Williams and Kann on El Salvador Then and Now

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

One slipped out late at night to meet with trade unionists, the other marched in broad daylight through the center of the city with 80,000 union activists and their supporters. That was just one of the manydifferences between the 1984 visit to El Salvador by Metro Washington Council President Jos Williams (left) and the 2013 visit by Council Assistant Mobilizer Julia Kann(right). The two reported on the changes in El Salvador in a well-attended lunch-time briefing at the AFL-CIO yesterday. Also participating in the discussion were UFCW 1994 Political Director Bob Stewart, who visited the country in 1990, and Alexis Stoumbelis of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), which organized Kann's delegation. Stoumbelis noted that one thing that hasn’t changed is the continued intervention by the United States on behalf of American corporate interests, made evident by the recent passage of the "Public-Private Partnership" legislation (P3 Law Passes Amidst Protest from Social Movement, CISPES blog 5/27/2013) that was the focus of the May Day march Kann attended last month (Labor Photo: Opposing Privatization in El Salvador UC 5/2/2013). - photo by Chris Garlock