Welcome, Paul and Lee! Farewell, Barbara
We're pleased to welcome two new staff writer/organizers, Paul Prescod (left) and Lee Abbott (center), as we wave goodbye to another, Barbara Madeloni (right).
Labor Notes is delighted to welcome two terrific new staff writer-organizers and three great interns as we get ready for our big conference in Chicago in June. We’re also bidding a fond farewell to a retiring colleague.
Paul Prescod, staff writer/organizer, started in January. He has been a public school teacher and rank-and-file activist in the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, and a staff organizer with Teamsters for a Democratic Union. He covers transit workers, K-12 education, and the building trades in the clean energy economy.
Paul was an occasional writer for Labor Notes even before joining the staff. For instance, his story "Construction Unions Grab Hold of Clean Energy Jobs" was part of our special issue last year on jobs and climate change.
Lee Abbott, another staff writer/organizer, started in February. He has been an organizer for SEIU Local 100 in Baton Rouge, a leader in his graduate teacher local at UW-Milwaukee, and a rank-and-file organizer for AFSCME Local 2349, the city employees union in New Orleans.
As a library worker, Lee wrote for us on a workplace response to the pandemic crisis in 2020: "How New Orleans Library Workers Shut It Down." He covers Southern labor organizing and public sector unions, and is still based in New Orleans.
Barbara Madeloni, who joined the Labor Notes staff in 2018 after two terms as reform president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, is retiring gradually. She’ll work part-time in the months leading up to the Labor Notes Conference—and she’ll be there, of course!
In her time on staff, Barbara reported extensively on K-12 and higher education workers and wrote thoughtful reflections on democratic organizing, like her classic advice that newly elected reformers should "Refuse the Soft Handshake" of cooptation into the power elite.
Our bilingual conference interns are Priscila Esparza, based in California, and Rene Cabrera, based in Kansas. Our Union Semester intern is A.J. Schumann, in New York City. We’re lucky to have them!
