Contact Information
Phone Number: 608.262.9849
Email Address:
don.taylor@uwex.edu
"Labor education isn't about high-and-mighty experts presenting information. Labor education is about helping workers 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 as a business agent and trainer for the hotel workers' union UNITE HERE, and as an organizer 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, and collective bargaining, especially in the public sector. He teaches in these areas, as well as: contract campaign planning, strategic corporate research, steward training, local union revitalization, labor law, and economics/globalization. He also has a strong interest in the study of adult education, and uses popular education methodology in the vein of Tennessee's Highlander Folk School and Brazilian adult educator Paulo Freire.
He has developed and maintains two blogs:
http://takingbackyourworkplace.blogspot.com , about internal organizing and union revitalization
http://garrityrights.blogspot.com , about the legal rights of public employees
Don has been certified as a professional trainer by the New Hampshire chapter of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), of which he is an active member. He is also a member of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the United Association for Labor Education (UALE), the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA), the Wisconsin Labor History Society, and Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed (PTO).
Education
B.A., History, University of New Hampshire
M.A., Political Science, University of New Hampshire