Labor on the Move: Fred Azcarate to Head USAction

(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