AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond issued the following statement on the passing of former U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman:
We join the entire labor movement in mourning the loss of Alexis Herman. Secretary Herman was a trailblazer and relentless advocate for working people who spent her life championing policies that expanded opportunity.
A daughter of the South who saw the harm of Jim Crow first-hand, she fought early in her career for equal access to public education and apprenticeships. In 1977, she became the youngest-ever director of the U.S. Women’s Bureau under President Carter and, in 1997, the first ever Black American to serve as secretary of labor under President Clinton. At the Department of Labor, she fought to raise wages, ensure safe workplaces and open doors for those who had been shut out of opportunity for generations. Herman was instrumental in the expansion and enforcement of global child labor protections, raised the minimum wage for workers across the country and skillfully mediated negotiations between the Teamsters and United Parcel Service to resolve the nation’s largest strike in two decades.
Herman’s fight for dignity, equity and fair pay lives on in our movement today, and her legacy is our continued fight for a future where every worker is treated with respect and fairness on the job. On behalf of the 15 million workers of the AFL-CIO, we extend our deepest condolences to her family and loved ones.
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