Conducted October 22, December 30 and 31, 1999. Interviewer David Bacon, The Progressive. Bill Fletcher is an assistant to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. He was formerly the education director for the AFL-CIO, and led the designing of the Common Sense Economics program, an effort to begin teaching workers about how capitalism works as a system. In the process of this transformation Black workers left their mark, all too often overlooked.
Critics charge that the U.S. labor movement includes too few Black leaders.
Blacks are a major part of organized labor's strategy for rebuilding depleted membership rosters, yet rarely are they in top leadership posts. The Story of Frank Lumpkin, Steelworker . His life story shows us how to get out of the handbasket and start building up a better society. It will take union power. The campaign he's best known for in the Chicago area is the 17-year fight that prevented a giant steel firm and its holding companies from cheating 2,700 workers in a corrupt plant shutdown scheme.