 12 IBEW Members Graduate from
National Labor College
July 11, 2007
Jerry Bellah, business manager of Pueblo, Colo., Local 667, couldn’t travel to Maryland to pick up his diploma at graduation ceremonies at the National Labor College in late June. Bellah was too busy applying some of the knowledge gained in college to contract negotiations with a local utility. “The degree is just the icing on the cake,” says Bellah, who began his NLC coursework shortly after being elected business manager in 2002. He thanks his instructors, many of them labor lawyers, for helping him to bargain more effectively and avoid arbitration.
Bellah, who gained most of his NLC credits at the Southwest Labor College’s locations in Denver and Phoenix, joins eight IBEW bachelor’s and four master’s graduates in the National Labor College’s class of 2007. Ceremonies were held at the college’s new Lane Kirkland Center on the Silver Spring, Md. campus.
The Brotherhood’s bachelor’s graduates include Mark Baker, W. Frankfort, IL, Local 702; Wayne Carlson, Flint, Mich., Local 948; Joseph Jennings, New Brunswick, N.J., Local 456; Todd Kindred, Rockford, IL., Local 364; Kevin Marshall, Indianapolis, Ind., Local 481; Kevin Norton, Los Angeles, Calif., Local 11 and John Moore, Folsom, N.J., Local 351
Master’s graduates from the NLC’s program at the University of Baltimore include Maurice King and Francis Cunningham, Chicago, IL., Local 134; Darren Golden, Rockford, IL., Local 364 and Diana Limon, Los Angeles, Calif., Local 11.
Keynote speaker Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) was awarded an honorary degree along with retiring NLC President Susan Schurman.
Harkin told graduates that the union movement is facing unprecedented challenges: “During World War II, the graduates of West Point and Annapolis reported directly to the front lines; they went right into battle against the fascists in Europe and Asia. Similarly, the graduates here today will be reporting directly to the front line in the fight to lead and energize the labor movement in the United States.”
“The master’s program in legal and ethical studies was pretty incredible,” says Maurice King, community relations coordinator with Local 134’s apprenticeship program. King, who attended six week-long sessions in Baltimore after receiving his NLC undergraduate degree in 2004, says “We talked about how to remain progressive from a legal and labor standpoint” by engaging in mock interviews, arbitrations and negotiations.
More than 1,000 working men and women have earned degrees from the NLC, the nation’s only union-based college. The Labor College offers Bachelor of Arts degrees in seven major areas and more than 70 intensive, weeklong continuing education programs in union organizing, union building and leadership development.
For more information, visit www.nlc.edu
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