YOUR LETTERS: AFL-CIO celebrates LGBTQIA+ Pride Month

This June, we celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community, and reaffirm our commitment to ensuring equity, dignity, and inclusion both in life and in the workplace. Collective bargaining remains the best tool against discrimination of any kind, which is why the AFL-CIO fights so that working people of all sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions can enjoy the protections of a union contract.

We honor the legacy of queer organizers, whose contributions have too often gone underappreciated and unknown. From Bayard Rustin’s central role in the March on Washington to the ongoing advocacy of Pride at Work, queer leaders have always been at the cutting edge of worker advancements. Still, queer people face ongoing discrimination due to the lack of adequate federal protections in the workplace.

Meanwhile, state legislatures continue to pass extreme, discriminatory laws that restrict both LGBTQIA+ rights, especially trans rights, and the freedom to join a union.

This movement will never tolerate hate and will continue to be a force for progress whether it’s in the courts, on the streets or at the ballot box this fall.

The AFL-CIO proudly stands in solidarity with the LGBTQIA+ community everywhere, this month and always.

LIZ SHULER
President
AFL-CIO

(EDITOR’S NOTE: The annual PRIDE parade will be held on Sunday, June 30 at noon in downtown St. Louis, starting at 10th & Market streets and going west on Market to 15th Street. Many unions will be participating.)