(The following story by Danny Jacobs appeared on The Gazette website on January 30.)
SILVER SPRING, Md. — Bill Scheuerman grew up in a working-class community in Staten Island but was planning to become a lawyer after college. He was not sure if law school was for him, however, so he took a year off to work on the railroad. He never went to law school.
‘‘I’m comfortable with working people,” said Scheuerman, 62, the new president of the National Labor College, located off New Hampshire Avenue in the Hillandale neighborhood of Silver Spring.
Scheuerman’s job is to attract working people to the only degree-granting institution in the country for union members as the college adjusts its mission in a global marketplace by emphasizing the importance of developing brains and not the brawn typically associated with unions.
‘‘You don’t need a crystal ball to know the labor movement is hurting, and the National Labor College could be the heart of a new labor movement,” he said.
Scheuerman came to the NLC at the beginning of December to replace Susan J. Schurman, who stepped down June 30 after a decade as president to return to an administrative position at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
Scheuerman spent the previous 14 years as president of the United University Professions, which represents 33,000 faculty and staff members in the State University of New York system, where he first worked as a political science professor. Scheuerman also served as a vice president with the American Federation of Teachers and on the executive board of the New York State United Teachers, a 600,000-member union.
Having to answer to so many constituents taught Scheuerman how to deal with people, especially those expecting results from their dues, which he compared to students paying tuition.
‘‘You better deliver and you better [do it] as efficiently and quickly as possible,” he said.
Union membership has steadily dropped since tracking began by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1983, when a fifth of all wage and salary workers belonged to unions. In 2006, the latest year of available data, only 12 percent of workers were union members.
But Scheuerman believes the NLC, which attracts union members from across the country, can be the heart of a revived labor movement by becoming an ‘‘intellectual center,” educating workers and giving them the skills to compete in a 21st-century global economy.
Graduates, in addition to finishing their bachelor’s degrees, learn skills to build and advance their unions while ‘‘raising the floor” on the knowledge needed by union members, spokesman Matt Losak said.
‘‘When we were an industrial-based economy, muscle power really counted,” Scheuerman said. ‘‘We’re now … an economy that is informational and intellectually based. You’ve got to develop the brain.”
The college has added courses to address the future of the labor movement, including health care bargaining, labor in the global economy, computer skills and bio-terrorism emergency response. It has also refurbished its campus, highlighted by the $26 million Lane Kirkland Center, now the hub of the campus with an auditorium, conference rooms and administrative offices.
John J. Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, which founded the college as the George Meany Center for Labor Studies in 1969, said he was impressed with Scheuerman’s ideas for the college. Sweeney is also chairman of the Board of Trustees for the college, which was renamed in 1997 after it became an independent institution.
‘‘It was important to select a president with a clear vision of the future and the role of labor education in this challenging environment,” he said. ‘‘He was the right presidential candidate to build on the progress the National Labor College has made the last few years.”
Scheuerman has already met with faculty and staff and asked for input on how the college is run, said Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich, a professor who served on the search committee.
‘‘It’s very encouraging to us that he has shown interest in getting hands-on experience with our institution,” she said. ‘‘He has been very available and very enthusiastically involved.”
Scheuerman wears his enthusiasm on his face with an ever-present smile. He was extroverted and personable as he greeted union workers outside the NLC’s cafeteria one day earlier this month, cracking jokes with an ironworker from California and reminiscing with a locomotive engineer from New Jersey who belonged to the same local union as Scheuerman.
Scheuerman is just as friendly with the local community, which he invites to use the college’s 47-acre campus. Occasionally, he will approach someone reading on a bench on campus and ask what union he or she belongs to, only to find out the person lives nearby and was using the campus as a park.
‘‘I say, ‘Feel free to use the park. It’s your park,’” he said.
Scheuerman has a similar philosophy about the NLC and its relationship with union members. ‘‘This is something all working people should be proud of,” he said. ‘‘This is your home. This is where you belong.”
About the National Labor College
The AFL-CIO founded the National Labor College as the George Meany Center for Labor Studies in 1969. Since then, more than 200,000 union members have taken courses, participated in training sessions or earned degrees, spokesman Matt Losak said.