'Shanker Lecture' Given By Hong Kong Democracy Leader

The late Szeto Wah, founder of Hong Kong's teachers' union, was the featured speaker at the Institute's Albert Shanker Lecture on May 15, 2002. Szeto, labeled "democracy's foot soldier" by Time magazine, told the Washington, D.C., crowd that Shanker was a mentor from whom he learned how to combine professionalism and labor rights to build a union and how to employ trade unionism to build democracy. In addition to building Hong Kong's largest democratic union, Szeto helped to found Hong Kong's democratic party, leads the alliance that supports and commemorates China’s Tiananmen Square democracy movement, and is a popularly elected member of the Hong Kong legislature.

Read Time Magazine's profile of Szeto Wah.
Download a copy of the full lecture by Szeto Wah, below.