AFL-CIO President John Sweeney: Solidarity Is Our Way of Life
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| AFL-CIO President John Sweeney gives his final keynote to convention delegates. |
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| Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Bill George (above) and former Pittsburgh Steeler Franco Harris (below) help open the AFL-CIO Convention. |
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With the convening of the 26th AFL-CIO Constitutional Convention this afternoon in Pittsburgh, nearly 2,000 delegates, alternates and guests took part in the formal opening ceremony and paid tribute to retiring AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. Following greetings by Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Bill George, Jack Shea, president of the Allegheny County [Pittsburgh] Labor Council, and former Pittsburgh Steelers player Franco Harris, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka welcomed everyone, noting how great it is to be in Pittsburgh, “the city of bridges.”
And bridges are the perfect illustration of what we’ll be talking about over the next few days. Bridges that connect diverse people, diverse unions, diverse communities and diverse nations. Bridges to cross together, so we can turn around America….Some of the bridges America needs have been burnt—destroyed by years of a rampant corporate agenda embraced by the Bush administration. It’s hard to overstate just how damaging those years have been.
Our unions and the workers we represent are suffering in a historic collapse. But at the very same time, we have historic opportunities. New bridges with a new administration, a new Congress and rivers of hope flowing through the people of our country. Our Convention has a theme for today: We are many, we are one.
That’s our power—and it’s our joy.
Obama to Address AFL-CIO Convention
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President Barack Obama will address our AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh on Sept. 15, marking a major shift in the relationship between the union movement and the White House. For the past eight years, the Bush administration waged war on America’s workers, and union members took a big step toward taking back America by playing a major role in electing Obama and a Democrat-controlled Congress.
Obama will address a convention that will make history by electing a new leadership team. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney is retiring after 14 years at the helm.
Along with Obama, the Sept. 13-17 convention will hear from many prominent political and union leaders, including Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Caroline Kennedy and NAACP President Benjamin Jealous.
