Barbara Blake and Tamara Yildiz Represent UNAC/UHCP at AFSCME’s Next Wave Conference

July 2011

Last weekend, AFSCME activists nationwide gathered at the Next Wave Conference in Atlanta, Georgia to engage members age 35 and under to develop the next generation of AFSCME leaders. UNAC/UHCP sent State Secretary Barbara Blake, RN, and newly hired Staff Representative Tamara Yildiz, RN to Atlanta to join the more than 600 up and coming leaders of the labor movement in a scintillating weekend of workshops that gave way to a tour of the Martin Luther King Jr National Historic Site, a flash mob set to Sly and the Family Stone's "I am Everyday People," and a panel discussion with Sarah Kamal, a democracy activist from Egypt who used social media organizing to help end the Mubarak regime.

AFSCME.org describes the tour of the MLK National Historic Site thusly:

The attendees also toured Atlanta’s civil rights landmarks, including the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site. Dr. King lost his life in 1968 while supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn., members of AFSCME Local 1733. The 1,300 workers recently were inducted into the U.S. Department of Labor’s “Labor Hall of Fame.”

Many of the featured speakers throughout the weekend noted that the next wave of labor leaders attending the conference will be pivotal in fighting the battles necessary to maintain the labor movement for generations to come.