[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 78 (Thursday, June 13, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1041-E1042]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         EDWARD A. MOHLER: A CHAMPION FOR WORKING MEN AND WOMEN

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. STENY H. HOYER

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 12, 2002

  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, today I want to pay tribute to a trusted, 
long-time friend who, for nearly half a century, has been a true 
champion for working men and women and the cause of organized labor 
throughout the State of Maryland and our great country.
  For 12 years, from 1989 until his retirement in 2001, Edward A. 
Mohler served with distinction and effectiveness as the President of 
the Maryland State and District of Columbia AFL-CIO).
  Ed not only was re-elected to that post three times, but also was one 
of the longest-serving executive officers of a state federation in the 
entire AFL-CIO. Before being elected president by his fellow trade 
unionists, he was elected as Secretary-Treasurer of the state 
federation, serving in that position from 1977 to 1989.
  It's clear to anyone who has observed Ed Mohler over the years that 
the legacy he leaves as a lifelong, dedicated trade unionist is one of 
concrete accomplishment that will endure for years to come.
  In the State Capitol in Annapolis, where I worked with him while 
serving as the President of the Maryland Senate, Ed was instrumental in 
helping organized labor achieve legislative gains in the areas of 
workers' compensation benefits, unemployment insurance benefits, and 
collective bargaining rights.
  Ed also played an important role in passage of the Maryland 
Occupational Safety and Health Act, prevailing wage legislation, 
pension and salary increases, protections for health care workers, and 
right-to-know protections for public safety workers.
  In more recent years, Ed has helped lead the fight to defeat anti-
worker initiatives such as right-to-work legislation and so-called 
``paycheck protection.''
  During his 24-year tenure as an executive officer of the state 
federation, Ed not only helped drive organized labor's policy agenda 
but also strengthened its administration. For example, Ed believed that 
the interests of working men and women would be much better served if 
the state federation maintained a permanent presence in Annapolis. As a 
result, the state federation moved from rental space in Baltimore to 
its current headquarters at the House of Labor on School Street in 
Annapolis, providing Maryland workers with both convenience to the 
State Capitol and prestige.
  But, then, Ed always understood that the cause of organized labor--
ensuring workplace fairness and social justice--could best be advanced 
through our political system.
  After being hired as a cable splicer in 1957, Ed joined the 
Communications Workers of America, Local 2336, and immediately plunged 
into union activism and political campaigning. He has worked in 
political campaigns on behalf of Democrats at the local, state and 
federal levels, including the presidential campaigns of John Kennedy, 
Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey.
  More recently, Ed was elected to serve as a delegate at the 
Democratic National Conventions in 1992, 1996 and 2000.
  Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Ed was immersed in union activities 
and political campaigns that advanced the interests of working men and 
women. He was elected as chair of political activity for CWA, Local 
2108, and then served as chair of the Committee on Political Education 
(COPE) for the Washington Metropolitan Central Labor Council.
  Between 1968 and 1977, the year in which he was elected Secretary-
Treasurer of the state federation, Ed worked as an organizer, 
legislative agent and staff representative for AFSCME International and 
Council 67. In that capacity, he conducted numerous organizing 
campaigns and was a strong advocate for public employees, beginning the 
fight for collective bargaining rights for state and higher education 
employees in 1974.
  While working men and women have been the subject of many harsh, 
unthinking attacks over the years, Ed Mohler has always recognized that 
the immutable truths that lie at the

[[Page E1042]]

core of the American labor movement--fairness, justice, dignity and 
morality--never go out of fashion.
  And that's a tremendous professional legacy to leave for this and 
future generations of workers.
  As Samuel Gompers, the first president of the American Federation of 
Labor, said more than 100 years ago:
  ``To protect the workers in their inalienable fights to a higher and 
better life; to protect them, not only as equals before the law, but 
also in their health, their homes, their firesides, their liberties as 
men [and women], as workers, and as citizens; to overcome and conquer 
prejudices and antagonism; to secure to them the right to life, and the 
opportunity to maintain that life; the right to be full sharers in the 
abundance which is the result of their brain and brawn, and the 
civilization of which they are the founders and the mainstay. . . . The 
attainment of these is the glorious as mission of the trade unions.''
  Ed Mohler has helped keep that ``glorious mission' on course for 
nearly half a century, bettering the lives of working men and women. 
For that, we offer our heartfelt thanks, and wish him and his family--
his wife Barbara, and his sons and their families--the very best in the 
years to come.

                          ____________________