Labor History Day at Local 1150

On July 22, International Brotherhood of Teamsters Education Coordinator James Beeharilal participated in Local 1150’s annual Union Mentoring Project Labor History Day that was held at the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, Connecticut.

The program was specifically designed for the 46 students and 79 rank-and-file mentors involved in this year’s summer program at Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation in Stratford, Connecticut. The main objective of the event was “To provide a day of educational, informational and interactive activities highlighting the foundation, history, and role of workers, their labor unions, culture and the world of work–yesterday, today and tomorrow.”

Among the special guests were Director of Connecticut Union Mentoring Project Fletcher Fischer, Judith E. Andrews from the Connecticut Department of Education, Kwame Fluker and Ashlee Thomas from Sikorsky, Ethel Grant from Kaynor Technical High School, Director of Mattatuck Museum Marie Galbraith, United Auto Workers Organizer Peggy Shorey, and Julius Grier, Carmen Gagliardi, Nick Klupko, Ray Mitchell, and Hampton Miller from the East Hartford Housing Authority.

Rocco Calo, Secretary-Treasurer of Local 1150 in Stratford, thanked everyone for their hard work and dedication to the mentoring program, and for their participation in the Labor History Day.

Beeharilal commended Calo, Local 1150 and Joseph Grabinski, Local 1150's Chief Union Environment, Health and Safety Steward at Sikorsky, for their outstanding mentoring program. He thanked the mentors for taking the students under their wings, applauded the students for participating in the program and identified some of the major differences between working in a unionized setting versus working in a non-unionized setting. “Union is the only way to go,” Beeharilal emphatically told the audience.

The day’s activities also included a tour of the Mattatuck Museum’s Brass Valley Exhibit, a lecture/exercise on winning a first contract, and an assembly line role-playing activity depicting workers on an assembly line under slavery-like conditions without any benefits or rights on the job.

“The partnership's success, pride, and excitement in this program are clear when one considers that the program started with just three interns in 2002,” said Fluker, who is Sikorsky’s Human Resources Representative and Mentoring Coordinator. “It would not be a realization without this solid partnership investing in the workforce of tomorrow, the program's commitment to hands-on learning, not job shadowing, and the need for skilled workers as our current workforce transitions to the next stage of their lives.”

“When I learned was how unions were started, what they are, why they are here, and how much it takes to create one,” said Daniel A. Recinos, a mentee. “Another thing I learned was that in the old times, people accepted the mistreatment because they had to raise their families without other ways to do it other than taking abuse from a boss who didn't care about the employees and only cared about making money.”

 
Back to Project in the News