Position: Secretary

Type of Appointment/Position: Presidential with Senate confirmation    

Bill Fletcher Jr.

Current Rating:

Bill was formerly the Vice President for International Trade Union Development Programs for the George Meany Center/National Labor College of the AFL-CIO. Prior to his service at the Meany Center, Bill served as Education Director, and later, Assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO.

Bill's union staff experience started in Boston, Massachusetts as an organizer for District 65-United Auto Workers. This was later followed by his role as the Organizational Secretary/Administrative Director for the National Postal Mail Handlers Union in Washington, DC.

Bill went on to work in the national office of the Service Employees International Union where he held various positions, the last one being Assistant to the President for the East and South.

Bill got his start in the labor movement as a rank & file member of the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America in Quincy, Massachusetts. Combining labor and community work, he was also involved in ongoing efforts to desegregate the Boston building trades.

Bill is a graduate of Harvard University and has authored numerous articles published in a variety of books, newspapers and magazines. He is also the co-author of the pictorial booklet: The Indispensable Ally: Black Workers and the Formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 1934-1941.

While in Boston, Bill served as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, where he was connected with the Labor Studies Program.

Nominating Speech:
Bill Fletcher Jr. is an eloquent spokesperson for a labor movement that recognizes that racial justice and economic justice are inextricably connected.

His cogent article Visualizing A Neo-Rainbow explores the failure of recent populists to animate a diverse progressive movement and the failure of a personality linked Rainbow Coalition of the past to sustain.

Bill Fletcher Jr. continues to be an inspiration for a nascent but growing rainbow. His insights and connections across borders of many kinds qualifies him as a cartographer to our common future.

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