Labor Education Program
Source: MU Extension Annual Report, FY 2008
MU Labor Education Program hosted the 10th annual Romeo Corbeil Summer Youth Camp. This year’s camp brought together a diverse group of 20 young people from 11 states for an intensive learning experience about the labor movement and issues of social and economic justice.
Since 1963, MU Extension’s Labor Education Program has worked with employee organizations across Missouri and beyond to ensure that workers and their leaders develop the skills necessary to serve as contributing participants in their organizations, as effective representatives in the workplace, and as informed and active members of their communities.
Throughout its history, the program has worked with the United Steelworkers of America to develop and deliver leadership training for local union officers and activists in Missouri and surrounding states. As with other program initiatives, the content of the Steelworkers Institute has changed dramatically over the years as the issues and challenges confronting leadership evolve. The 2008 Steelworkers Institute included classes on history, effective communications, arbitration, global economic trends, and changing production technology.
In 2007, 20 young people attended the 10th Romeo Corbeil Summer Youth Camp, sponsored by the Office and Professional Employees International Union and the Missouri AFL-CIO. During this weeklong experience, participants learn about the world of work and the structure, goals and strategies of their parents’ organizations. Since its inception, 161 youths from 20 states and four provinces have participated in this nationally recognized program — the only one of its kind in the United States.
Labor education faculty members continued to work with joint apprentice programs in the construction industry to incorporate classes on organizational history and strategy into the apprenticeship curriculum.
The employment relationship for workers everywhere continues to experience frequent changes, and with those changes comes a greater need for providing quality and adaptable leadership. Traditional skills of leadership and representation remain important to union officers and other leaders, but today, a much higher level of strategic understanding of the forces that shape employment relationships is necessary. Global economic trends, erosion of basic benefits and increasing levels of employment insecurity provide growing challenges to workers and their representatives.
The Labor Education Program is directing greater emphasis toward helping workers and their representatives engage in strategic analysis of the industries in which they are employed. Courses address issues relating to greater workforce diversity, expanded understanding of how global economic trends affect local employment conditions, and the increasing challenges of maintaining essential elements of economic security. Just as the skills necessary to perform work in the modern economy are in constant need of upgrading, so too are the skills of effective representation.
MU Labor Education Web site