03/01/2021
CALL TO ACTION!
Save the UML Labor Center and its valuable resource Dr. Elizabeth Pellerito! Click here to sign a petition to the chancellor: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/save-the-umass-lowell-labor-education-program?source=email&
The Labor Education Program at UMass Lowell, now in its 27th year, has three core functions: to provide education and extension courses for working people in the Merrimack Valley and North Shore, to foster research on issues that impact workers, and to create on-campus programming and opportunities for students to learn more about Labor Studies. With the Director of this program, Dr. Elizabeth Pellerito, on furlough since August of last year, the program is effectively on hold and unable to fulfill its mission in any of these areas.
The loss of this program would mean the loss of: student research opportunities and internships; service learning partnerships with Lowell Telemedia Center, the Tsongas Industrial History Center, the Lowell Education Justice Alliance, the Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts, and more; on-campus and community programming about the intersections of class, race, and gender; strategic planning, program support and collaboration for and with community organizations like the New Lynn Coalition, the Bread and Roses Heritage Festival, the Merrimack Valley Project, United for a Fair Economy, the Merrimack Valley Central Labor Council, and many more; curriculum and program support for the Women’s Institute for Leadership Development and the UALE Summer School for Women in Unions and Workers’ Organizations - two programs that develop leadership skills for women to create a more democratic and just labor movement; collaboration with regional and national workers’ organizations and unions including the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, SEIU, the Massachusetts Teachers Association and the American Federation of Teachers, AFSCME, and many others; and a vision of worker support that includes an intersectional analysis of class, race, and gender in the workplace. In addition, the loss of this program represents a deep cut to the four-campus, UMass system-wide Labor Extension program that builds educational and skill-building opportunities for workers all across the Commonwealth.
With level funding for UMass Lowell from the Massachusetts legislature, plus two rounds of stimulus funding from the federal government, working people in Massachusetts and the Merrimack Valley should not be the ones to bear this burden any longer. The reality is that the pandemic has already hit working people too hard. Unemployment is at record rates, and workers who are able to return to work face unprecedented health and safety threats. Now, more than ever, we need to invest in workplace democracy and support the voices of working people - and prepare our students to enter a workforce that looks very different and offers new challenges.
Save the UML Labor Center and its valuable resource Dr. Elizabeth Pellerito! Click here: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/save-the-umass-lowell-labor-education-program?source=email&
