Over 600 People Attend 39th Annual Labor Day Picnic in Ithaca: List of Awards

On a close to perfect late summer day, over 600 people attended the Tompkins County Workers’ Center’s 39th Annual Labor Day Picnic @ Ithaca’s Stewart Park on Monday, September 1st. This year’s Picnic theme was: Celebrating Unions and Strengthening Our Community. Incredible music was provided by the 86ers and WRFI playing soundtracks.

Many people, including the organizers of the Picnic, were astounded by the growth of attendance and involvement. Celebrating local wins is GREAT,  but in these times, the attacks on the working class getting involved in organizing their workplaces and community is what needs to be done if we are to win a better world for us all.
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Every year, a highlight is the awards through which the Tompkins County Workers’ Center recognize the best and worst among us.

DOLORES HUERTA AWARD: Award background/history: Huerta, one of the founders of the United Farm Workers, a militant activist for labor justice, and a community organizer who understood the power of alliance and solidarity. 

This year’s Dolores Huerta Award: Dolores Huerta Award went to NY Workers of United Farm Workers, for their ongoing fight to extend fair and just workplace protections through unionization to immigrant farmworkers throughout the State of NY. Receiving the Award was NYS Organizing Director for UFW, Gabriella Szpuntz, and workers from  Wafler Farms in Wayne County, NY Szpuntz was joined by three farmworkers on the stage.

CHICO MENDES AWARD
Award background/history: This award honors Chico Mendes, a Brazilian rubber worker who built a rubber workers’ union and fought to save the Amazonian rain forest, linking the struggle for workers’ rights with the struggle for environmental preservation and environmental justice.

Chico Mendes Award went to Cornell Graduate Students United/UE, for successfully bargaining for a contract with several industry-first provisions including an Academic Freedom article, Just Cause termination provisions in their Discipline and Discharge article, and academic due process in their Appointment Security Article. CGSU also fought relentlessly to protect graduate workers against unjust discipline for antiwar activism.

MOTHER JONES AWARD:
Award background/history: The Mother Jones award is named in honor of Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, who was a fearless organizer in some of the most important labor struggles of the late nineteenth century, from the fight for the eight-hour day to campaigns against child labor.

This year’s Mother Jones Award was given to Greenstar Workers Union/Workers United, for their successful bargaining for the first-ever union contract at Greenstar in their over 50-year history. It is a robust contract which has strong Just Cause Termination protections, as well as an increase in starting wages from $17.63/hour to $19.25/hour. Receiving the Award were Jessica Marks and David Meyers.

JOE HILL AWARD: Award background/history: This next award is named after Joseph Hillstrom, better known as Joe Hill, a labor activist with the International Workers of the World who wrote hundreds of songs celebrating the heroism of labor and the power of collective action and traveled across the American west in the early twentieth century, supporting numerous labor struggles. 

This year’s awardee: Joe Hill Award to Borg Warner Union Workers/Teamsters, for their commitment to union solidarity, and for their courageous decision to strike at Borg Warner to get a great new contract late last year. Borg Warner manufactures propulsion systems for global transportation engines.

KAREN LEWIS AWARD: Award background/history: This award is named in honor of late Karen Lewis, who helped to transform the Chicago Teachers Union into a powerful, democratic union that popularized the idea of bargaining for the common good. Lewis led over 25,000 Chicago teachers in the historic 2012 citywide strike that fought against cutbacks, merit pay, and privatization, and fought to get ICE out of schools and nurses into every school.

This year’s awardee: The Karen Lewis Award is presented to the Ithaca Teachers Association in recognition for their fight for fair pay for our local educators including the gold standard Step-in-Lane system which advances teacher along a standard promotion schedule but ICSD refuses to implement and to protect future generations of students from a world in which AI could replace components of the craft of instruction. They have rallied, they have demonstrated, and they have partnered with the community, which stands behind them in their ongoing fight.

A. PHILIP RANDOLPH AWARD: A. Philip Randolph Award to Cayuga Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, SEIU1199

Award background/history: This award is named in honor of Asa Philip Randolph, who, in the 1920s, organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a powerful union of Black and Filipino workers that helped to democratize and strengthen the American labor movement. Randolph also used collective action, specifically a threatened march of 50,000 Black workers on the nation’s capital, to convince President Roosevelt to sign an executive order prohibiting discrimination in the military and defense industries. 

This year’s awardee: Cayuga Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, SEIU 1199: Receiving the Award is Jerome Powell, who works at Cayuga Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, which is located close to CMC. Several weeks ago, the unionized workers held a picket at their worksite agitating especially for the workers in their bargaining unit that are making the minimum wage of $15.50/hour.

FRIEND OF LABOR AWARD: Friend of Labor to Mary Jo Dudley
This year’s awardee: Friend of Labor to Mary Jo Dudley, until this year, the longtime Director of the Cornell Farmworker program who has lived her life in support of immigrant farmworkers.

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD:

This year’s awardee: Lifetime Achievement Award to Carlos Gutierrez, for over HALF A CENTURY to his commitment to and with workers first in Chile and then in the United States. Carlos was on the staff of TCWC for ten years. Carlos presently works with MCOSH (Midstate Council for Occupational Safety and Health)

GOAT OF LABOR AWARD: Ithaca City School District

Sponsors

  • WRFI Community Radio (also providing sound and DJs)
  • Workers United-Rochester Regional Joint Board
  • No Mas Lagrimas (also cooking for the event)
  • 1199SEIU
  • Tompkins County Strategic Tourism Planning Board
  • Ithaca Teachers Association – ITA
  • Mutual Aid Tompkins
  • Ithaca Democratic Socialists of America 
  • First Baptist Church, Ithaca
  • Ithaca, Communist Party USA
  • Tompkins Working Families Party
  • Indivisible Tompkins