers. Click here to read the entire article (scroll down to page 6) and here for a list of all this year’s ILCA Media Contest winners.

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