National Labor College Closing
Thursday, November 14, 2013
(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
The National Labor College is closing.
“The College has been facing significant
financial difficulties and the Board
reluctantly decided to accept the inevitability
of our closure,” said NLC President Paula
Peinovich in a November 13 letter. “We do not
have a specific date for closure yet but will
provide information as soon as we can detailing
how the shutdown will proceed. This process
will likely take many months.” The College
has been struggling with financial difficulties
in recent years -- including some $30 million
in debt largely incurred during a
multimillion-dollar campuswide renovation and
expansion effort begun in 2003 -- and last year
announced plans to sell the school’s Silver
Spring campus and continue as a primarily
online educational institution (Labor
College to Sell Campus, Continue Online
4/10/2012 UC). “It’s a huge loss,
there’s no question about it,” Thea Lee,
deputy chief of staff to AFL-CIO president Rich
Trumka, told
Inside Higher Ed. “If it were at all
possible we would maintain it.” The AFL-CIO
provided about 40 percent of the operating
budget for the college, which began as a labor
studies center founded by AFL-CIO President
George Meany in 1969, expanding programs and
facilities over the ensuing years to become the
nation's only accredited higher education
institution devoted exclusively to educating
union members, leaders and staff. “We are
developing a concrete timeline with multiple
options for current students to complete their
degrees in an affordable and accessible way,”
Peinovich said in her letter. "It's
a sad day for labor," said Cet Parks, Executive
Director of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper
Guild. "The NLC has contractual severance
obligations for current employees that they
need to make good
on."
photo: IAM
graduates in 2008