National Labor College
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The National Labor College is a fully accredited undergraduate facility affiliated and subsidized by the AFL-CIO to provide its members with the opportunity to receive a college education. Located on a 47-acre campus in Silver Spring, Maryland, its leading program is its unique undergraduate degree program, at which unionists from throughout the United States and Canada attend a single week of instruction in residence per term. The College also hosts numerous educational programs sponsored by individual unions and groups of unions year round, as well as a Master's degree program in conjunction with the University of Baltimore and American University.
The National Labor College was first established as the George Meany Center for Labor Studies in 1969, with an undergraduate program initially sponsored in conjunction with Antioch College. The program became an independent undergraduate institution and was named the National Labor College in 1999, and by 2004 had become fully accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, and the Meany Center officially renamed the National Labor College (George Meany Campus).
The undergraduate program of the College is designed to serve as a finishing program, primarily for those who have already had two years or more of college, or the equivalent of an Associate's degree. The program is conducted in partnership with many individual unions, many of which – particularly in the building trades – have their own apprenticeship programs which are recognized as conferring the equivalent of an Associate's degree. The National Labor College is also home to several HAZMAT and related training programs sponsored by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).
The National Labor College is also home to the George Meany Memorial Archives, the official and acting archives of the AFL-CIO, established in 1987 and also housing the AFL-CIO Library since 1993. The Archives include the papers of numerous labor leaders, the official records of all AFL-CIO proceedings since the founding of the AFL in the 1880s, the archives of numerous union and federation publications, and the records of the various departments of the AFL-CIO. The Meany Archives have been especially indispensable to scholars of the Cold War, as it contains voluminous correspondence relating to past AFL-CIO international activities which remain classified by most national governments.
In the fall of 2006 the new Lane Kirkland Center opened on the National Labor College campus, to provide upgraded facilities expected of a 21st century university, and to greatly expand the College's hosting capabilities. The College hopes to promote the Kirkland Center as "America's union hall". In keeping with that desire, since the split in the AFL-CIO in 2005, the College has made known its intention to continue to serve all sections of the American labor movement, and to implement policies to ensure that it does.
The National Labor College published Labor's Heritage, a scholarly journal of labor history, until 2002.
