Thursday, January 12, 2017

Local Labor Panel


If corporate personhood is abolished, unions will be in a better position to assert worker’s rights due to case law already established that unions are an extension of their workers as opposed to a separate entity with its own rights. On Tuesday, a panel of local labor leaders shared their thoughts about the role of unions, about workplace automation, and about the future of labor. Carol Lerner started off the evening with some sobering graphs depicting the trends in income inequality and union participation over the years. The panelists included -

  • Bradley Van Waus, Southern Region Lead Organizer for National Nurses United, 
  • Kofi Hunt, Fight for $15 Florida Political Organizer
  • Courtney Ruffner, President, Manatee-Sarasota Chapter of the American Association of University Professors
  • Jeff Grieneisen, Vice-President, Manatee-Sarasota Chapter of the American Association of University Professors
  • Mark Rodrigues, field representative, West Central Florida Labor Council, AFL-CIO, Tampa

Mark Manning from the Raw News Network recorded the panel discussion as well as the question and answer session, here.