Good bye to Harvard

Graduation Day!

Some of my fabulous classmates in the graduating class of 2012.

Rebecca Muir

Unbelievably, it is already the last week of classes at Harvard. The academic pace stayed unrelenting but I got classmates out to hear live music a few times, the most glorious being last Sunday night at the Beehive Jazz bar on Tremont. It was our classmate Simon's birthday and he wanted to hear some blues. Bruce Bears Blues sounded promising - and he was fantastic. But we were bowled over by one of Canada's sweetest and most soulful vocalists, Rebecca Muir, as the surprise guest. Wow. She has that complex, full, yet nuanced sound that sears her way into your heart. She is thrilling to hear live. Watch out for this young star on the rise - she's been Boston-based because of her studies at Berklee College of Music, but she's in NYC now. And (full disclosure) she's a Nova Scotian artist with great musical cred.

Eleanor Roosevelt

“Although born to a life of privilege and married to the President of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt was a staunch and lifelong advocate for workers and a proud member of the AFL-CIO's Newspaper Guild for more than twenty-five years." She Was One of Us" tells the story of her deep and lasting ties to the American labor movement. Today, union membership has declined to levels not seen since the Great Depression, and the silencing of American workers has contributed to rising inequality. In "She Was One of Us", Eleanor Roosevelt's voice can once again be heard by those working for social justice and human rights.”- www.bofarrell.net

Today’s sessions closed with a lecture by Brigid O’Farrell, whose new book “She Was One of Us” charts the here-to-date unrecognized contribution of Eleanor Roosevelt to the union movement in the U.S. Eleanor wrote a syndicated newspaper column called “My Day” six days a week every week from 1935 to 1962. She was the first, probably the only First Lady to be a card-carrying union member who proudly carried her card in her purse until the day she died. But the best part of this truly inspiring story charted Eleanor’s work in the years after her husband’s death. Among her many achievements perhaps the most impressive is the fact that she spearheaded the drive for the ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and inclusion in that seminal document of (Article 23, clause 4) of the following statement, “Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions …” In this time of unremitting attacks on unions, it is heartening to be reminded that in the wake of World War II, the nations of the world came together to affirm that the right to organize in a union is a universal human right. It’s not given to us by a government. It can’t be taken away by a government. And any government that tries to do that is in contempt of us all. My hope is that the young activists of the world will be inspired by Eleanor Roosevelt’s story and heartened by her work.

A Crazy Week

Flying to LA for the weekend - after an incredibly intense week of classes and case studies and homework - was crazy. But I wouldn't have missed it for the world. It was the SAG Awards 2012 and SAG President Ken Howard proudly announced the SAG-AFTRA merger from the stage. I was seated at the union leaders' table with AFTRA President Roberta Reardon, and a got a few excitable emails from Canada when we were glimpsed as the camera swung to her. I have stories! I also predict this merger will be a case study at the Harvard Trade Union Progam in years to come. It's a whale of a tale...

Apple

Just heard the Off-Broadway play, "The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" has returned to the Public Theatre in NYC. Monologuist Mike Daisey must be having a field day since the Apple expose in the Sunday Times. The phrase used in that story about workers willing to work for "a cup of tea and a biscuit" in China glares in stark contrast to Apple's extraordinary wealth. It's still the talk of the campus - because it is so glaringly wrong (and we are all addicted to Apple products).

What we're talking about at HTUP is the many ways we can creatively and collectively optimize our strategic leverage. I want to see this play.

Professor Chomsky

These pictures are slighty less blurry. Well, a lot less blurry actually! (Thank you, Dr. Bernard)

Paul and I were quite chuffed to meet Noam Chomsky.

Sunday New York Times

BTW In the Sunday New York Times (January 22, 2012) there's a story worth reading, " Apple, America and The Squeezed Middle Class" with an in-depth segment, "The iEconomy: How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work." Every single professor mentioned it today. I'm just sayin....

Snow at last - JR's photos

Meeting Noam Chomsky

Official Noam Chomsky Website

Ok, there is absolutely no excuse for posting such a blurry, bad cellphone excuse for a photograph. Except for the reason that it is a photo of Noam Chomsky and I. In the same room. Shaking hands. He has participated in the Harvard Trade Union Program for the past 23 years and is quite proud of that fact. In the course of an afternoon, he recommends an astonishing number of books or articles to read by authors or scholars he thinks we would find provocative. (I have scribbled each and every one of them into my Hilroy notebook as I plan to read them in my post-meeting-Noam life.)

He is certainly counting on all of us to revitalize the labour movement. He found hope in the dynamism of the Arab Spring. Can Occupiers link with the labour movement? He says many things that stick like a burr in my brain - "Corporations are basically destroying the country. The investment class will clip their coupons." A business-class culture consumed with short-term maximization of profits tends to ignore issues that will affect future generations - like global warming, for example. He is interested in us as labour leaders and encourages us to fight back - "the class war has to be two-sided." I'm so glad Noam is on our side.

Harvard Yard

Walked through Harvard Yard yesterday on my merry way to the Widener Library. We're meeting MIT Professor Noam Chomsky today and preparation is needed to meet the man Dr. Bernard calls "the most quoted living academic in the world."

Barry Bluestone

Lest you think I'm not going to classes as I haven't blogged about them, I am. Four a day. Every day. But they're tricky to write about. Complex issues. Big discussions. How do I distill this particular scholastic experience? I'll start by talking about one of today's professors, Barry Bluestone, Dean at the School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs at Northeastern University. A very cool guy and author of 12 books. An economist. An inspiring speaker. The theme of his session was understanding the nuts & bolts of US economic growth, beginning with a simple, powerful, influential formula used to calculate Gross Domestic Product:.  Y = C+I+G+X-M

Y is GDP. C is consumption which makes up about 70% of the equation. I is investment. G is government spending. X is exports and M is imports. 

Barry led us through the economic history of the US using this formula as a guideline for what happened, beginning in the Roaring Twenties - the decade that began with a grand celebration of US capitalism. In the post WW I economic boom, companies like General Foods, General Motors and General Electric became giants, riding high on a wave of consumption.  Packaged foods, electrical power lit up the nation and cars put the whole country on the move. (General Motors grew to become the 18th largest company in the world with a GDP as big as Belgium.)  People borrowed money to speculate on the stock market - until the great stock market crash of 1929. Everything burst - nobody could afford to buy anything any more so consumption was bust. Investments were bust. Government had a balanced budget of shrinking revenues and shrinking expenditures. Exports shrunk. So the GDP collapsed. Catastrophically.

The Great Depression of the 1930's hit with 25% unemployment - but it was probably really closer to 50%.  We looked at the fiscal stimulus provided by all the massive public investment campaigns, including the WPA (Works Project Administration). Under 4-term President FDR the government's role in the economy increased profoundly - it was the New Deal after all. Social safety net programs came into being including Social Security. New-fangled federal pensions would get money into the hands of retirees so they could spend and increase consumption and improve the GDP!! By 1938 we had the minimum wage and the 40 hour work week, with OT after 40 hours. Rather than pay OT, companies hired more workers, which got more people working - and increased consumption and improved the GDP!! I know none of this is rocket science but viewed through the POV of a labour economist, it becomes new again. At least to me! (My high school economics teacher was the gym teacher. Not to denigrate gym teachers, but she was no economist.)

It gives a different spin to FDR's, "we have nothing to fear but fear itself". Fearful people would not spend money which would not boost consumption which would not improve the GDP.

Now I want to read a lot more abour Roosevelt. And Eleanor....

On the Freedom Trail Walk

This is an accurate quote from the plaque at Old City Hall in Boston describing this sculpture: "When in 1828 Andrew Jackson established the Democatic Party and ran for the presidency using the populist slogan, "Let the people rule", his opponents thought him silly and labled him a "jackass." Jackson, however, picked up on their name calling and turned it to his advantage by using the donkey on his campaign posters.

Over the years this donkey has become the accepted symbol of the Democratic Party." There are bronze footprints facing the donkey for Republicans who want to 'stand in opposition'. The symbol of the elephant to represent the Republicans came out of the creative imagination of a Harper's cartoonist much later. I'm a Canadian - I had always wondered.

Remembering Dr. King

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day is national holiday, so no classes today. On Saturday we braved the brisk Atlantic wind to walk the Freedom Trail with Dr. Bernard. Clearly, Boston is a city where every single step brings you in touch with the thrill of American history.

The First Church of Boston in Back Bay is not an old building, but it is home to the oldest church congregation in the whole city, dating from 1630. And today I attended a knock-out beautiful and haunting musical celebration called The Ties That Bind concert in honour of Martin Luther King. The hall itself is acoustically heavenly, the singers, musicians and actors were eloquent and the program moved me to tears.

Other classmates screened the excellent documentary about Dr. King and the Memphis sanitation workers strike of 1968, "At The River I Stand." The front page of the Boston Globe trumpeted the Boston connection - Dr. King got his doctorate at Boston University and met his future wife here. Stories, stories, stories...in the red bricks, in the white churches, in the markets.

An Oz video that helped bring down a government

OZ video 2007

"What have unions ever done for us?" Yesterday I was reminded how terrific this Australian video was as part of a broad strategic communications plan to change a goverment. And how effective. Got everyone in class to watch it on a break.

The Power of Narrative

In my normal life, I start the day with a very good cup of coffee and the Globe and Mail. A calm set-up to what often becomes a hectic day. You know, that pause - a breath. A purely personal rhythm for that short period of time. Today was a little different - hustle out the door after staying up late to do all the required reading, share the sidewalk with intent young MIT students, squeeze onto the subway with the other Harvard Square-bound students and land at our classroom temporaily housed at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) where some of the greatest economists in the country conduct unbiased economic research. Seriously. I share elevators with them. I am not making this up!

And as the coffee kicks in, Professor Thomas Kochan embarks on the first class of the day - What is Labour's role in the 21st Century? How can Labour get out in front with a positive message in the there ain't no doubt about it attack on Labour that will be full blown in the 2012 US presidential election campaign? What is Labour's big picture vision? What is the labour narrative? Can we tell our story? I'm in heaven! (This is also the kind of work we are doing at the Canadian Labour Congress.) This is soul food, let alone brain food! Ok, back to my required reading for a spell....

the cobblestone, the cobblestone!

Harvard University is 375 years young. Certainly the oldest university in America and arguably the most famous. Monday night we were welcomed at a dinner at the Sheraton Commander Hotel - so named because George Washington took command of the continental army right across the street. Harvard's like that - a story in every cobblestone on the road. Two great things happened at dinner: 1) we were greeted warmly by enthusiastic alumni of the HTUP program; and 2) Professor Paul Weiler, Faculty Director Emeritus of Harvard Law School, provided the evening's keynote remarks. It was a great beginning. Did I mention the fact that the amazing and vigourous Dr. Elaine Bernard, Executive Director of HTUP since the late 1980s, is a Canadian?

There are 35 of us labour leaders in the Class of 2012, 24 from the USA and 11 international participants from Canada, UK, Australia and Vietnam. I was a bit intimidated to learn that our workload in the six week period is greater than a full-time student doing an entire term! Classes run from 9 to 5 daily with a heavy reading assignment every night. (I've become a night owl already.) It's an amazingly diverse, articulate, experienced and passionate group. The quality of the classroom conversation is everything I dreamed it would be. Do I have time to read one more chapter? Sure I do - I'm at Harvard.

Walking Down Massachusetts Avenue

Last night's gorgeous full moon welcomed me to Cambridge. I had forgotten it was on the rise but the sky view from the 20th floor of my student apartment sure reminded me. I'm drinking Peet's coffee, listening to NPR radio and readying myself for the big walk down Massachusetts Avenue to Harvard Square for - registration. Dr. Elaine Bernard, the Executive Director of HTUP, is an inspiration in every way but she is also a big walker. I may have met my match - we will be walking a lot.

Leaving Toronto

Okay. I'm packing up my office and am almost ready to leave Toronto. I have a laptop, an iPad and a Blackberry. A few dollars in my pocket, new argyle plaid socks and the good wishes of my union. I feel buoyed, optimistic and filled with curiousity about what kind of adventure I have embarked upon.

Check out the Harvard Trade Union Program website. January 9 to February 17, 2012 marks the 101st session, "Preparing Leadership for the Challenges of the Future."What's different about this particular sesssion? I'm going to be there!