“Workers Without Borders”
Union Days 2016 begins Wednesday, kicking off a three-day event centered on the theme “Workers without Borders.”
This year, the annual event runs through Friday, providing students, faculty, alumni and the public with labor-focused activities that showcase the global labor movement and ever-growing linkages between local, national and global organizing, policy and law.
Featured as keynote speaker is Jeffrey Vogt, director of the International Trade Union Confederation Legal Department.
Vogt, who graduated from Cornell Law School in 1999, has also worked in the international department of the AFL-CIO, the Washington Office on Latin America and the International Labor Rights Fund, amassing a wealth of experience in the domain of global labor.
Additional speakers include Patrick Quinn, executive vice president of 1199 Union Rhode Island; Gonzalo Martinez de Vedia ’10, Workers Justice Center New York; Elvis Mendez, National Ground Water Association; Jeff Zimmer, the Solidarity Center of the AFL-CIO; Karen Chen, the Chinese Progressive Association; Jennifer Bernard, National Domestic Workers Alliance; and Pat Greenburg and Ruth Heller, Service Employees International Union, Syracuse.
Representatives of Cayuga Medical Center Nurses, Cornell Graduate Students United, University of Toronto Graduate Students' Union and Cornell Organization for Labor Action will also be at the event.
Union Days will conclude with the Social Justice Career Fair, which brings together representatives from labor unions and other advocacy organizations with students. Representatives will share information about career and job opportunities in organizing, public policy, advocacy, research, worker’s rights and law.
The ILR Union Days 2016 schedule is as follows:
Wednesday, March 16
Panel: Worker Organizing: Ithaca and the World
4–6 p.m., 105 Ives Hall
Featuring: Cornell Graduate Students United, Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3902, Cayuga Medical Center Nurses, Service Employees International Union, Healthcare 1199 NE, Chinese Progressive Association, Boston
Breakout Groups
6–6:30 p.m.
Thursday, March 17
Panel: Immigrant and Guest Workers 4:30–6 p.m., 105 Ives Hall
Featuring: The Solidarity Center, Cornell Organization for Labor Action, National Guest Worker Alliance, Worker Justice Center of New York, National Domestic Workers Alliance
Breakout Groups
6–6:30 p.m.
Keynote: Jeffrey Vogt, International Trade Union Confederation Legal Department Director
7:30–9 p.m., 105 Ives Hall
Friday, March 18
“Images of International Solidarity” from the collections of the Kheel Center
9 a.m.–5 p.m., 229 King-Shaw Hall
Talk by Patrizia Sione of the Kheel Center on “Images” exhibit
12-1 p.m., 229 King-Shaw Hall
Social Justice Career Fair
1–4 p.m., 423 King-Shaw Hall
All events are free and open to the public.
Union Days is co-sponsored by: ILR Dean’s Office, The Worker Institute at Cornell, Cornell Law School Labor Law Clinic, International and Comparative Labor Department, Cornell Organization of Labor Action, Kheel Center: Catherwood Library, The Tompkins County Workers’ Center, Cornell Graduate Students United, The Solidarity Center, Feminists, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program.
Also, Cornell Government Department, Cornell International Affairs Society, Student Assembly City and Local Affairs Committee, Department of Policy Analysis and Management, Office of Academic Diversity Initiatives, The Law & Society Minor, Asian-American Studies Program, Sociology Department, Cornell Farmworker Program, ILR Labor Relations, Law, and History Department, ILR Office of Student Services and ILR Career Services.