Black Labor Leaders Convene at Harvard

This weekend Harvard plays host to black labor organizers from around the world in a three-day conference about the future of labor organization and public policy.

The African-American Labor Leaders Economic Summit was started last year when the labor leaders approached the University wanting to have a conference with Harvard faculty.

This year's conference has been expanded to include leaders from outside the United States. Those invited are both general labor leaders who are black and leaders of specifically black unions.

The event is sponsored by the Harvard Trade Union Program (HTUP), in conjunction with the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) and the A. Philip Randolph Institute.

The conference is focusing on three major issues related to the labor movement and the working class: health care reform, tax policy and the criminal justice system.

"Last year's conference was a tremendous success, it was the first time that both [the black trade unions] and the policy makers at Harvard learned how valuable this exchange is," said event organizer and CBTU president William Lucy.

Instead of featuring only lectures by faculty, the conference is designed as an open discussion between policy makers and labor leaders.

"We designed these forums specifically to be interactive...not a one-way discussion of experts talking down to labor leaders," said HTUP teacher John T. "Jack" Trumpbour.

This year the organizers also decided to include an international aspect to the conference, with the most prominent black labor leader in Europe--Bill Morris--giving the keynote speech, as well as inviting representatives from South Africa, Bermudas and Canada to attend.

"I came here to get a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing the African-American labor movement...I want to learn what the commonalties they have with the situation we face in South Africa," said Ravi Naidoo, Director of the National Labour and Economic Development Institute in Johannesburg.

Represented in the conference were a variety of labor leaders, from traditional unions like the AFL-CIO to groups like health care workers and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG).

SAG Board Member R. Eugene Boggs '68 said groups like his--Hollywood's most famous union--is sometimes overlooked in discussions about American labor.

"Many people tend to trivialize the role of labor in the media," Boggs said. "The concentration of mass media in fewer and fewer hands leads to fewer voices being heard, especially minority-owned or viewed television stations."

Participants discussed problems faced by black labor leaders in the U.S., including what they said was a problem re-incorporating people coming out of the criminal justice system back into the economy.

"In an economy that is supposedly booming, 44 million Americans are uninsured, including one out of every five blacks," said A. Philip Randolph Institute President Norman Hill.

Morris, head of the second largest labor union in Britain and member of the Royal Commission to reform the House of Lords, is addressing the convention today.

He will discuss labor's future in the age of globalization.

"In tomorrow's knowledge-based economy, those with knowledge will do well, those without will suffer," Morris said. "We in Britain are trying to manage this process to win the future."