Union Members Attend Labor Civics Training in Lewiston

On Monday, union members from across Maine attended our Labor Civics Training at the University of Southern Maine in Lewiston. In the all-day training, we discussed working class representation in culture and politics and the role of art and culture in building movements.

In the morning, Brother Vinny O’Malley (ILA 861) guided us on a tour of the Ralph Fasanella exhibit at USM.  Fasanella was a union organizer and self-taught artist whose renowned "social reality" paintings depicted scenes of working-class social and political life, organizing, historic events and leisure. The exhibit is well worth checking out and features several Fasanella originals plus Fasnella’s painting "Red Sky," celebrating Maine's labor heritage, which is on permanent display in the USM L/A College library.

Union members were invited to bring in working class art, music, posters, poems and books to display at the event. Participants also discussed their priorities for our Contract with Maine’s Working Class, which aims to engage thousands of workers to develop and  shape a labor led platform to boost wages, strengthen retirement security and lower the cost of living. Danny Bailey (APWU 458) and Lorri N'andrea (NWU) then facilitated an activity where we broke up into small groups and designed visuals and slogans around our Contract demands like housing, health care and child care and shared them with the larger group. The goal in focusing on art in politics at the training is because too often the working class has been left out of both. But art can be a very effective means for conveying our message of economic justice.

In the afternoon, we focused on how to build power and recruiting and electing working class candidates who will fight for our labor priorities outlined in the Contract for Maine’s Working Class.

“It was great putting our minds together for the greater good and hearing from other union members in different fields who have different solutions to the problems we are all facing,” said Bailey about the training.