Labor & Employment Law

Next Up with Lee Camp and Jeremy Redleaf

By Tula Connell

The 400-some participants at the first-ever AFL-CIO Young Worker Summit were hard at work all weekend, sharing their ideas with us and with each other as they strategized ways to move the union movement forward. But they also had fun.

Two comedians, Lee Camp and Jeremy Redleaf, entertained the crowd, which met June 10?13 here in Washington, D.C.

Camp, a political activist whose Friday evening routine traversed from Einstein to Gov. Rick Perry, and from breast cancer to death row, emphasized the role of humor in grassroots activism.

“Comedy?can take your one voice out of a million and make it 10, make it 20 make it a 30 voices–multiply it a little bit. This isn’t a new idea. Comedy and activism have been around for ages.

Comedy also makes it a little easier to get facts out that make people uncomfortable and that they wouldn’t be listening to if it wasn’t somewhat funny.”

Comedian Jeremy Redleaf, a member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) and a voice on MTV, told the group on Saturday that being an actor is a great way to make a living, but

it wouldn’t be a great way to make a living if there wasn’t a union because the thing about acting is that everybody wants to do it, and if there wasn’t a union, we’d probably do it for free.

And that ain’t no joke.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on June 13, 2010 (boomark / email).