Anti-war rally at AFL-CIO

About 200 union members held a rally in the national AFL-CIO building in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 24 and then marched as a contingent to the main anti-war rally. Nancy Wolforth, a lesbian labor activist on the AFL-CIO’s Executive Council, welcomed them to the building.

Wolforth, co-president of Pride at Work, an official lesbian, gay, bi and trans constituent group within the labor organization, is secretary treasurer of the Office and Professional Employees International Union.

Fred Mason, president of the Maryland and District of Columbia AFL-CIO, explained the role that labor should play in building the anti-war movement.

Chris Silvera, chairperson of the Teamsters National Black Caucus and an East Coast convener of the Million Worker March, raised the need to strike against the war and discussed a call for actions on Dec. 1-3.

Significant contingents participated from AFSCME DC 41 in Philadelphia, the Midwest district of UNITE HERE, and the Professional Staff Congress, an AFT local that represents university teachers in New York.

Many participants felt the rally, organized by US Labor Against the War, would have been larger except for transportation problems that were plaguing the day, and that the most significant fact about it was that it took place in the AFL-CIO headquarters.

—Photo and story by G. Dunkel