John Commerford Labor Education Awards

The New York Labor History Association founded the John Commerford Labor Education Award in 1987. Each year we celebrate two honorees for their contributions to workers’ empowerment.

The 2023 Awards will be held virtually on Tuesday December 5, 2023 from 6-7pm Eastern.

This is our ONLY fundraiser of the year, so although the virtual event is free, donations are eagerly accepted.

Unavoidably, there are separate links to register for the event (click here) and to support the NYLHA. Please do both! Use the link below to donate. Patrons (donations of $250 or more) will be honored in the program.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO THE NYLHA

Or make a check payable to the New York Labor History Association:
Loraine Baratti, NYLHA
116 Pinehurst Avenue, Apartment K-1
New York, New York 10033

This year, NYLHA honors labor journalist Richard Steier and activist labor scholar Rebecca Givan for their extraordinary work bringing workers’ stories and history to life and using the past to help change the present.

Rebecca Kolins Givan is a scholar, labor educator, and committed trade union activist who has worked tirelessly to elevate the voices of working people and to build power in the workplace.

Givan served as union president and bargaining chair during the first academic strike in Rutgers University’s 257-year history, which secured fair pay for adjunct faculty, increased job security for all contingent faculty, and a living wage for graduate workers – and secured additional state funding for the university. Givan teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in labor studies and industrial relations and also works with rank and file activists, union leaders and others, including unionized nurses across dozens of unions in their ongoing fights for safe staffing and quality patient care. She most recently co-edited Strike for the Common Good (University of Michigan Press, 2020) with Amy Schrager Lang, which features the voices of teachers, students, and community members as well as scholars, on the widespread teachers’ strikes and the fight for the future of public education.

Richard Steier is a veteran journalist specializing in labor issues.

He spent 34 years, over three separate tours, at the civil-service newspaper The Chief, the last 24 as its editor and columnist from 1998 to 2022, before leaving to work as a senior communications specialist for the United Federation of Teachers.  Many, many readers came to The Chief attracted by Steier’s ability to explain how the city works, and the larger historical context of civil service workers disputes he could provide. From 1989 through 1993, he worked for the New York Post as a City Hall reporter and labor columnist, covering two mayoral elections, the 1992 Democratic convention and Nelson Mandela’s visit to New York. Steier spent nearly two years after that as a field producer at WCBS-TV.  He is the author of two books, “The Odds Must Be Crazy,” about someone who was blacklisted during the 1950s and responded by developing a system for measuring horses’ performances that revolutionized thoroughbred racing, and “Enough Blame to Go Around,” a collection of his columns in The Chief from 1998 through 2013.

The 2022 Awards honored Dorothy Sue Cobble and Melvyn Dubofsky. Click here for a recording of the 2022 event.

Commerford Honorees from 1987 – 2021 Are Listed Below: