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Southern Labor Studies Association is accepting essay submissions for the Robert H. Zieger Prize

The Southern Labor Studies Association (SLSA) announces the Robert H. Zieger Prize for the best essay in Southern Labor Studies. This prize has been established with the cooperation of the Zieger family and members of the SLSA. The SLSA encourages the study and teaching of southern working-class history, and builds connections between labor activists and academics to encourage a greater understanding of the diverse experiences and cultures of workers in the South, broadly defined.

This prize will be awarded every two years to the best article in southern labor studies submitted by a graduate student or early career scholar, journalist, or activist (“early career” being defined as no more than five years beyond the author’s highest degree).

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Labor and Community Job Opportunities

32BJ SEIU Senior Regional Communications Specialist: NEW YORK

32BJ SEIU, the largest property service union in the country, is seeking an aggressive, nimble and creative Senior Regional Communications Specialist to help develop and drive a comprehensive and strategic communications program centered on 32BJ’s new organizing campaigns in the New York City region, among other responsibilities.  The communications program includes media relations, social media and member communications for organizing drives, contract fights and legislative and political campaigns.

The Senior Regional Communications Specialist will be a key member of the union’s communications team, responsible for communications for breakthrough organizing campaigns in New York City. Currently, 32BJ is focused on winning justice for airport workers, growing our security division, and is participating in the national campaign to organize fast food workers. Additional capacity to support the specialist’s work will be added by union-wide New Media and Member Communications Strategists.

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Home, Special Events

Save the Date! Organizing 2.0, June 6-7, 2014 A conference for organizers, techies & activists @ Murphy

organzing 2.0

Organizing 2.0 brings together hundreds of leaders, organizers, fundraisers, techies and activists to share our collective wisdom, skills, and talents. There will be workshops, trainings, discussions, consulting and networking opportunities, visionary speakers, and a provocative debate around strategy and practices.

Over two days here at the Murphy Institute, we will bring together hundreds of people to learn from each other, share stories and strategies and build our skills, organizations and movements. Featured tracks focusing on online to offline organizing, digital strategy, member engagement and much more.
Register here: http://www.conference.organizing20.org/
Scholarships are available.
For more information, email clenchner[at]organizing20[dot]org

Note: this post is from 2014. The 2015 Organizing 2.0 conference will be held April 10-11 at the Murphy Institute.

Labor and Community Job Opportunities

UNION ORGANIZER – MAINE STATE EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION, SEIU LOCAL 1989

MAINE STATE EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION, SEIU LOCAL 1989

Summary:  Maine State Employees Association, SEIU Local 1989 is seeking to hire an experienced union professional to expand a strategic and aggressive organizing effort in Maine.

Description:  MSEA-SEIU Local 1989 represents roughly 15,000 public and private sector workers across Maine. We are committed to fundamentally changing the conditions for workers throughout Maine by organizing a variety of private and public sector workers statewide.
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Labor and Community Job Opportunities

Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) – Administrative Assistant/ Bookkeeper

Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE)
Exciting Opportunity for an Administrative Assistant/ Bookkeeper
with a Commitment to Economic Justice

The Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) has been in the forefront of the economic justice movement in L.A. since 1993.  LAANE is known for its broad-based labor/community coalitions and its combination of organizing, research, communications, and policy development.  Recently, LAANE led the movement to adopt a Zero Waste policy for the city of L.A., building on a long record of successful campaigns for progressive policies that benefit low-wage workers and low-income communities.  For more information about our work, visit www.laane.org.
Position Responsibilities:  LAANE’s Finance and Administration Department is responsible for all aspects of the organization’s financial, administrative and office management functions.   The Department is key to ensuring that LAANE’s program staff have the resources they need to achieve LAANE’s goals and that the organization is well-managed and sustainable.  Under the supervision of the Finance Director, the Administrative

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Home, Labor Studies, Urban Studies

The Significance of the TWU and UFT Labor Contracts

Written by James Parrott, the Chief Economist at the Fiscal Policy Institute

For the first time in nearly five years, major labor agreements were recently reached covering public sector workers in New York City. On April 17, Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 concluded a new 5-year contract dating from January 2012 covering 34,000 workers at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), most of whom work for the subway and bus system in New York City. Two weeks later on May 1, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) reached a 9-year agreement with the City of New York stretching back to November 2009 that affects over 100,000 public school teachers and support staff.

Both contracts represented a breakthrough in ending managements’ demands for a 3-year wage freeze that had grown out of a counter-productive post-Great Recession conservative infatuation with public sector austerity, or more precisely, a mindset that held that workers had to sacrifice to help clean up the economic mess caused by financial sector excesses.

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