Australian Journal

I’ve just completed a full week in Victoria—a state in southern Australia.  It’s been packed with speaking engagements and meetings and quite successful. I’m now settling into the culture.  I’m starting to learn the local language—a little more complex than I thought. First of all—I’m in Austraaaaaalia, not Australia. A football game is really something [...]

Australian Journal

  I was invited to Australia by the Foundation for Sustainable Economic Development to speak to a mix of associations and organization about the vision, programs and experience of the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council.  The Foundation’s Executive Director, Max Ogden, is a veteran trade union leader who has done pathbreaking work in redefining the opportunites [...]

Speaking the Language of Transformation

Three decades ago, the political scientist James MacGregor Burns divided styles leadership into these categories: “Transactional“: “…one person takes the initiative in making contact with others for the purpose of an exchange of valued things.” And “Transformational“: “…when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one [...]

Bill Clinton: “Five million people could go to work tomorrow” if trained for available job openings

On September 19, former President Bill Clinton told Meet the Press that “there’s a skills mismatch. The jobs that are being opened don’t have qualified people applying for them. We need a system to immediately train them to move into that job… There are five million people who could go to work tomorrow if they [...]

Labor Research Review Online

The Cornell ILR School has made the entire contents of Labor Research Review available on-line at  http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/lrr/

Manufacturing “Renaissance” Underway — How Do We Sustain It?

From the Chicago Tribune, March 29th: Improbable as it seems, the brightest spot so far in the nation’s spotty economic recovery is a sector long considered all but dead:  good, old-fashioned manufacturing. Factories are churning… “We could have a renaissance here,” said Ron Bloom, President Barack Obama’s manufacturing czar…. Fed Reserve Chair Bernanke said, “Indeed… [...]

Dan Swinney on Beyond the Beltway this Sunday

Dan Swinney, executive director of CLCR and the CMRC, will be a guest on the national radio show Beyond the Beltway with Bruce Dumont this Sunday, November 22nd. Dan and Bruce will join Tim Aeppel of The Wall Street Journal to discuss how to invigorate the American manufacturing sector, especially in light of the recession. Listen live [...]

The High Road and Urban Planning: Swinney Challenges Graduate Students at Cornell

On October 30, CLCR Executive Director Dan Swinney gave a presentation at a Cornell University School of Architecture and Urban Planning colloquium. The event was organized by Dr. Pierre Clavel, noted urban development guru and author of Reinventing Cities: Equity Planners Tell Their Stories. Swinney summarized the industrial retention efforts of CLCR and the frequent [...]