Representative John Tuttle has introduced a bill in the Maine Legislature calling for the creation of a Labor Center at the University of Southern Maine. This proposed legislation has the potential to begin to address the longstanding inadequacy of our education system in teaching about the history of organized labor and issues affecting working people in our country. The bill is co-sponsored by the Speaker of the House, President of the Senate, Majority Leader of the House, Chairs of the Education, Labor and Appropriations Committees along with other supporters.

A public hearing was held on Wednesday, March 14 before the Legislature's Joint Standing Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs. Public comment in favor of the legislation was led off by USM Economics Professor Michael Hillard, one of the driving forces of this legislation. Hillard was followed by Jeremy Lestage, a Labor Studies Minor graduate from USM. Also speaking in favor were representatives from a broad range of the organized labor community: Ed Gorham of the Maine AFL-CIO, Peter Kellman of the Southern Maine Labor Council, Timothy Belcher of the SEIU, Chris Galgay of the Maine Education Association, and James Carson of the Teamsters Union.

Draft Prospectus for the proposed Center for Labor and Working Class Studies at the University of Southern Maine

The proposed center will offer labor education and policy development for students and community organizations. Within the university, the Center will support curricular development, adding to courses offered already in support of the Labor Studies minor, and will eventually offer a major and master’s program in Labor and Working Class studies if student interest warrants. It will work to further integrate labor-oriented curriculum across disciplines, and to broaden the types of courses offered to encompass a wider group within the student body (e.g. through the development of introductory labor courses and course clusters that serve the new general education curriculum). Career opportunities and development will be sought through internships and service learning. For both the university and southern Maine communities, it will offer regular educational programs – conferences, symposia, speakers, and films – that address issues of concern to organized labor and working people generally.

The proposed center will also work to deepen on-going working relationships between USM faculty and the southern Maine labor community, principally though not exclusively with the Southern Maine Labor Council-AFL-CIO. Jointly organized educational programs (outlined above), along with trainings, workshops, and policy seminars that deal with the history of, and present developments in, issues vital to work people – such as workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, labor law and workers’ rights, discrimination, quality of work life, livable wages, and the like – will be a primary goal of the Center, and will be the main route for deepening collaboration between the University and the southern Maine labor community.

We anticipate that these programs would include a scholarly research component, and would support publication of positions paper, policy analyses, and scholarly narratives about past and current working class history and issues. This collaboration may be further expanded to include the pursuit of grants and funding for joint labor-community projects (e.g. a labor history archive at USM).

To achieve these goals, the proposed Center will have one full-time staff person, recommended by the Southern Maine Labor Council and the Maine AFL-CIO, and hired by the University. The faculty will appoint a half-time faculty person from the group of faculty currently teaching labor studies courses to serve as faculty director. Funding for this position will primarily go to defray the costs of hiring replacements for the director in the faculty’s home department, though these funds may also be used for the purposes of individual faculty course releases. A half-time administrative assistant will also be hired to support the program.

The faculty director and full-time staff person will work jointly, and in collaboration with a board comprised of USM faculty, staff, and members appointed by the Southern Maine Labor Council, the Maine AFL-CIO, to develop and deliver the programming and curricular development outlined above. The staff person will be primarily responsible for overseeing the development and presentation of programming and related labor “extension” activities, including non-credit training and policy seminars, and for serving as a link between the Center and the southern Maine labor community. The faculty director will be primarily responsible for curricular development and for serving as a link to University faculty, departments, and academic administration.