Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO
“Organizing Professionals in the 21st Century”
March 14-16, 2005
 

Speakers and Panelists
 

Paul E. Almeida is the president of the Department for Professional Employees (DPE), AFL-CIO, a coalition of 25 national unions representing some 4 million highly skilled professional, technical and administrative support workers. Prior to joining DPE in 2001, Mr. Almeida served as president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), a position he held since 1994.  Mr. Almeida testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Small Business Committee on the globalization of white collar jobs; and debated off-shoring American jobs in numerous venues including CNN's Sunday Morning Show; The Economist World Affairs Council, and a forum at MIT sponsored by The Indian Entrepreneur of Boston and the Indian American Political Forum for Political Education.

Morton Bahr has led the Communications Workers of America (CWA) since 1985, guiding the more than 700,000-member union as it meets the challenge of changing technology and an evolving workplace.  Under Bahr’s leadership, a growing number of unions in communications, media, the airline industry and electronics and manufacturing have chosen to merge with CWA, creating a highly effective and vital “union for the information age.”  They include the International Typographical Union (1987), the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (1994), the Newspaper Guild (1997), the International Union of Electronics Workers (2000), and the Association of Flight Attendants (2003).  CWA has expanded its original mission of representing workers in telecommunications to become the leading voice for workers in communications, information technology and other fields.  President Bahr is recognized as a leading voice of the labor movement, both in the United States and internationally. As a vice president of the AFL-CIO, he chairs the federation’s Workers Education Committee.  He also served as the Chairman of DPE; as vice president of Union Network International, a global labor organization representing some 15 million workers in 800 unions in communications, media and entertainment, and commercial, technical and professional fields; and as president of UNI’s World Telecom sector, representing 3 million workers in 120 countries.  Under his leadership, CWA has pioneered innovative programs, especially in the area of worker education, and new techniques for helping workers win a union voice, including the “bargaining to organize” strategy which uses the union’s collective bargaining power to negotiate procedures that give workers a free choice for union representation.

Charles Bofferding is the Executive Director of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, IFPTE Local 2001, and SPEEA Area Vice President of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, AFL-CIO (IFPTE).  The first full-time Executive Director hired out of the ranks, he was employed as an engineer with the Boeing Company from 1980 to 1991 where he twice earned “top technical contributor” honors.  He became active in SPEEA and was elected to serve on the 1986/1989 Professional Unit Negotiating Teams and on the SPEEA Executive Board.  After serving as SPEEA President, he was hired full-time as Executive Director in 1991.  He also serves as Executive Director for the Council of Engineers and Scientists Organizations (CESO), which represents more than 100,000 engineering and technical employees.

Aimee Bolender is the president of Alliance/AFT, a union of 8,500 non-administrative school employees, including teachers, servicing the Dallas public school system.  She has held the title of president since 2001 and has been an active participant in the teacher union movement since joining AFT in 1978, when she was a special education teacher working in Dallas.  Aimee was born on Long Island, New York in 1953.  When she was five, her family moved to Florida.  She graduated from Florida State University in 1975.  All of her teaching experience has been in Dallas, where she worked with severely handicapped and autistic elementary children and mildly retarded high school students.  For 27 years, her life's work has been the union.  Her talents include grievance processing, mediation and negotiations, leadership training and development, recruitment and organizing, media and public relations, publication design for members and non-members, newspaper editor, accounts payable and receivable skills, web page design, electronic survey development, tabulation, and communication.  Her dedication to the union movement is grounded in her strong commitment to quality public education for all students.

Susan Borenstein has been on the staff of the national AFL-CIO since 1998 and works with the Organizing Team of the national field staff.  Susan started her career in the human rights movement, working with pro-democracy movements in Latin America during the 1970’s and 1980’s.  For this work, she was awarded the Bernardo O’Higgins Medal of Merit by the Chilean government in 2001.  Susan moved to the labor movement and spent 15 years at the Musicians Union Local 802 in New York City, the largest local in the country.  Susan began her tenure at Local 802 as an organizer and rose to become the Director of Organizing.  She pioneered innovative strategies in the organization of jazz and freelance musicians utilizing industrial union techniques and non-NLRB strategies.  Most recently, Susan has been involved in supporting organizing campaigns ranging from campaigns in higher education, to hotel workers, to immigrant workers.

Susanne Connors Bowman is Co-Owner of The Haefer Group, Ltd., a marketing strategy consulting firm founded in 1997.  The company provides consulting services to associations that want to strengthen their membership offer, their value proposition, and improve their performance – all to better serve their members!  THG clients include organizations such as American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics, SkillsUSA, US Lacrosse, National Pork Producers Council and the American Speech Hearing Language Association.  Sue has more than 20 years experience in the development and evaluation of membership-related programs with a particular focus on establishing strategies to improve the “return on investment” for programs and services.  She is considered an expert in developing strategies to improve membership development and retention by focusing on segmentation strategies, core message development, and use of distribution channels.  Her presentations have been well-received at American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) Annual Meetings, the Membership Marketing Symposium and meetings and travel conferences. Sue is Vice Chair of ASAE’s Membership Council.  Prior to co-founding The Haefer Group, Sue was the Director of Insurance Services for the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) for more than 16 years.  She developed and coordinated services including group health, auto and home insurance, life insurance and a mail order pharmacy service.  Before joining AARP, she was Administrator of the Pharmacists Insurance Trust for the American Pharmaceutical Association in Washington, DC.

Kate Bronfenbrenner is the Director of Labor Education Research at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.  Prior to coming to Cornell, Kate was an Assistant Professor in Labor Studies at Penn State University and worked for many years as an organizer and union representative with the United Woodcutters Association in Mississippi and SEIU in Boston.  Kate, who received her Ph.D. from Cornell in 1993, is the co-author and editor of several books on union strategies including Union Organizing in the Public Sector: An Analysis of State and Local Elections, Organizing to Win: New Research on Union Strategies, and Ravenswood: The Steelworkers’ Victory and the Revival of American Labor.  Kate has also published numerous articles, book chapters, and monographs on employer and union behavior in public and private sector organizing and first contract campaigns, comprehensive campaigns, union leadership development, women and unions, and global trade and investment policy.

Kevin Celata is CWA’s Administrator for its Distance Learning Program. The CWA/NETT Academy is a training program offering fundamental IT courses leading to an AS Degree in Telecommunications. Mr. Celata has over nine years of experience in the private and public sectors managing start-up training programs. His commitment to shape and grow the programs through diversified industry partnerships has lead to the continued success of his student-centered learning philosophy. At CWA, Mr. Celata has worked to increase strategic partnerships with education and industry partners that contribute to the success of the program.

Julia Akins Clark is General Counsel of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, AFL-CIO & CLC, where she has been employed an attorney since November 1988.  The Union represents engineers, scientists and technicians employed by government and private employers in the United States and Canada, primarily engaged in the aircraft, aerospace, airline, defense, and energy sectors of the economy.  Ms. Clark serves on the Lawyers Advisory Panel of the AFL-CIO, is a member of the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee, and is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, State of Maryland, and the United States Courts of Appeal for the First, Ninth, District of Columbia and Federal Circuits.  She received her B.A. (summa cum laude) in political science in 1977 from Oklahoma Baptist University, and her J.D. in 1980 from American University, Washington College of Law.  She was hired as an Honors Program trial attorney by the Justice Department, Antitrust Division where she practiced in the communications, banking and finance area from 1980-85.  Ms. Clark also worked in an antitrust private practice in Washington, D.C. from 1985-87, and served as counsel to the National Coalition for the Homeless, and National Union of the Homeless in 1987-88.

Dorothy Sue Cobble, professor of labor studies, history, and women’s and gender studies at Rutgers University, received her Ph.D. in American History from Stanford University in 1986. She studies the changing nature of work, social movements, and social policy in the US and globally. Her books include The Other Women’s Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America (2004); Dishing It Out: Waitresses and Their Unions in the Twentieth Century (1991); Women and Unions: Forging a Partnership (1993); and a forthcoming anthology The Sex of Class: America’s New Labor Movements in a Global Era.  Her research has been funded by the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the U. S. Department of Labor, and other sources.

Tracey Conaty is the Assistant Director of Campaign Communications for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. She has spent her career in community organizing and advocacy communications. She did extensive grassroots organizing in Washington, D.C. on anti-gay violence, becoming a locally and nationally recognized expert. She spent five years with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the gay movement's preeminent progressive voice, serving as a Field Organizer and later its Communications Director. Tracey was also the press secretary on a statewide ballot measure campaign in California to oppose an anti-gay initiative. Prior to joining the labor movement, she was a communications consultant to various non-profits, working on issues ranging from the environment to choice.

John P. Connolly is the President of the 80,000-member American Federation of Television & Radio Artists, AFL-CIO (AFTRA), and Chairman of the `527` organization Voices for Working Families.  Mr. Connolly has frequently provided expert testimony at the Federal Communications Commission, to Congress and state legislators, and is frequently featured in the news media.  With Communications Workers of America President Morton Bahr, Connolly presented the Media Reform Campaign report and resolution adopted by the AFL-CIO Executive Council at its March 2005 meeting.  Connolly is a 30-year veteran of Broadway, Regional Theater, Television, Radio and Film.  On NBC`s The West Wing, he created the role of Matt Kelley, the Everyman moral touchstone of President Bartlett`s  re-election campaign.  Sadly Matt Kelley`s moral coattails proved insufficient to elect Bartlett`s fellow New Englander in 2004.  This month Mr. Connolly will guest star on the new ABC drama Blind Justice.  Earlier this season he starred on Crossing Jordan and Will & Grace.

Peter S. diCicco is the Executive Director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, AFL-CIO, a national coalition of international and local unions that bargain and administer a unique Labor Management Partnership with Kaiser Permanente. The Coalition unions represent more than 82,000 Kaiser Permanente employees in eight states and the District of Columbia.  Employees represented by Coalition unions work in professional and non-professional positions at every level of the organization.  As Executive Director of the Coalition, Peter was the lead negotiator in the groundbreaking national bargaining effort with KP in 2000.  The negotiation was conducted with 26 Coalition Local unions simultaneously using an interest-based bargaining approach.  The national, five-year contract was ratified by a 91% margin of all Coalition union members.  Among important elements, it incorporates such Partnership principles as joint decision-making in the workplace, new non-punitive corrective action and issue resolution processes, and additional performance sharing bonuses of up to 9% to date to all members.  Peter was president, and previously Secretary-Treasurer, of the Industrial Union Department of the AFL‑CIO, which was discontinued in 1997.  His union activity began in 1964 as a shop steward, in 1967 as Turbine Executive Board Member and in 1969 as Business Agent of IUE Local 201, AFL‑CIO at GE in Lynn, Massachusetts.   In 1969‑70, he was a member of the IUE‑GE National Negotiating Committee and fully participated in the landmark AFL‑CIO coordinated bargaining effort, including the 103-day national multi‑union strike that challenged and brought to an end GE's Boulwarism tactics. Between 1970 and 1992, he served as an IUE International vice president and as president of the IUE New England District. He is a former chair and trustee of the IUE Multi-Employer and NIGPP Pension Funds.  Peter has extensive experience in organizing, contract negotiations, legislative and political activities, and policy development and implementation.

Virginia duRivage is the Director of Education and Leadership Development for the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents over 600,000 federal and D.C. government employees.  She has worked with both public sector and private sector unions including the United Food and Commercial Workers and the Communications Workers of America to develop leadership education programs, establish labor management education partnerships, and facilitate organization change efforts.

Adrienne Eaton is a Professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations and Director of the Labor Extension Program at Rutgers University.  She has three long-term streams of research. The first of those streams concerns union participation in management decision-making and the relationship of unions to direct forms of worker participation and has been published in Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Labor Studies Journal, Advances in Industrial and Labor Relations and several book chapters.  A second stream concerns the negotiation, effectiveness and outcomes of neutrality and card check agreements.  This research has been published in Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Perspectives on Work and in technical reports.  A third stream concerns the unionization of managerial workers, in particular, public sector supervisors.  This research has been published in Labor Studies Journal and in book chapters.   She teaches credit and non-credit courses on collective bargaining and industrial relations research and has worked directly with several labor-management partnerships including most recently serving as the external consultant on measurement for the Kaiser-Permanente/Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions Labor Management Partnership.  She is currently Vice-President of the faculty union at Rutgers.

Sarah S. Etherton is an associate professor in the Institute for Labor Studies and Research at West Virginia University, where she has been a faculty member since 1992.  Experienced in a wide range of standard labor education topics, she specializes in computer use, communications, and legal and economic issues.  As a facilitator, Sarah has led union-centered labor-management training and strategic planning sessions for international unions and councils.  One of her current research efforts is as a member of a team of labor educators who are investigating the use of mediation under West Virginia’s state grievance procedure (where public sector collective bargaining is not a matter of law.)  She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism, a master’s in industrial relations and a doctorate in economics.  Her start in the labor movement came as an organizer for a local of The Newspaper Guild.

Pamm Fair is National Deputy Executive Director, Policy & Strategic Planning for the Screen Actors Guild.  She joined the SAG staff in 2002, shortly after Bob Pisano became national executive director/CEO.  She oversees all SAG national, state and municipal legislative efforts; SAG special projects, member relations, the President’s office and high profile outreach; and the strategic planning team for all SAG initiatives and campaigns.  Prior to working at SAG, Fair worked for the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) for 20 years. She was Associate Executive Director and oversaw legislation, communications, and affirmative action, and was chief administrator for the Los Angeles AFTRA Local.  Fair is President of the Hollywood Entertainment Labor Council (HELC); Secretary of the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF); and on the executive council of the Entertainment Industry Development Corporation (EIDC).  She has BA degrees in Radio, Television & Film, and Business from California State University Northridge, and a Professional Designation in Public Relations from UCLA.   She also attended USC and was recently a guest instructor for advanced public relations there.

Fred Feinstein, former General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, is a Visiting Professor and Senior Fellow in the Office of Executive Programs at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. He conducts research and writes on labor issues and develops executive education programs on such subjects as the challenge of adapting labor policy to new work environments. During his nearly six-year tenure as General Counsel, Feinstein was recognized for efforts to improve the administration of the National Labor Relations Act. He instituted a system for case prioritization and made significant progress towards assuring that elections for union representation were consistently conducted in a timely manner. He received three "Hammer Awards" for these and other innovations in the operations of the Office of General Counsel.

Linda Foley was elected President of The Newspaper Guild/CWA, AFL-CIO, CLC, in 1995 and was sworn in as a Vice President of the Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO, CLC, in 1997.  She was the first woman in the 60-plus year history of the Guild to hold the office.  She was re-elected in 1997, 1999 and again in 2002.  She was elected Secretary-Treasurer in 1993 and also was the first woman elected to that position.  She was instrumental in negotiating and implementing the Guild's merger with the CWA.  She is Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO's Department for Professional Employees and is on the Executive Board of the American Arbitration Association.  Foley is also Vice President of the International Federation of Journalists.  She has been a member of the Guild since 1977, when she joined the Lexington Kentucky Guild. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. and serves as a member of the Board of Advisors to Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism.  The Newspaper Guild, a Sector of CWA, represents approximately 34,000 media workers throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Dick Gabriel is Assistant to the President – Special Projects at the American Federation of Musicians.  He was recruited by AFM after a successful music career performing both as an artist and backup musician. He had performed with such legends as Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, The Buddy Miles Blues band, and The Beach Boys. He was also a member of the 60s/70s music group, "Gary Puckett and the Union Gap." At the AFM, he eventually became the head of the Electronic Media Division, negotiating contracts and providing services to musicians working in commercials, television, motion pictures and phonograph recordings.  Dick developed the AFM’s system to monitor and collect for musicians when their recording is used for any purpose other than that for which it was originally produced. This system brings millions of additional dollars to musicians each year. His focus is to make the industry more aware of the numerous and often overlooked services that are available to both royalty and non-royalty performers. Such services include additional sources of CD revenue, tour protection, legislative action, and retirement benefits. He negotiates unique agreements for AFM musicians and speaks at music business conferences, seminars, colleges and other educational events on the business of music and better ways to approach it.

Jeff Grabelsky is the Director of Cornell University's Construction Industry Program.  He develops and delivers education and training programs and provides research and technical assistance in all aspects of union affairs.  The programs he has worked on have reached over 200,000 unionists nationwide.  Jeff began his career in the labor movement working and organizing in the steel industry in 1973, has been a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) for 25 years and is the former national organizing director of the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO.  After September 11, 2001, Jeff represented the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York on the World Trade Center Emergency Project Labor-Management Partnership.  That project was completed months ahead of schedule, millions of dollars below budget and, most remarkably, without a single life-threatening injury.  Jeff is working with the AFL-CIO on the national Voice at Work campaign to restore the freedom to form unions and bargain collectively in the United States.  Jeff received his B.A. in Political Science from the University of Michigan, his M.A. in U.S. Labor History from Syracuse University, his M.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and his Journeyman Electrician Classification from the IBEW.

Lois Gray, the Jean McKelvey-Alice Grant Professor of Labor Management Relations at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, is the former Dean for Extension where she created and directed educational programs for labor unions, business and government. She has long been associated with the Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO, and entertainment industry unions on research and education projects.  Among her publications are Under the Stars: Essays on Labor Management Relations in Arts Entertainment (1996) and “Entertainment Unions Tune Up for Troubled Times” (2001). She is engaged with New York unions and employers in a study of the film industry.

Linda Guyer is President of the Alliance@IBM, CWA Local 1701.  She works as a Project Manager in the Software Division of IBM.  She has worked for IBM for 23 years and has been the Alliance president since its inception in 1999.  Her primary interest in the labor movement is in organizing high tech employees and in developing new methods to use advanced technology to communicate with and help organize this industry.  She has just started her own blog that will focus on high tech and labor at http://guyer.blogspot.com.

Greg Hamblet was elected International Vice President of the 1.4 million member United Food and Commercial Workers International Union in 2000. He serves as Special Assistant to the International Executive Vice President and Director of the Collective Bargaining Department.  As the liaison to UFCW local unions that represent workers in hospitals, nursing homes and other health care facilities, he helps improve working conditions so workers can deliver quality patient and resident care. Hamblet began his career in the labor movement at age 13 when he volunteered during organizing campaigns for the Retail Clerks International Union (RCIU) alongside his mother, a 15-year RCIU member.  At 18, Hamblet became a member of RCIA Local 1550 in Chicago, Illinois, while working at the Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company as a cashier. As an organizer in the late 1970's, Hamblet helped to win union representation for Woodward and Lothrop Department store employees in Washington, DC. In 1986, he participated in a groundbreaking organizing campaign bringing a voice on the job to Delta Pride Catfish workers in Indianola, Mississippi. The UFCW organizing galvanized the community behind plant workers against an employer notorious for abusive worker practices. In the early 1990's, Hamblet served the UFCW as the Executive Assistant to the Director in Region 1. He remained in Region 1 until 1996 when he was appointed Executive Assistant to the International Executive Vice President and Director.

Charles Heckscher is a professor in the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University and Director of the Center for Workplace Transformation. His research focuses on organization change and its consequences for employees and unions, and on the possibilities for more collaborative and democratic forms of work. His books have explored the future of the labor movement (The New Unionism), the changing approaches of corporate management (The Post-Bureaucratic Organization), the effects of downsizing and restructuring on employee loyalty (White-Collar Blues), and the process of building stakeholder relations (Agents of Change). He has also written widely on mutual-gains bargaining, employment-rights movements, labor-management partnerships, and workplace participation. He is leading research into the development of collaboration in local unions and corporations. Before coming to Rutgers he worked for the Communications Workers of America and taught Human Resources Management at the Harvard Business School.

Kim Roberts Hedgpeth has served since 2001 as Associate National Executive Director of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, a diverse union representing nearly 80,000 professional performers, broadcasters and recording artists in 32 Locals throughout the country. As the second-ranking executive of the union, her duties include serving as a principal negotiator for AFTRA’s franchise agreement with talent agents as well as national collective bargaining agreements covering sound recordings, network correspondents and radio programming.  She has held a variety of positions at AFTRA since 1981, including New York Local Executive Director and Executive Director of the San Francisco Local/Branch or AFTRA/SAG.  In 1992, she was appointed AFTRA’s Assistant National Executive Director for News/Broadcast Station Staff.  From 1998-2001, she was Director of Labor and Employee Relations at Harvard University and Vice President of Human Resources at Safe Horizon, a crime victims’ support and advocacy organization.  Ms. Hedgpeth received her B.A. from Harvard University and her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and is admitted to the New York and California Bars.

Richard W. Hurd is Professor and Director of Labor Studies at Cornell University. Much of his research has focused on professional workers; selections from his more recent publications include “Charting Their Own Future:  Independent Organizing by Professional Workers,” “Professional Workers, Unions and Associations:  Affinities and Antipathies,” and “Professional Employees and Union Democracy:  From Control to Chaos.”  He is co-editor of Rekindling the Movement (Cornell University, ILR Press, 2001), Organizing to Win (Cornell University, ILR Press, 1998), and Restoring the Promise of American Labor Law (Cornell University, ILR Press, 1994). Hurd earned his Ph.D. in Economics from Vanderbilt University.

Gregory J. Junemann was unanimously elected to serve as International President of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, AFL-CIO (IFPTE), in 2003 after being appointed to the position in 2001.  Before assuming the post, he was serving his third term as Secretary-Treasurer/Director of Organizing, a position he was first elected to in 1994.  As Director of Organizing, he revitalized the IFPTE efforts.  Under his direction and leadership, the union organized or affiliated 23 new Local unions, which represented an increase in membership since 1994 of 71 percent.  Most notable are campaigns at the Engineers & Scientists of California (IFPTE Local 20), Economic Policy Institute (IFPTE Local 70), Association of Administrative Law Judges – Social Security Administration (IFPTE Judicial Council No. 1), and the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (IFPTE Local 2001).  President Junemann is also a Vice President of the Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO, and chairs its Committee on the Evolution of Professional Careers.

Lynn A. Karoly is a RAND senior economist whose recent research has focused on U.S. labor markets, social welfare policy, and family and child well-being. In particular, she recently completed a study analyzing the implications of demographic trends, technological change, and globalization for the U.S. workforce and workplace over the next 10 to 15 years. She has also been analyzing self-employment and retirement patterns among older workers. In other research, Karoly has examined the economic consequences of welfare reform, and the costs and benefits of investing in human capital throughout the life course. In addition to her research, Dr. Karoly has been on the faculty of the Pardee RAND Graduate School since 1989. She served for eight years as the Director of the RAND Labor and Population Program which conducts national and international research on a broad range of human resource issues. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University.

Jennifer Kaseman has spent the last 5 years working on the national staff for the American Federation of Teachers as a National Representative. She spends the majority of her time working with classified professional staff at the University of New Mexico. She is also the Director of the Texas Federation of Teachers/Professional Educators Group, a statewide organizing project with 20,000 members. Prior to working with the AFT, she worked for the Texas Federation of Teachers, and the Texas State Employees Union (CWA). She is a former president of an AFSCME local in Minnesota and a graduate of the AFL-CIO Organizing Institute.

Sue Kaufman, Professor of Journalism at Eastern Illinois University, is President of the University Professionals of Illinois, Local 4100 IFT-AFT, AFL-CIO, and Vice-President of the Illinois Federation of Teachers.  She also sits on the American Federation of Teachers Higher Education Program and Policy Council, on the policy board of Citizen Action Illinois, and is Vice-President of the Public Action Foundation Board.  She came to the Eastern Illinois faculty in 1986 after a distinguished career in print and broadcast journalism, public relations and advertising.  She began her work as a journalist in 1964 as an Associated Press intern for the Green Bay Press Gazette while a junior at Marquette University in Milwaukee.  Her experience ranged from civil rights coverage in the mid-60s while a reporter at The Milwaukee Sentinel, to award winning medical writing at the Rockford Morning Star in 1967 for her coverage of the Belvidere tornado.  She covered government and education in Rockford and at papers in Green Bay, as well as public and commercial radio in Michigan and Indiana.  At WGGL-FM in Houghton, MI at Michigan Technological University, she produced news for NPR’s All Things Considered and Options in Education.  She and two partners formed an advertising and public relations firm in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in the 1970’s that served political, tourism, banking and airline clients.  In 1979 she moved to Terre Haute, IN to complete a master’s degree and worked there in commercial radio until 1986, when she returned to print journalism.  She completed her doctorate in educational administration from Indiana State in 1992 and has contributed to or participated in editing books about the media, communications, and women.  A native of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Dr. Kaufman comes from a long tradition of Democrat leadership and union activism.

Christine Kenngott is Online Mobilization and Working Families Network Manager at the AFL-CIO.  She worked on political campaigns for the past 15 years including Clinton/Gore 96 and Gore 2000.  Before coming to the AFL-CIO she was the Internet Marketing Director at the Democratic National Committee where she helped build a list of over 4 million members that raised over $60 million dollars during the 2004 Presidential campaign cycle.

Thomas A. Kochan is the George M. Bunker Professor of Work and Employment Relations at MIT's Sloan School of Management and Co-Director of the MIT Workplace Center and of the Institute for Work and Employment Research.  He came to MIT in 1980 as a Professor of Industrial Relations from Cornell University where he was on the faculty of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations.  From 1988 to 1991 he served as Head of the Behavioral and Policy Sciences Area in the Sloan School.   Prof. Kochan received his Ph.D. in Industrial Relations from the University of Wisconsin in 1973.  Since then he has served as a third-party mediator, fact finder, and arbitrator and as a consultant to government and private sector organizations and labor-management groups. He was a consultant for one year to the Secretary of Labor in the Department of Labor’s Office of Policy Evaluation and Research.  He has done research on industrial relations and human resource management in the public and private sectors.  His recent books include: Management:  Inventing and Delivering its Future; Working in America:  A Blueprint for the Labor Market; Learning from Saturn:  Possibilities for Corporate Governance and Employee Relations; The Changing Nature of Work:  Implications for Occupational Analysis, 1999; Managing for the Future: Organizational Behavior and Processes, 3^rd  edition, 2004;  The Mutual Gains Enterprise, 1994; and An Introduction to Collective Bargaining and Industrial Relations, 3rd ed. 2003.  In 1988 his book, The Transformation of American Industrial Relations, received the annual award from the Academy of Management for the best scholarly book on management.  Prof. Kochan is a Past President of both the International Industrial Relations Association and the Industrial Relations Research Association (IRRA).

Phil Kugler has served as Assistant to the President for Organization and Field Services at the American Federation of Teachers, with overall supervisory responsibility for organizing and field operations, since 1981.  Phil grew up in an AFT union family.  His dad was a pioneer in organizing college and university professors into the AFT.  Even summer camp offered a union experience, as Albert Shanker was Phil’s nature counselor.  During the summers of his college years, Phil shipped out in the merchant marine and worked in a steel mill, carrying cards in the Seafarers International Union of North America and the United Steelworkers of America.  After graduating with honors in economics from Oberlin College in 1968, he returned to the merchant marine for two years, being elected to several shipboard union committee positions.  He returned to school in 1970, receiving a Masters in Industrial Relations degree from New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University in 1972.  Phil applied and was selected for an internship at AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C. in the Department of Legislation, which he completed in 1973.  With the merger of AFT and NEA affiliates in New York state, thousands of new members came into the AFT through the New York State United Teachers.  The AFT was looking to expand staff, and Phil was appointed AFT Assistant Director of Legislation.  Two years later, the new president of the AFT, Albert Shanker, asked Phil to switch from the Department of Legislation to the Department of Organizing and become a field director.  Phil served in this position, maintaining liaison with a number of states on organizing and related union building for six years.

Rick Kuplinsky is Deputy Director, Department of Organization and Field Services, American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO and coordinates the AFT Membership Consolidation/Internal Organizing Program, an effort to build greater membership density and activism in locals that bargain collectively in right-to-work situations.  He has been with AFT since 1984 and has served, among other roles, as organizing communications specialist and director of the AFT Union Leadership Institute.

Matthew Loeb, Seventh Vice President of the IATSE General Executive Board, has served as a member of the Executive Board since 2002. Loeb has been a member of the United Scenic Artists Local 829 since 1989. In addition, he is a charter member of Local 491 and a member of Local 52. Loeb was appointed International Representative in 1994. At the same time, he assumed the position of Chairman of the East Coast Council, a title he still holds. In 1998, he was appointed Division Director of Motion Picture and Television Production.  Loeb also serves as a trustee on the IATSE National Health and Welfare, Annuity, 401K and Pension Plans and is a member of the Union’s Defense Fund Committee.

Dr. John Lloyd is the Head of Policy and Strategy for Community.  He was Director of Research for Amicus, the largest manufacturing union in the United Kingdom, with over one million members in the public and private sectors.  Earlier, Dr. Lloyd served as the National Education and Development Officer of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union.  His main responsibilities were issues surrounding trade union mergers, partnership with employers, lifelong learning, and the development of the union’s full-time officer corps.  Dr. Lloyd was appointed by the Labour government to be a non-executive director of the British Post Office and a member of London East Learning and Skills Council.

Edward J. McElroy is president of the 1.3 million-member American Federation of Teachers. He is chairman of the board of the Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO, a coalition of 25 national unions representing 4 million professional, technical and administrative professionals. Prior to his election as AFT president in 2004, McElroy served 12 years as AFT secretary-treasurer. He joined the AFT executive council in 1974 and was re-elected as a vice president every two years until his election as secretary-treasurer. A longtime educator and labor leader, McElroy also serves on the executive council of the AFL-CIO, to which he was elected in December 2001. The AFT is one of the fastest-growing labor unions in the United States, representing workers in education, healthcare and government services. During McElroy's tenure as a national officer, the AFT has added more than 500,000 new members. McElroy began his career as a social studies and English teacher in Warwick, R.I., and was elected president of the Warwick Teachers Union, Local 915, in 1967. At age 30, he became president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers, a position he held until he was elected AFT secretary-treasurer. As president of the RIFT, McElroy personally handled numerous negotiations and arbitrations. McElroy served as president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO from 1977 until 1992 and earned a reputation as a unifier and effective representative of public and private sector unions. On the AFT executive council, McElroy was instrumental in launching the Futures Committee, a panel of AFT vice presidents who consulted for two years with AFT leaders and members to shape a new direction for the union in its governance and structure. The resulting constitutional amendments enhanced the role of constituencies outside the K-12 teacher division and made other recommendations on strategic planning, financial practices for affiliates and establishing priorities for the AFT. McElroy is a leader in a wide range of community, civic and labor organizations. He serves on numerous AFL-CIO committees, including the Union Label and Service Trades Department, the Food and Allied Service Trades Department and is chair of the Committee on State and Local Strategies. McElroy also serves on the board of directors of Voices for Working Families and the Amalgamated Bank of Chicago.

John McGuire is Senior Advisor for the Screen Actors Guild.  He held the position of Associate National Executive Director for SAG from 1983 to 2001.  Prior to 1983 he served as the New York Executive Director at the Guild, having started with the union in 1969.  Mr. McGuire graduated from Fordham College with a B.A. degree in History and from Fordham Law School with a J.D. degree in law.  In addition to assisting in the union’s major contract negotiations, he has represented the union internationally at meetings with performer organizations around the world.

Pat Miyamoto, Sr. is Director of Membership & Publishing Services for the American Psychological Association, its senior membership services executive. His work involves membership research, recruitment, and retention with 150,000 members and affiliates primarily in the United States, but also in Canada and from around the world. His responsibilities include overseeing membership research and opinion studies, recruitment campaigns, billing and retention activities, and developing and implementing membership communication strategies. His past work includes engagements with public interest, community self-reliance, and association management organizations.

Guy D. Molyneux is a partner and senior vice president with Peter D. Hart Research Associates.  He has carried out survey and focus group research projects for labor unions, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, political candidates, and media organizations.  His clients have included the AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), NBC News, the Council for Excellence in Government, the U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Senator Richard Durbin, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the Children’s Defense Fund, and the United Auto Workers (UAW).  Mr. Molyneux previously served as director of polling for Cable News Network (CNN) and as executive director of the Commonwealth Institute.  He has written about politics and public opinion for The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Dissent, The American Prospect, and  the Los Angeles Times' Sunday "Opinion" section, and is co-author of "Economic Nationalism and the Future of American Politics” (Economic Policy Institute, 1993).  He has commented on politics for National Public Radio, NBC News, C-SPAN, the Fox News Channel, CNBC, and CNN.  Mr. Molyneux is a graduate of Harvard College and has undertaken graduate study in public opinion research and electoral politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Louis Nayman is the Director for Special Organizing Projects, American Federation of Teachers.  He has been with the AFT since 1984, organizing health care, public service and professional workers.  His international work has included participating in and conducting workshops, conferences and meetings in Malaysia, Barbados, Poland, Romania, Russia and Israel.  Prior to coming to the AFT, he was a Health Policy Specialist working with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in Washington, DC and from 1973-1980 was a Child Protective Services Social worker and Local Union President in Ithaca, NY.  He has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queens College, City University of New York, and graduate degrees from Cornell University and Syracuse University.

Karen Nussbaum has spent 30 years fighting for the rights of working women and men – as the founder and director of 9to5, National Association of Working Women; the president of District 925, SEIU; and the director of the Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor, the highest seat in the federal government devoted to women’s issues.  She joined the AFL-CIO in 1996 when John Sweeney was elected president as the director of the Working Women’s Department and now serves as an assistant to the President.  Nussbaum is also the executive director of Working America, a community affiliate of the AFL-CIO.  Working America is a new organization for people who do not have the benefit of a union on the job.  She is the author, with John Sweeney, of the book “Solutions for the New Workforce,” and with Ellen Cassedy, of the book “9to5.”

Sharon Pinnock is a Labor Futurist and the Director of Membership and Organization for the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), AFL-CIO – the largest federal employees union in the country. During her 15-year tenure, AFGE has been one of only a handful of AFL-CIO affiliates to increase its membership – growing by over 40,000 during an overall decline in the federal sector. Prior to joining the AFGE staff, Pinnock worked for 10 years as a labor organizer for public sector unions, including the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Council 20 and the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU). Pinnock is a lifelong learner, having earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Labor Studies in 1999 as a member of the inaugural class of the National Labor College. In 2003, she earned a Masters Degree in Organization Development from the American University/National Training Labs.  Pinnock has presented and written extensively about the roles played by information technology and organizational culture in labor unions.  In 2004 Pinnock presented at the University and Labor Educators (UALE) Conference and the World Future Society (WFS) Conference. An article co-authored with Richard W. Hurd, entitled: “Public Sector Unions: Will they Thrive or Struggle to Survive?” appears in the Spring 2004 issue of the Journal of Labor Research (Vol. XXV, Number 2). Her essay on AFGE’s transformational change effort, entitled, “Futuristics and Unions: The AFGE Experience,” appears in CyberUnion: Empowering Labor Through Computer Technology (Shostak, 1999).

Edward Sabol is Organizing Director for the Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO.  He assumed responsibility for directing the national CWA organizing program in 2004.  He was previously responsible for CWA organizing in District 1, which includes New Jersey, New York, Eastern Canada and New England.  Ed led contract negotiations for CWA, including Dow Jones, Bell Laboratories, NUI, and public sector groups.  A CWA member since 1981, he was Chief Union Steward and a Laboratory Technician employed at Rutgers Medical School before he joined the union staff.  He earned a Bachelors Degree in Sociology from Livingston College, Rutgers University in 1976 and a Masters in Labor Education from Rutgers in 1980.

Dawn Saunders, Ph.D., taught economics for six years at the University of Vermont before becoming active in the organizing drive for the faculty union in 1999.  After the successful vote in 2001 for United Academics AAUP/AFT (full-time unit), Dawn served as a member of the negotiations team and then was elected Grievance Officer.  She has been an active participant and presenter at the national level at both AFT and AAUP convenings, specifically on the contractual concerns of non-tenure-track faculty members.  She works for United Professions of Vermont/AFT, the state AFT affiliate, as a field representative, continuing her contract administration work for UA as well as other higher education locals in the state.  She teaches part-time at the University and is working with the negotiation team for the new part-time United Academics AAUP/AFT bargaining unit.

Brenda R. Scott is serving her fourth term as President of the Mississippi Alliance of State Employees, Communications Workers of America Local 3570 (MASE/CWA).  A native of Natchez (Adams County), MS, she graduated from Alcorn State University, where she was a Business Administration major.  Brenda is a former employee of the MS Department of Health and the Department of Human Services.  A union activist, she was recruited to become the first state employee hired as an organizer on the first state employees' union staff in Mississippi.  She received the Mississippi 2003 Southern Christian Leadership Council's "Drum Major for Justice Award" and 2003 Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Eye on the Prize Award" in Organizing.  She is a member of Nazareth Baptist Church.  MASE/CWA has over 3100 members and no collective bargaining rights.

Leslie Simon has worked at the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) for almost 10 years.  She started as a Business Representative in the Broadcast Department negotiating and enforcing collective bargaining agreements for the on-air talent at local television and radio stations.  For the past five years, her work has focused more on both internal and external organizing and legislative and public affairs.  Prior to working at AFTRA, Leslie was a legal aid attorney, representing low-income clients in immigration, employment, family, and landlord-tenant cases.

Rick Sloan became the IAM's Director of Communications in 2000. For the previous 15 years, Rick ran Challenge America, a public affairs firm working with labor unions. Between stints leading the legislative staffs of Senator Howard M. Metzenbaum and Congressman John D. Dingel, Rick challenged John Kasich in Ohio's 15th Congressional District in 1984. The author of The Gift of Strategy, Rick Sloan argued that President Clinton could win re-election by meeting America's challenges.

Flora Stamatiades is the National Director, Organizing and Special Projects, of Actors’ Equity Association (AEA), the 45,000-member national union covering Stage Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.  This position was created in 2002, in part to combat the growing trend of non-Equity tours.  Ms. Stamatiades was instrumental in the creation and implementation of Equity’s “Road Campaign”, which was a national campaign preparing the membership and the public for the 2004 Production Contract Negotiations.  Those negotiations resulted in the new Experimental Touring Program, which is intended to allow lower budget musicals that qualify under stringent criteria to tour under the Production Contract.  Ms. Stamatiades joined AEA in 1994 and has served in various capacities including as the Southeast Traveling Representative and the Business Representative for Tours.  In the latter position, Flora began to work on organizing non-Equity tours and has, for the most part, brought two of the three major non-Equity producers “into the fold”.    She holds a B.A. in Theatre and Dance from Amherst College and an M.F.A. in Theatre Management from the Yale University School of Drama.

Jimmy Tarlau is a Staff Representative for the Communications Workers of America.  He was in charge of High Tech Organizing for CWA for the last four years.  He supervised the organizing at WashTech and IBM and was a key leader in expanding CWA's use of the Internet for organizing.  He was Treasurer of CWA Local 1032, which represents 4,000 engineers and computer programmers.  He is Treasurer of the Council of Engineers and Scientists Organizations and holds a Masters Degree in Computer Science from Villanova.

Jonathan Tasini is the president of the Economic Future Group, a national strategy consulting group. From 1990 to 2003, he served as president of the National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981); he remains the union's president emeritus. He was the lead plaintiff in Tasini vs. The New York Times, the landmark electronic rights case won by the plaintiffs in a historic decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2001. He is also the president and executive director of the Creators Federation. For the last 20 years, he has written about labor and economics for newspapers and magazines including The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Business Week, The Washington Post, The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He is the author of two books: The Edifice Complex: Rebuilding the American Labor Movement to Face the Global Economy, a critique and prescriptive analysis of the labor movement (1995); and They Get Cake, We Eat Crumbs: The Real Story Behind Today's Unfair Economy, an average reader's guide to the economy (1997). He also writes a regular column on labor and the economy entitled "Working in America," which can be seen at www.tompaine.com. Among other posts, he has served on the executive board of the International Federation of Journalists; the National Research Council's Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, which issued the report, "The Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property in the Information Age"; and the Committee on Arts, Media and Entertainment of the AFL-CIO's Department for Professional Employees.

John Vines is the Chief Executive Officer of the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers Australia (APESMA).  Vines was appointed Executive Director of the Association of Professional Engineers Australia (APEA), one of the organizations that through successive mergers became APESMA, in 1984.  He has played a central role in creating novel and highly successful membership services, including a standard-setting Management Education Program.

Carol Waaser has been on the staff of Actors' Equity Association for 22 years and is its Eastern Regional Director.  She also served as Senior Business Representative for Organizing and Developing and Director of Membership Education and Communications.  Prior to joining the staff at Equity she held positions as Stage Manager, Company Manager and Casting Director for various regional and stock theatres.  She was on the faculty of the Yale Drama School for five years and has also taught in the Theatre Department at Adelphi University.

David West is Executive Director of the Center for a Changing Workforce (CFCW), a position he has held since 1999. CFCW is a Seattle-based organization that provides education, policy analysis and advocacy for regular workers misclassified as temporary and thus denied equal pay and benefits. CFCW engages local and national organizations about this emerging issue and serves as a watchdog on industry employment benefit practices across the nation. West has more than 20 years of experience in public interest and community-organizing work, including work with statewide consumer coalitions, senior citizen groups and tenants' rights organizations.