John Commerford Labor Education Awards

This is our ONLY fundraiser of the year, so although the virtual event is free, donations are eagerly accepted. Please note registration and donation links are two separate links.

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2024 Honorees

Rebecca Damon is the Chief Labor Policy Officer and New York Local Executive Director for SAG-AFTRA. As part of the executive leadership team, Rebecca oversees the Labor Policy & International Affairs department and has oversight of the Locals outside of Los Angeles and New York.

A champion for workers’ rights, Damon has advocated for a worker centered trade policy and protections for SAG-AFTRA members in a fast-changing technological landscape and increasingly globalized creative industry.

Damon served as executive vice president, the union’s second-highest elected national office, and president of the New York Local. She was a key architect of the SAG-AFTRA merger.

Damon is a vice president of the New York State AFL-CIO Executive Council, a member of the the New York City Film and Television Production Industry Council, the New York City Central Labor Council, a board member of PowHer NY, and a vice president of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation.

Lauren Kaori Gurley is the labor reporter for The Washington Post. Before joining The Post, she covered labor and tech at Vice for three years. She has also written for The New Republic, The American Prospect, In These Times, and The New York Review of Books. At Vice’s Motherboard, here she has covered labor since 2019, producing groundbreaking journalism about the conditions that have spurred a huge increase in organizing at some of the country’s largest employers.

During the pandemic, Lauren was the first to cover walkouts at Amazon, Whole Foods, Instacart and Target, a rebellion by frontline workers that soon became national news. Among her many scoops were stories revealing that Amazon had hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to spy on its warehouse workers, that the Teamsters chose Amazon Prime Day to launch a national campaign to unionize the mega-retailer, and that Amazon delivery drivers were taking photos of their pee bottles to dispute the company’s claim that it didn’t deny them time to take bathroom breaks. Lauren also was among the first to write about a union drive in Staten Island, where Amazon warehouse workers in April voted to form the first union in company history.

The 2021 Awards honored Jane McAlevey and Robert Wechsler. Click here for a recording of the virtual event. 

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Paul Cole, New York State AFL-CIO
Jeannette DiLorenzo, United Federation of Teachers
Kenneth Crowe, Labor Journalist
Joyce D. Miller, ACTWU, AFL-CIO
Ralph Fasanella, Labor Artist
David Montgomery, Yale University
Lois Gray, Cornell University
John J. Sweeney, SEIU, AFL-CIO
Ida Torres, Local 3, RWDSU
Dorothy Swanson, Tamiment Library, New York University
Education Dept., D.C. 37, AFSCME
Gus Tyler, ILGWU, AFL-CIO
Joseph Murphy, City University of New York
Alice Kessler-Harris, Columbia University
Kathy Andrade, Local 23-25, ILGWU
Maria Portalatin, United Federation of Teachers
Morton Bahr, Communications Workers of America
Debra E. Bernhardt, Wagner Labor Archives, New York University
Thomas Y. Hobart, Jr., New York State United Teachers
Philoine Fried, Jewish Labor Committee
Sonny Hall, Transport Workers Union
Daniel J. Leab, Seton Hall University
Brian McLaughlin, NYC Central Labor Council
Judith Helfand, George Stoney & Vera Rony, Filmmakers
Gabriel P. Caprio, Amalgamated Bank
Sol Stetin, Textile Workers Union of America
Edward J. Cleary, New York State AFL-CIO
Kate Bronfenbrenner, Cornell University
Randi Weingarten, United Federation of Teachers
Connie Kopelov, New York Labor History Association
Moe Biller, American Postal Workers Union
Norman Hill, A. Philip Randolph Institute
Denis M. Hughes, New York State AFL-CIO
Jack Schierenbeck, United Federation of Teachers
Theodore Bikel, Associated Actors & Artistes of America
Theodore H. Kheel, Labor Mediator
Forward Association, Jewish Daily Forward
Brenda Berkman, Fire Dept., NYC
Dolores C. Huerta, United Farm Workers
Roger Toussaint, Transport Workers Union, Local 100
Joshua B. Freeman, Queens College & CUNY Graduate Center
Judith P. Vladeck, Vladeck, Waldman, Elias & Engelhard
George Andrucki, Sheet Metal Workers, Local 28
Henry Foner, Fur, Leather & Machine Workers Union
Raglan George, Jr., AFSCME, DC 1707
Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times
George Altomare, United Federation of Teachers
Juan Gonzalez, New York Daily News
Janet Wells Greene, Labor Historian
Michael Mulgrew, United Federation of Teachers
Larry Cary, Labor Lawyer
Jane LaTour, Labor Journalist
Peter Yarrow, Artist & Activist
Barbara Bowen, Professional Staff Congress
Eric Foner, Columbia University
American Labor Museum/Botto House
Arthur Cheliotes, CWA, Local 1180
Stuart Appelbaum, RWDSU, UFCW
Sara Horowitz, Freelancers Union
Keith Mestrich, Amalgamated Bank
Ruth Milkman, CUNY/Murphy Institute for Worker Education
Bhairavi Desai, New York Taxi Workers Alliance
Tom Robbins, investigative journalist/CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Jennifer Egan, Author
Annelise Orleck, Dartmouth University
The American Labor Studies Center, Nonprofit Organization
Miriam Frank, New York University

Brian Greenberg, Labor Educator and Author

Robert J. Croghan, Jr., Organization of Staff Analysts