Jeffrey L. Fiedler

            Fiedler was elected President of the Food and Allied Service Trades Department, AFL-CIO (“FAST”) in September 1996.  This constitutional department of the AFL-CIO represents 10 unions with a membership of 3.5 million in the United States and Canada.  These unions are primarily in the service sector.  The focus of departmental activity is organizing, bargaining and international affairs

            He serves as a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council committees on International Affairs, Immigration, Organizing, and Strategic Approaches.   He is also on the Board of Directors of the Consumer Federation of America, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Pacific Council on International Policy.     

            In 1992, Fiedler co-founded the Laogai Research Foundation; an organization devoted to studying the forced labor camp system in China.  When the Foundation’s Executive Director, Harry Wu, was detained in China in 1995, Fiedler coordinated the public campaign to win his release.

            Fiedler has testified on behalf of the AFL-CIO before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the House International Affairs Committee and its various subcommittees, as well as the Trade Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee concerning China policy.  He attended three of the American Assembly conferences on China sponsored by Columbia University and has participated in Council on Foreign Relations task forces and study groups on China.  He has been interviewed on CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN and CNBC regularly on China policy, international trade issues, human rights, and child labor.

            During the past decade Fiedler has traveled frequently to China and Hong Kong   as well as Indonesia and Thailand and frequently attended meetings in Europe of the International Union of Food Workers, an organization of over 300 food worker unions from some 115 countries.