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Kretzschmar says
the Institute provides a unique bridge between the university and the labor
community. Its statewide mission is to "foster critical and creative thinking
among labor leaders, potential leaders and members by providing relevant
information and training in the skills necessary for success in today's
changing economy and workplace."
The Institute is
funded to cover salaries and operating costs. It charges participants and
sponsoring labor organizations a fee for its classes.
The classes are
conducted across the state and range between eight and 16 hours. Subjects
include collective bargaining, grievance processing, parliamentary procedure,
leadership training, strategic planning, immigration and common-sense
economics.
Between 2003 and
2008, the Institute has averaged 22 classes a year, with an average yearly
attendance of 433 participants. In addition, it averages 27 presentations a
year, with an attendance of more than 1,360 people.
The Institute is
one of about 40 labor education programs housed in colleges and universities
around the United States that are members of the United Association for Labor
Education (UALE).
To be a
university-based institutional member of the UALE, a labor education program
must have a Labor Advisory Committee (LAC). "The role of the LAC is to
interpret the educational needs of the labor movement and evaluate the
programs that the Institute offers," says Kretzschmar. "It acts as an
advocate for labor education in the labor community and the university."
The Institute's
LAC is composed of representatives from the university and the labor
movement. Current members are: Ken Mass, president of the Nebraska State
AFL-CIO; Terry Moore, president of the Omaha Federation of Labor; B.J. Reed,
CPACS dean; Herb Schimek, head of government relations for the Nebraska State
Education Association; and Ron Withem, associate vice president for
university affairs and director of governmental relations for the University
of Nebraska.
In the 1990s,
Kretzschmar served for four years as secretary of the organization that
preceded the UALE.
He says the role
of labor unions today is largely misunderstood. That, he says, is because few
people know the history of organized labor.
"Students may
learn about the growth of our nation's economy and the changing focus from
agrarian to industrial to service, and still know little or nothing about the
role of labor unions in increasing the dignity with which employees are
treated."
The history lesson
begins at the founding of the United States, which the preamble to the
Constitution states was created "in order to form a more perfect union."
"We are a nation
based on empowering the previously subservient," says Kretzschmar. "Our
founding fathers aimed at creating a new nation where there would be 'liberty
and justice for all,' not just for the elite."
However noble
their intent, the founding fathers recognized that at the time there existed
a division of people based on class.
"Our Constitution
contained a fugitive slave clause and counted slaves as three-fifths of a
person for the purposes of boosting representation in our southern states,"
he says. "More to the point, there was a clear distinction between ordinary
people and land owners when applied to the very important right to
self-determination, as judged by the right to vote.
"Wage earners neither
owned property nor composed a large part of the populace. Because they didn't
normally own the required amount of property, together with women and people
of color, they were denied the right to vote in the majority of states."
Kretzschmar says
the first court case dealing with unions and collective bargaining didn't
take place until 1806, when the bootmakers' union in Philadelphia demanded to
be paid the same wage as those doing the same work in Boston and New York.
Their employers formed their own association and took the bootmakers' union
to court.
"There was no
statutory law dealing with labor unions and collective bargaining. The judge,
in a landmark piece of common law, ruled it was legal for any single employee
to ask for more pay, but if two or more asked together, they were engaging in
an illegal conspiracy."
That went
basically unchanged for more than 100 years, until the National Labor
Relations Act in 1935 was passed to protect the rights of employees to form
unions, to encourage collective bargaining, and to curtail certain private
sector management practices which can harm the general welfare of workers,
businesses and the U.S. economy.
The act
established a federal agency, the National Labor Relations Board, with the
power to investigate and decide on charges of unfair labor practices and to
conduct elections in which workers had the opportunity to decide whether they
wanted to be represented by a union.
The act was an
attempt to bring dignity to the workplace and give employees a collective
voice, Kretzschmar says, "in other words, to expand democracy to the
workplace."
These are the
lessons he shares with the Institute's classes. Though they are the same
lessons he has taught for 28 years, he sees no reason to stop.
"I love my job,"
he says. "I love the people I work with, both at the university and those I
teach and interact with."
One day, he hopes
to expand that audience.
"I'd like to
find a way to work with school systems across the state to get some of the
history of labor into civics and social studies education," he says. "It's a
story that too often goes untold."
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