Labor Tribune wins 3 more national labor press awards

The Labor Tribune is proud to announce that it has won three new awards from the International Labor Communications Association (ILCA), the AFL-CIO’s labor press arm.

The awards are:

• First Award for the Best Informational Graphic depicting the fact that a bricklayer would be lifting the equivalent weight of five F-350 pickup trucks each week if the union had acceded to contractor demands that bricklayers lift some 200, 38-pound concrete blocks a day. It took a 50-day strike last summer to eliminate that and other unreasonable demands.  Labor Tribune graphic designer/artist Rich Meehan created the graphic.

• Second Award for Best Cartoon, “Waking the Sleeping Giant” depiciting the attack on workers on numerous fronts by the Radical Republicans in the Missouri Legislature in the 2011 session. The cartoon accompanied a story in April, 2011 outlining the united front the state-wide labor movement was organizing to combat the mutlti-faceted attack on Missouri’s working families, an attack that ultimately failed. The image was created by freelance cartoonist Sean O’Conner, a member of Sprinkler Fitters Local 268.

• Second Award for Best Series of Articles written by Publisher Ed Finkelstein critical of UMSL firing an adjunct professor who taught a labor studies course on the basis of doctored classroom lecture tapes from discredited videographer Andrew Brightbart, a right-wing, anti-union person known for doctoring videos to falsely accuse people and organizations of doing, or saying, things that never happened.

The doctored tapes accused teacher Don Giljum, a retired Operating Engineers Local 148 business manager and an 11 year UMSL teacher, of preaching violence and revolution in this classroom. Without so much as a hearing, or viewing the original, unedited classroom lecture tapes to determine if the charges were true, the university fired Giljum while UMSL Kansas City defended another labor educator from the same charges after they viewed the classroom tapes. It took UMSL weeks, and a lot of prodding from the Labor Tribune, to finally view the tapes, apologize and rehire Giljum.

These are only the latest in a long series of ILCA awards won by the Labor Tribune staff over its 75 year history.

“We are proud of the professionalism and dedication of our staff that works hard every week to keep our readers abreast of essential issues important to union members and their families,” Finkelstein said.