Perhaps the best-known single project of the Labor Guild is its annual award for outstanding service in the eastern Massachusetts labor relations community. The program was launched in 1967, largely at the prompting of the Guild Chaplain, Father Mortimer (Mort) Gavin, S.J. As a professional mediator, Fr. Mort understood the value of top-notch practitioners, so he created an awards program aimed to:
- provide well-deserved recognition to individual practitioners for excellence and singular service in labor-management affairs;
- offer both inspiration and education to the general labor-management community by showcasing outstanding contributors;
- bring greater visibility to the Guild and all its programs;
- nurture a more bipartisan atmosphere within the Labor Guild,
- contribute critical financial resources to support the Guild’s work.
Naming the Awards after Boston’s highly popular and respected Archbishop Richard Cushing was a natural choice, as he was the founder and an essential advocate for the Guild in the post-war years. The son of a Boston Elevated Railway blacksmith, Cushing worked as a janitor throughout his high school and college years. His working-class roots and life experience informed his long public record of advocating for a robust and responsible labor movement while being sensitive to the legitimate needs of the business community. His involvement in the early years of the Awards Dinner immediately afforded it substantial stature within the community. More telling of the Dinner’s long-term success was the spirit of mutuality he introduced at the first Awards Dinner.
That first dinner attracted over 700 people. Decades later, CGA Dinners still draw hundreds of guests. Yet, as Guild Chaplain Fr. Edward Boyle wrote in 1995: “Numbers alone cannot be the accurate gauge of what this event represents to the labor-management community. That can only be registered in the hearts and minds of those attending, and the fresh commitments and deepened sensitivities nurtured by this event.”
Congratulations to our 2023 awardees!
Gary D. Altman
Father Edward F. Boyle Award (Auxiliary)
Arbitrator & Mediator
Steven A. Tolman
Labor Award
President
Massachusetts AFL-CIO
James W. Bucking
Management Attorney Award
Partner
Foley Hoag LLP
Nicole I. Taub, Esq.
Management Award
Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor for Policy and Legal Affairs
Office of the Police Commissioner, City of Boston