Drexel Hill—Sheamus Bonner, currently an Army Reservist who served as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division and has been deployed overseas four times to places including Korea, Bosnia and the Middle East, is running for State Representative in the 163RD State House District in Eastern Delaware County. Sheamus Bonner, a Corrections Officer and member of the Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers’ Association (PSCOA), who had to step down from his state job while running for office in order to comply with the Hatch Act, is a Democrat who decided to run because he wants to increase public education funding, lower property taxes for working people and protect working families and union jobs.
“Whenever I walked into work, I knew my union had fought hard so I could have good wages, good benefits, and a safe work environment. I want to go to Harrisburg so that every working man and woman in Pennsylvania can have those things too,” said Bonner.
For Sheamus Bonner organized labor has been a way of life. Aside from being a union member himself, Sheamus is in the third generation of his family to belong to unions. His grandfather was an Irish immigrant and TWU Local 234 member and shop steward who worked for the Philadelphia public transit system before the formation of SEPTA. His other grandfather was a union machinist at the Philadelphia Gear Works who served as a shop steward. His father, Phillip “Knute” Bonner is a WWII veteran who fought at the Battle of the Bulge, who worked for IBEW Local 126 before a long career as a Philadelphia Police officer and FOP Lodge 5 member. After leaving the force, Sheamus’s father worked for the Pennsylvania Treasury Dept. and was a member of AFSCME. Many of Sheamus’s brothers, sisters, cousins and in-laws have been union members, belonging to unions like Plasterers Local 8, IBEW Local 98, the Carpenters, Teamsters Local 463, IAFF Local 22, FOP Lodge 5 and Lodge 19.
Sheamus Bonner’s message of job creation, protecting collective bargaining rights for all workers, and opposing right-to-work legislation and privatization has attracted many unions. Sheamus Bonner has been endorsed by his union, the Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers’ Association, as well as Teamsters Local 107, Teamsters Local 312, Ironworkers Local 401, UAW Local 1069, USW Local 12698, Elevator Constructors Local 5, TWU Local 234, IBEW Local 614, APSCUF, FOP PA Lodge 112 and the Association of Civilian Technicians Chapter 52.
