Labor on the Move: Fred Azcarate to Head USAction
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)In a sign of how organized labor is trying to spread its roots more broadly in
the progressive movement, Fred Azcarate, a longtime labor leader who's been
heading the AFL-CIO's jobs campaign, is taking the helm at USAction, a 21-state
federation of community organizing groups. Azcarate (right) was the
longtime director of Jobs with Justice, a national network of groups that
advocates for low-wage workers, before leading the AFL-CIO's campaign on the
Employee Free Choice Act. At USAction, he'll build campaigns on some of the
issues where organized labor is trying to find more progressive allies, like
health care, Social Security, taxes, immigration and voting rights. "I think our
future, not just for labor but for progressives, is around building alliances
between labor and community groups," said Azcarate, 48.”The labor movement
can't win the fights they're engaged in without making alliances in
communities," said Azcarate, the son of a union nurse. "I think we’re in a
crisis. It’s a decades-long attack on working families and their organizations
and their unions, and it's put us in a pretty big hole, but I see hope
there." - adapted from a report in The
Huffington Post; photo courtesy AFL-CIO