By The PA. AFL-CIO

– President Bloomingdale welcomed over 100 delegates to the opening general session of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO’s 55th Community Services Institute in Pittsburgh on Wednesday evening. He thanked those union activists in the room for their hard work in building stronger communities through their community services activities but also for helping to defend against the attacks being waged on workers in Harrisburg by right-wing politicians and groups.

“You know the right-wing sees this as their opening. They don’t want us grow again and get strong again. In the past six months, you – along with thousands of local union leaders and workers – have shown our legislators that we are more united than has been witnessed in years. You’ve taken that massive rally held on a very cold morning in January – a moment in history – and turned it into a movement of workers. You and your union brothers and sisters went back home and told your legislators’ offices to support workers and stop the attacks on our jobs, on our pensions and on our rights to strong unions,” Bloomingdale said.

“We cannot separate community services from politics and legislation. They are all connected,” he emphasized. “We are all fighters in this room we don’t run and hide from a fight, we stand up and fight back, that is who we are. We will need to fight just as hard over the next six months as we did in the past six months to protect our jobs our unions while we continue our partnership with the United Way and while we conduct our campaign to elect Tom Wolf for Governor and our endorsed friends to the legislature,” Bloomingdale said.

Secretary-Treasurer Frank Snyder will be joining the group on Saturday to deliver remarks at the Institute’s graduation luncheon.

Jack Shea, President of the Allegheny County Central Labor Council, said that community services is just as important an organizing tool as all of our other programs and activities we do. Jack, who is an organizer, said that people are more likely to remember you for helping them with a personal or family problem than winning a grievance or arbitration award. “From now until November we need to put everything we have into electing Tom Wolf Governor. We’ll have somebody to play shortstop so we won’t have to spend so much on just defending what we already have,” Shea said.

David Fillman, AFSCME Council 13’s Executive Director, urged the 15 freshman delegates to take this important opportunity provided by their unions to learn as much as they can over the next few days and share it with their unions and their membership. “If your union is not already involved in helping people in their community through local union community services, now is the time to start.” Fillman recognized a list of projects conducted by AFSCME members and locals over the past year in which several provided help to veterans who served and defended our country. The Governor’s budget cuts have created additional needs that we must fill. He noted that his union and the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO have made early and unanimous endorsements of Tom Wolf for Governor. “I’m asking you to resolve that making Tom Corbett a one-term Governor is your most important Community Services project for this year,” Fillman said.

Father Jack O’Malley gave the invocation, reciting a statement composed by the workers who participated in a week-long hunger strike in protest to the low wages paid by UPMC. The workers are trying to organize to improve their lives and living standards of the community. Father Jack also noted that we should be protecting the children who are crossing our borders into our nation. “We are a nation of immigrants. I don’t see any Native Americans in this room and there are very few in this country,” he observed.

The Institute which runs through noon on Saturday is also conducting a book drive for underprivileged children. Workshops and general sessions are also focusing on promoting literacy programs in for elementary and middle school students.

Source: http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=4303&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook