On June 1, I sent a registered letter to AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, formally announcing that I am a candidate for one of the 43 seats on the AFL-CIO Executive Council in the election that will take place at the Federation’s quadrennial convention on September 14-17 in Pittsburgh.

What is unusual about my candidacy is that I am the only rank-and filer in labor history who is forcing  the incumbent labor leadership to hold a formal election  for  the Executive Council, with a printed ballot and adherence to legal election procedures.

Even more unusual, I shall be  95 years old this June, the oldest labor candidate to run for national office. Among my current activities, I write three columns a week for a labor audience on the Internet and have never missed a single column.

 My baptism in the labor movement began during the Great Depression, in 1933,  when  I  became  the leader of a bitter four-month strike. A few  years later, I  was named editor of an independent labor weekly, where I  reported on the CIO’s organizing campaigns and legislative victories.

For more than 70 years, I have  served the labor movement  in various capacities: as an organizer,  journalist, labor professor, pamphleteer,  lecturer and union adviser, with a lifetime of advocacy for union democracy and worker rights. I think I am worthy of being elected to the 43-member AFL-CIO Executive Council.