Contact Information
Phone Number: 608.262.9849
Email Address:
don.taylor@uwex.edu
"Labor education is about helping workers connect the dots and understand the power they have to change society for the better."
Don Taylor joined the faculty in April 2008. He came from his home state of New Hampshire, where he worked as a field representative, Communications Director, and Education Coordinator for SEIU Local 1984, the State Employees' Association of New Hampshire. He has also worked in Boston as a business agent and trainer for the hotel workers' union UNITE HERE, and in Iowa as an organizer, representative, and negotiator for the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE).
While in New Hampshire, he taught collective bargaining and human resource management at the University of New Hampshire, and also taught online labor studies classes for Indiana University.
He has extensive experience in mobilization, leadership development, union communications/media, strategic campaign planning, and collective bargaining, especially in the public sector. He teaches in these areas, as well as: contract campaign development, strategic corporate research, steward training, local union revitalization, labor law, and economics/globalization. He has a strong interest in the study of adult education and uses popular education methodology in the vein of Brazilian adult educator Paulo Freire and Tennessee's Highlander Folk School.
He has developed a web site devoted to the constitutional rights of public employees, Garrity Rights, and has written about the topic for Labor Law Journal. His articles have also appeared in Labor Studies Journal and on the Labor Notes Troublemaker's Blog.
Don is a member of the executive board of the United Association for Labor Education (UALE) and is a member of the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA), the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), and Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed (PTO). A profoundly out-of-practice bass guitar player, he is also a member of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM).
Education
B.A., History, University of New Hampshire
M.A., Political Science, University of New Hampshire
