For the first time in 34 years, Joslyn N. Williams’s name will not appear on the officer election ballot for the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO, which is scheduled to elect new leadership February 22. Williams, the longest-serving and first African American president of the Labor Council, recently announced that he would not run again for the position he has held since 1982. “I am just stepping down, not stepping away from the labor movement,” said Williams. “It’s time for someone else to move the work forward. I plan to redirect my energy from the battles of the metropolitan Washington area to the global arena.” Go to dclabor.org for our complete report on Williams and his legacy.
Weather permitting, the Metro Washington Council will meet tonight at 6:30 pm at the AFL-CIO to nominate leadership for the next three years; for details and the latest local labor events -- including weather-related updates -- go to dclabor.org and click on calendar. Here’s today’s labor history: On this date in 1851, Sojourner Truth addressed the first Black Women’s Rights convention. In 1904, 200 miners were killed in a horrific explosion at the Harwick mine in Cheswick, Pennsylvania. Many of the dead still lie entombed in the sealed mine to this day. On this date in 1915, the Supreme Court upheld “Yellow Dog” employment contracts, which ban membership in labor unions. Yellow Dog contracts remained legal until 1932. Today’s labor quote is by Sojourner Truth: "“You have been having our rights so long, that you think, like a slave-holder, that you own us. I know that it is hard for one who has held the reins for so long to give up; it cuts like a knife. It will feel all the better when it closes up again.”
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