By Geri Katz
MNA Manager of Practice, Education and Special Projects
MNA Manager of Practice, Education and Special Projects
MNA’s Annual Convention always includes a day of education for nurses that covers topics from nursing practice, building power in the workplace, and healthcare policy. With the 2020 Convention occurring online, the MNA Nursing Practice and Education Commission decided to offer online classes throughout the month of October, rather than just one day. Commissioners hope the MNA Convention will broaden access to these classes regardless of your work schedule, delegate status, and ability to travel.
Now nurses who are not convention delegates and nurses anywhere in the region can attend these free classes, many of which come with Contact Hours.
MNA will continue to offer our most popular classes on building power in your workplace, safe staffing, and nursing practice. However, this month, MNA will also feature many exciting guest educators from all over the country. Take advantage of this free, online education all month long! Click the links to register. For the full October schedule, visit: https://mnnurses.org/resources/education/education-calendar/ and check back often as we continue to add classes.
Some of our guest presenters include:
Why do Race and Class Still Matter?
Tuesday October 6, 2020, 1:00 pm Central
Bill Fletcher Jr.
The objective of this discussion is to historically situate the construction of race and racist oppression in the USA. How should we understand the persistence of racism? Is racism something that only happens with African Americans? What does it mean that there are various “racialized populations” in the USA? Can working people be united in the absence of confronting the system of racist oppression?
Bill Fletcher Jr. has been an activist since his teen years. Upon graduating from college, he went to work as a welder in a shipyard, thereby entering the labor movement. Over the years he has been active in workplace and community struggles as well as electoral campaigns. He has worked for several labor unions in addition to serving as a senior staff person in the national AFL-CIO.
Fletcher is the former president of TransAfrica Forum; a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies; an editorial board member of BlackCommentator.com; and in the leadership of several other projects. Fletcher is the co-author (with Peter Agard) of “The Indispensable Ally: Black Workers and the Formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 1934-1941”; the co-author (with Dr. Fernando Gapasin) of “Solidarity Divided: The crisis in organized labor and a new path toward social justice”; and the author of “‘They’re Bankrupting Us’ – And Twenty other myths about unions.” Fletcher is a syndicated columnist and a regular media commentator on television, radio, and the Web.
Solidarity is (Not Easy, but) Possible: A Conversation Between the Past and the Present
Friday, October 9, 2020, 8:30 am Central
Peter Rachleff
Join Peter Rachleff, Emeritus Professor of History, Macalester College and Co-Executive Director of the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul, in the exploration of a question which has bedeviled him for more than forty years:
“How was it possible for White and Black workers in Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy, to come together and sweep to control of the city government in 1886, only to fall apart a year later? This is the central issue in my book, BLACK LABOR IN RICHMOND, 1865-1890, and it is an issue I keep probing, examining, and puzzling over. At the East Side Freedom Library, we like to say that the past is in a continual conversation with the present. Join me for this conversation as we explore not only what happened in Richmond, Virginia, many years ago, but also how this exploration can help us understand what we can be doing in this moment in which we are living.”
Visit this recent op-ed by Professor Rachleff for an introduction to the topic: https://progressive.org/dispatches/story-behind-lee-statue-richmond-virginia-rachleff-200707/
Check the Education Calendar for all the online offerings, and check back frequently as we add more opportunities.