Minneapolis Labor Review wins two awards from International Labor Communications Association

The Minneapolis Labor Review has won two awards from the International Labor Communications Association. ILCA’s annual awards each year recognize the best work produced by the nation’s labor media — for print publications, video, and the web. The recently-announced awards recognize work produced in 2008.

The Labor Review, edited by Steve Share, won second place for general excellence for publications produced by state federations or central labor bodies.

The first place award for the same category: the St. Paul Union Advocate, edited by Michael Moore.

The Labor Review also won a third place award for best editorial or column for Bill McCarthy’s June 17, 2008 column, “The Big Lie: Right Wing Groups Gear Up to Smear Unions, EFCA.”

ILCA’s top award — the Max Steinbock Award — goes this year to Dania Rajendra, who served briefly as Minneapolis Labor Review editor in 2003. She now works as assistant editor at the Clarion, the publication of the Professional Staff Congress at the City University of New York. Her winning story: “At CUNY, adjunct health care is broken.”

Other Minnesota award-winners:

• Insight, published by UFCW Local 789 in St. Paul (Jennifer Christensen, editor), won the first place award for best cover or front page for a local union newsletter.

• Mike Buckso, executive officer of the Minnesota Newspaper Guild, won a second place award for best labor history for a story in the Guild’s national publication, the Guild Reporter, about the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Minnesota Guild (the story also ran in the Labor Review).

• Michael Moore, editor of the St. Paul Union Advocate, won third place for best political action story, “Labor’s New Alignment Boosts Election Effort,” and second place for best cover or front page.

• North Country Carpenter, published by the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters (Michael Kuchta, editor), won second place for general excellence for local and regional union publications with circulation of 20,000-plus.

• The labor news website produced by the University of Minnesota Labor Education Service, www.workdayminnesota.org (Barb Kucera, editor), won a second place award for best website content.

• The University of Minnesota Labor Education Service also won a first place award for a short video, “Steelworkers  Rally Against Toxic Toys” (Randy Croce and Barb Kucera, producers) and a second place award for a short video, “Civil Disobedience,” (Randy Croce, producer).

• The U of M’s Labor Education Service won a third place award for a labor history video, “The Twin Cities Assembly Plant: A Job and a Family” (Randy Croce, Howard Kling, Barb Kucera and John See, producers).

• The St. Paul Regional Labor Federation won an honorable mention for a long video, “Rock-Tenn Workers: Manufacturers of the Midway” (Michael Moore, editor).

• An honorable mention in the multi-media campaign category was shared by the University of Minnesota Labor Education Service, workdayminnesota.org (Barb Kucera, editor), the Minnesota@Work Cable TV program (Howard Kling, producer), and the Minneapolis Labor Review. The multi-media news effort covered SEIU Local 26’s 2008 security officers’ contract campaign.

The awards will be presented next month in Pittsburgh at ILCA’s biennial convention.