Labor & Employment Law

Chavez-Thompson Running for Lt. Gov. of Texas

By Tula Connell

Big shout out to AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Emerita Linda Chavez-Thompson who yesterday announced her candidacy for lieutenant governor of Texas, her home state.

The “Draft Linda” movement swept through Texas, pulling our much-admired former executive vice president out of semi-retirement and onto the Democratic Party slate for state leadership. The first hurdle is the March 2 primary, where she will run against Democratic candidates Ronnie Earle, a former county district attorney, and Austin delicatessen owner Marc Katz.

Ed Sills, communications director of the Texas AFL-CIO, says at her campaign launch, Chavez-Thompson’s campaign made it clear she is running to make changes in Texas, not against the Democratic opponents:

Chavez-Thompson discussed her journey from the cotton fields of West Texas to national office in the labor movement and how the hard work and leadership skills that drove her will translate to a state leadership role. She spoke of the need to emphasize education, health care and other basic priorities.

?With hard work and the right priorities, we can do better,? Chavez-Thompson said at Texas Democratic Party headquarters in Austin. ?For the sake of our families and the future of this great state that we love so much, we must do better. When I am lieutenant governor, we will do better.?

Although Chavez-Thompson retired as the AFL-CIO’s first executive vice president in September 2007, she has continued to champion workers’ rights in her role as head of the Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers (ORIT), the International Trade Union Confederation?s (ITUC’s) regional organization for the Americas. She also will serve as an adviser to state federations and labor councils. Last year, she traveled to Colombia on a delegation that told Colombian President Alvaro Uribe the U.S. union movement cannot support the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement until real progress is made to protect the lives and rights of trade union members.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on January 05, 2010 (boomark / email).