Celebrating Labor's Role in New Metro Silver Line
Monday, July 28, 2014
(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
When Metro’s
Silver Line officially opened in Northern Virginia on Saturday, local labor
celebrated its role in the massive transportation project. “What a thrill to
be
part of the grand opening of this project that was partly built with union
labor, will be operated union, and which will benefit working families in our
growing region,” said Metro Washington Council President Jos Williams, who
was
a student at Howard in the early 1960’s when WMATA first discussed the need
to
cover the entire metro region and who now sits on the Metro Washington Airports
Authority (MWAA) Board. Along with dozens of area political
leaders and mass
transit fans, Williams was joined at Saturday’s ribbon-cutting by Dennis
Martire of Mid Atlantic LIUNA, a previous MWAA
Board member from Virginia. Phase 1 of the Silver Line -- 11.7 miles of
track with five new stations in
Northern Virginia — included work done by members of LIUNA, Operative
Plasterers and Cement Masons Local 891, Rodmen 201, IBEW Local 26, Elevator
Constructors Local 10, and the Mid-Atlantic Carpenters, among others. “The
work
of transportation is really the work of generations,” said U.S.
Transportation
Secretary Anthony Foxx. “And if we’re not putting those cornerstones in
place
as a nation, we’re not building for the generations to come afterward. So
this
is a time to celebrate the voices of ‘yes’ sounding louder than the voices
of
‘no.’ ” The
extension in Virginia is to expand by an additional 11 miles by 2018,
connecting the rail system to Dulles International Airport. photos:
(top
right) Metro driver – and ATU 689 member -- Detrick Washington, who drove the
inaugural Silver Line train Saturday (photo courtesy FOX5TV); (bottom left): Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe
flanked by MWAA board members Warner Session and Jos Williams (photo by
Kathleen McKirchy).