EWL 2016: JC Turner Award for Outstanding Trades Unionist: Jos Williams

Joslyn N. Williams has been a mighty voice for Washington-area unions for nearly four decades. Beginning his career at the Library of Congress, where black employees were consigned to “taking books off the shelves to give to the librarians who were white,” he became an activist, then a leader in the library union, increasing membership threefold. As Director of AFSCME Council 26, he broadened his work to represent federal employees. In 1982, Williams was elected President of the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO, the organization’s first African American and longest-serving president. He also served as the assistant director of the AFL-CIO Department of Field Mobilization, and is a former regional director of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. A consensus builder and master negotiator, Jos has been hailed as the glue holding together a sometimes scrappy and contentious lot of labor activists. For 34 years as president of the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO, he’s championed the right of 150,000 union brothers and sisters to live the American Dream with fair wages, safe working conditions, access to affordable health care and secure retirements.
The 2016 Evening with Labor will be held Saturday, March 12 at the Washington Hilton Hotel: Cash Bar 6:30-7:30pm; Dinner 7:30pm. Dinner Tickets $150 each; tables of ten @ $1,500 each; email [email protected]

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