Labor FilmFest Co-Founder Tony Mazzocchi Inducted into Labor Hall of Honor

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)DC Labor FilmFest co-founder Tony Mazzocchi was inducted into the U.S. Department of Labor's Hall of Honor on June 5 in recognition of his tireless advocacy for worker safety and health. Mazzocchi died in 2002. His struggle to address the toxic exposure of tens of thousands of workers led to the passage of the US Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970.  Click here for a tribute by Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and here for Mark Caitlin’s video exploring the full range and scope of Mazzocchi’s vision of working class empowerment. “Tony, no doubt, would have found the whole induction somewhat bittersweet,” notes his colleague Mark Dudzic, “given the incapacity of the Department of Labor to advance a workers agenda and the hamstringing of the agencies -- OSHA, EPA and the Chemical Safety Board -- that Tony's activism helped create despite the fact that they are all led by good people who were shaped by Tony's work.” Dudzic directs the Debs-Jones-Douglass Institute, which Mazzocchi founded to advance “a society in which equality of opportunity will be assured” through many approaches, including culture; DJDI co-presents the DC Labor FilmFest with the Metro Washington Council and the American Film Institute.