Mazzocchi, Tony

Anthony Mazzocchi (June 13, 1926 – October 5, 2002) was an American labor leader. He was a high elected official of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union (OCAW), serving as vice president from 1977 to 1988, and as secretary-treasurer from 1988 to 1991. He was credited by President Richard Nixon as being the primary force behind enactment of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. While serving as OCAW legislative director in the fall of 1974, Mazzocchi mentored Karen Silkwood, a union activist and whistleblower employed in an Oklahoma plutonium production plant who became, in Mazzocchi’s words, a “union martyr”. In the 1990s, he was co-founder of the U.S. Labor Party.