Author: Administrator

Members and supporters of UA-Fayetteville Education Association / Local 965 walked with and behind our “Organize, agitate, educate” banner down Dickson Street on Saturday, June 29, 2024, for the 20th annual NWA Pride Parade.

Local 965 walked as part of the “Students, Staff, and Faculty from the University of Arkansas Community” contingent of employee or student groups.

Local 965 supports LGBTQ causes and as THE official labor organization of all UA staff and faculty (since 1962), we fight for human rights and civil rights. We represent our members, while we advocate for all UA employees.

The parade has been the highlight of the NWA Pride Weekend, organized by NWA Pride, a subsidiary of Northwest Arkansas Equality, a nonprofit advocacy organization for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community. NWA Pride Director Richard Gathright predicted days earlier to the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (or alternate link) that more than 35,000 would attend or participate. No authorities have announced their estimates of how many were there Saturday.

Broadcast news coverage included a nearly 18-minute video from very early in the parade from KHBS-TV/KHOG-TV, a preview aired June 28 by KNWA-TV/KFTA-TV, and a spot-news parade report from KFSM-TV. The Democrat-Gazette published a long caption but no link on the parade June 30, and the Fayetteville Flyer published an article and dozens of photographs.

The NWA Pride Weekend had vendors on sides streets and parking lots through the day Saturday with entertainment that night, social activities June 30, yet began June 28 with an evening March for trans rights followed by a rally and festival. Local 965 as in previous years also participated in Friday’s trans march.

The crowded events of Fayetteville’s Pride Weekend were safe and orderly due to the skilled and friendly work of local law enforcement. We salute them.

Once again, officers of the UA-Fayetteville Education Association / Local 965 and the Arkansas Education Association ran a popular table at the annual Staff Appreciation Picnic on May 15, 2024.

The University of Arkansas Staff Senate hosted the spring tradition for hundreds of education support professionals at the 1021 Food Hall on the Fayetteville campus.

Sharing information about the 62-year-old campus labor organization were 965 President Hershel Hartford and board members Michael Pierce and Bret Schulte as well as AEA UniServ Director Renee Johnson and ESP and Aspiring Educator Organizer Kelly Givens.

Members of UA-Fayetteville Education Association / Local 965, along with their families and UA faculty and staff interested in the union, enjoyed burgers, sides and fixins on May 1, 2024, International Workers Day.

In brief remarks two Democratic Arkansas House candidates address the diners, Caitlin Oxford running for the District 25 seat and Billy Cook running for the District 19 seat.

This was the union’s third consecutive May Day cookout in recent years, all held at the large pavilion of Fayetteville’s Veterans Memorial Park.

Featured were beef and vegan hamburgers with potato salad and baked beans. Platters of fruit, cheese and vegetable crudites and strawberry shortcake were generously donated by a local restaurant.

Recent successes, on a local and regional scale, show a resurging strength in Labor in the South, according to the half-dozen speakers at the 2nd annual Northwest Arkansas Labor Spring Teach-In. Some two dozen people attended the conference Saturday afternoon April 20, 2024, at the Fayetteville Public Library’s Ziegler Room.

UA-Fayetteville Education Association/Local 965 and the Northwest Arkansas Central Labor Council once again co-hosted the free public event. Enough cleaning and repairs allowed the library to open its events wing shortly before the 20th — a small fire days earlier had caused widespread smoke damage (“Fire Prompts Library’s Closure” with alternate link).

Walter Hinojosa, president of the Northwest Arkansas Labor Council, served as emcee.

Leading off the program was UA Associate Professor of History Michael Pierce, a Local 965 board member, detailing the rise and fall of progressive labor policy in the state from World War II to the end of the Bill Clinton governorship. Mike integrated into his remarks that morning’s death of former Gov. and Sen. David Pryor, a friend and mentor of Clinton.

April Reisma, president of the Arkansas Education Association, highlighted the year’s challenges and successes of K-12 and higher-education professionals. She emphasized the need of having an unified, organized voice for educators and support staff.

Speaking openly but without being named, an employee of UA food services, a division of Chartwells Higher Ed, discussed problems workers there are facing along with organizing efforts.

Ben Pollock, 965 vice president and director of communications, discussed how media strategy allowed the Local to organize opposition to a proposal to privatize the several hundred custodial and grounds employees on UA’s Fayetteville campus. The administration ultimately withdrew its plan.

Several speakers noted how workers at the Chattanooga, Tennessee, Volkswagen plant voted to join the UAW in an election ending Friday the 19th, a regional (Southern) victory for labor.

Jessica Akers Hughes, president of the state’s largest labor federation, Arkansas AFL-CIO, spoke on Zoom from Little Rock to summarize the activities of various unions statewide, noting how workers in Arkansas should be encouraged by the VW victory.

Rene Lara, director of State and Local Legislative Issues for the AFL-CIO, closed the conference with a global look at labor issues in this presidential election year. He spoke to the group on Zoom from Washington, D.C.

The Northwest Arkansas Labor Spring is part of a series of similar events being held on or near college and university campuses throughout the nation. Dubbed Labor Spring, these events are organized with the help of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University and the Labor and Working-Class History Association.

In 2023, #LaborSpring comprised more than 80 events in 32 states, including NWA. It “is a diverse, nationwide movement unifying workers, educators, environmentalists, activists, elected leaders, community members and more in a multiracial effort to demand justice on the job, racial equity and maintain the public good,” according to the initiative.

A teach-in is an informal forum developed in the mid-1960s to educate on a complex contemporary topic.