Dear Sisters, Brothers, and Kin,
The Pandemic has focused our attention on workers, jobs, and the labor movement. Who is an “essential” worker? What protections, benefits, and compensation should be accorded to “essential” workers? What lies behind “the great resignation”? What is the relationship between individual strategies and collective strategies? How is employment connected with the other issues—racial equity; housing justice; political voice? Many questions, and it is the times in which we are living that pose them for us. And it is our job, together with our communities, to create answers to them.
In just the past year, we have had great programs engaging these questions—historian Gabe Winant on the significance of “Striketober;” bookstore workers who are organizing; media and entertainment industry unionists who are building solidarity; former UAW 879 President Rob McKenzie and his book on solidarity between US, Canadian, and Mexican autoworkers; union organizer Daisy Pitkin and her book on her experiences organizing industrial laundry workers; an upcoming event on May 10 with activist scholars Joe Berry and Helena Worthen and their new book about contingent university faculty and their efforts to organize. You can find videos of many of these programs on ESFL’s YouTube channel.
We are also working with the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation to make unionized job opportunities available to our diverse neighbors and to educate our neighbors about the advantages of working union. We know that, statistically, union members earn better wages and benefits than their non-union member counterparts, and that working union provides levels of protection and a voice that is especially powerful.
And so we are, with the SPRLF, co-hosting our Sixth Annual Union Job and Resource Fair. This unique job fair brings together potential workers and these well-paying jobs where workers’ rights are protected. At the fair, job seekers will have the opportunity to connect with potential employers, union apprenticeship programs, and non-profit and community support agencies. There will be resources from how to get one’s records expunged to how to write an effective resume. This year’s event will be held outdoors in a cordoned-off section in front of the Electrical Industry Building on Conway Street, to accommodate a greater number of participants and keep everyone as safe as possible from COVID. It will run from 3pm to 6:30pm.
Please spread the word.
Love and Solidarity,
Beth Cleary and Peter Rachleff