Labor On The Move: Parks Retires

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)Longtime AFL-CIO staffer James Parks (l) is retiring. Parks – a frequent byline on AFL-CIO Now blog posts -- has been at the AFL-CIO for 21 years, arriving there after working for the Baltimore Sun, Cincinnati Enquirer and  black weekly newspapers in Louisville, Ky., Memphis and Pittsburgh. “My first encounter with unions was at Gannett’s newspaper in Cincinnati when my colleagues in the newsroom tried to organize a unit of The Newspaper Guild,” says Parks. “I saw firsthand how companies pull out all the stops to prevent workers from forming a union.” Parks, a journalist by trade, has also been a seminary student, drug counselor, community organizer, event planner, adjunct college professor and county bureaucrat. “My proudest career moment, though, was when I served, along with other union members and staff, as an official observer for South Africa’s first multiracial elections.” Photo by Chris Garlock