Chavez-Thompson Honored as Beloved Champion for All Workers

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/03/24/chavez-thompson-honored-as-beloved-champion-for-all-w
orkers/

by James Parks, Mar 24, 2008

Hundreds of people turned out last week in the nation’s capital to honor one of the union movement’s most beloved leaders, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Emerita Linda Chavez-Thompson. The dinner honoring Chavez-Thompson also served as a fund-raising event for the six AFL-CIO constituency groups.

Chavez-Thompson, who stepped down as AFL-CIO executive vice president last September to return home to San Antonio and be with her family, says the constituency groups are critically important to the union movement:

Together, we can create a community where we all are treated with dignity, regardless of their sex or skin color or orientation, regardless of whether their family came here on a slave ship or the Mayflower 400 years ago or through Ellis Island at the turn of the century or from Central America last year.



Linda Chavez-Thompson and her granddaughter Lydia Maria Garcia


She is the first person to hold the office of executive vice president and the first person of color to hold one of the top elected offices at the AFL-CIO. She was elected in 1995 after serving in a series of leadership roles in AFSCME and on the AFL-CIO Executive Council.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said of Chavez-Thompson:

Linda truly believes that our dream for America will come true only when every working person in our movement and every working person outside our movement has a voice and a real chance to be heard and is treated with dignity and justice.

Linda Chavez-Thompson led the AFL-CIO to broaden its position on immigration, to undertake its continuing drive toward diversity and inclusiveness and to our New Alliance change process. She has been a huge advocate for our constituency groups and a strong sister to so many outside groups and allies.

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka called Chavez-Thompson his “sister and friend.”

I’ve had the privilege of working with Linda for the past 12 years. She is a bold and outspoken advocate for women and minorities and has spent her career pursing equality for all workers in this country. I will miss her greatly but wish her a well-deserved and happy retirement.

FULL story at link.