By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

The NY Daily News recognized DC 37 leaders Shaun D. Francois I, president of DC 37 and Board of Education Employees Local 372, and SSEU Local 371 President Anthony Wells, along with four other Black labor leaders during Black History Month.

Citing the positive impact unions have on the lives of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, union members and their families, the Daily News highlighted Francois and Wells along with New York Nursing Association executive Karine Raymond; 32BJ union President Kyle Bragg; TWU Local 100 Recording Secretary LaTonya Crisp and Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association President Elias Husamudeen.

“Black New York area labor union executives are working daily for their members and helping them forge better futures,” the article reported. “All the execs are committed to maintaining and gaining benefits for their members — everything from help with drug prescriptions to dental, optical and health benefits, legal assistance, childcare stipends and language classes.”

Francois said a visit to DC 37 impressed him as a teenager. He said, “That visit ignited my desire to belong to a union and to fight for my fellow workers.”

Wells, who also serves as an AFSCME International vice president, is an attorney and represents 20,000 Social Service employees. A former caseworker at the Bureau of Child Welfare (now the Administration for Children’s Services, Wells said Larry Glickson, a delegate who became his supervisor, got him involved as union delegate.

SSEU Local 371 represents social service professionals in the Mayor’s Office, district attorney and borough president offices, the Health and Hospitals Corp., NYCHA and other agencies.

“I want to continue to help build and strengthen the union,” Wells told the Daily News. “So many people and their families have benefited from the successes of the union movement, including people of color.”