Category: Scrapbook

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.

Once again, NWA Equality hosted a few thousand to strut down Fayetteville’s Dickson Street through many thousands of cheering spectators Saturday, June 24, 2023, for the city’s 19th annual Pride Parade. Among the units was UA-Fayetteville Education Association / Local 965.

Wearing the 965 black-on-red logo Ts and carrying our banner were President Hershel Hartford, Vice President Ben Pollock, Past President Bret Schulte, Treasurer Matt Stanley and former board member Ted Swedenburg. Other 965 members paraded with other groups. For the Trans March the evening before, June 23, former board member Chad Kieffer helped walk our banner along its route, up Block Street.

The June 24 Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette published a narrative, “Diversity, Expression Celebrated: 19th Annual Pride Festival and Parade Draw Thousands of People” (alternate link). The Fayetteville Flyer published photo galleries at “Fayetteville’s Dickson Street Alive with Pride as Thousands Join Annual Parade” and earlier “Trans March Kicks off Pride Weekend in Fayetteville.”

Local 965 again was part of a collective of UA groups marching in Saturday’s parade together. They comprise “student organizations, departments, divisions, and groups from across campus. … [Per UA System] Board policy, this is not the University of Arkansas marching, but units from within the institution participating.” Anthony DiNicola, the inclusion liaison/ coordinator of cultural communities for UA’s Center for Multicultural and Diversity Education, again skillfully led its planning and execution.

For video news reports, local TV stations reported on the parade June 24-25:

• “Northwest Arkansas Celebrates Pride” — KNWA-TV/KFTA-TV, channels 24/51
• “Arkansans Went to Pride with a Purpose This Year after Recent Legislation” — KFSM-TV, channel 5
• “NWA Pride 2023 Kicks Off in Fayetteville” (Posted before parade, no video) — KHBS-TV / KHOG-TV, channels 40/29