Photo courtesy: AFL-CIO

Tuesday, April 2, 8:30-10:30AM: The Worker Institute is sponsoring a special book event that should be of interest to union leaders and activists, social justice organizers, labor studies students, and everyone wishing to promote worker rights. Unionizing the Ivory Tower chronicles how a thousand low-paid custodians, cooks, and gardeners succeeded in organizing a union at Cornell University.

This in-person event will include a brief reading and spirited discussion about Unionizing the Ivory Tower with the book’s author, Al Davidoff.

Davidoff is the Director of Organizational and Leadership Development at The Solidarity Center, the AFL-CIO’s global labor institute. He served as the president of Cornell’s UAW local union, the president of the Tompkins County Labor Council, NYS director of the AFL-CIO, a Vice President of SEIU Local 1199, AFT chief of staff, and Director of the national AFL-CIO GOLD team. Davidoff is co-founder of the Cornell-NYS AFL-CIO Union Leadership Institute (ULI) and co-founder of the Cornell-AFL-CIO National Labor Leadership Initiative (NLLI). He has been a labor leader and organizer for over 30 years.

His memoir reveals how they took on Cornell – the dominant power in Ithaca – and built a strong organization that waged multiple strikes and campaigns for livable wages and worker dignity. Their strategies and tactics were creative and feisty, founded on worker participation and ownership.

Breakfast available at 8:30 a.m., Program begins promptly at 9 a.m. At 570 Lexington Ave, New York, NY. Learn more and register here.

  book event, union