Labor Leader Honored for Work Against Injustices

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: Georgetown University

Just before the country celebrates Labor Day, Georgetown University bestowed its highest degree on AFL-CIO President John Sweeney to honor a career spent fighting for workers’ rights in the United States and abroad.

The university gave Sweeney the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, for his social justice work that includes advocating for better health care for workers, immigration reform for undocumented workers and increasing the participation of women and underrepresented people in the labor movement.

“This is a night I’ll never forget,” Sweeney said with a smile in Gaston Hall on Sept. 3. “It even nudges out being selected years back to be the grand marshal of the New York St. Patrick’s Day parade.”

Sweeney dedicated his degree to the “millions of working families who continue to inspire me through the work they do everyday to make our country a wonderful place to live.”

It is a difficult time for the labor movement, Sweeney acknowledged, pointing to depressed wages and savings wiped away in the recession. Rising unemployment in the past year has given a face to Americans without work, he added.

“The poor and out of work are no longer abstract or invisible,” Sweeney said. “They are our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers, our friends and neighbors.”

Sweeney said the greater good of society necessitates reforms, including universal health care, job creation, environmentalism, stronger regulations on the financial industry, trade laws to protect workers’ rights, protection for immigrants and laws that preserve workers’ rights to form unions.


Read more: http://explore.georgetown.edu/news/?ID=43986

[Omaha Steve]

1. 2 labor stories in the last 10 LBN posts

And I didn't post either of them. WOW what a day!

K&R!

Sweeney looks like he will get some old time swagger in labors walk.

[No Elephants]

2. Too late to recommend, but I can still kick.