Rex Hardesty, 67; Chief Spokesman for AFL-CIO in 1980s
Rex Hardesty, 67, chief spokesman for the AFL-CIO during the 1980s and early 1990s, died Sunday of complications from leukemia at a hospital in Bethesda, Md.
Hardesty worked for the AFL-CIO from 1981 to 1995, during the time Lane Kirkland was president. The last eight years there, Hardesty held the post of director of information.
His time with AFL-CIO coincided with the overall decline in the number of union members and the dismissal by President Reagan of 12,500 striking air traffic controllers in 1981.
A native of Tulsa, Okla., Hardesty lost his left eye in a childhood accident. He spent six years studying to be a Roman Catholic priest, and attended Benedictine Heights College and the University of Tulsa before turning to journalism in the sports department of the Tulsa World.
He moved to Washington, D.C., in the mid-1960s to work for the Washington Star on its sports copy desk.
He worked briefly for the Communications Workers of America before joining the AFL-CIO in 1969 as editor of its monthly journal. He moved up to director of information in 1987.
After retiring from the AFL-CIO, he was a special assistant to the president of the International Union of Electronic, Electrical, Salaried, Machine and Furniture Workers.
He later was an editorial consultant to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
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