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The AFL-CIO union movement represents 12.2 million members, including 3.2 million members in Working America, its community affiliate. We are teachers and miners, firefighters and farm workers, bakers and engineers, pilots and public employees, doctors and nurses, painters and plumbers—and more.
Working America, community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, is a powerful force for working people. We combine the strength of 10 million union men and women and millions of workers without the benefit of a workplace union who share common challenges and goals to fight in communities, states and nationally for what really matters–good jobs, affordable health care, world-class education, secure retirements, real homeland security and more.
PA AFL-CIO
900,000 working men and women in Pennsylvania are represented by 51 International Unions, with 1,422 Locals in all of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties.
Much of the work of organized labor in Pennsylvania is conducted and coordinated by 34 regional Central Labor Councils (CLCs) accross the state.
Pennsylvania’s Manufacturing Crisis
Since 2000 Pennsylvania has lost about 180,000 manufacturing jobs. Because manufacturing jobs have often been among the best paying jobs in the state, the impact of this job loss on communities across the the sate has been significant.
The Pennsylvania economy is generating new jobs, but at one of the slowest rates in the nation and in spite of recent business tax cuts.
According to data from the Keystone Research Center, Pennsylvania’s newer jobs are not paying as much as the jobs the state is losing.
Since the beginning of the recession in Pennsylvania (March 2001), sectors with lower wages have added jobs and sectors with higher wages have lost jobs. The nonagricultural industries whose wages exceeded the statewide average annual wage in 2002 lost a total of 5.3 percent of their jobs. Sectors where wages were below the statewide average increased their employment by 2.9 percent.
Every year the Keystone Research Center issues a comprehensive report on the state of working Pennsylvania that pays close attention to conditions that bear directly on the quality of life for the Commonwealth’s working families.
For more information on the state of the Pennsylvania economy, visit The State of Working Pennsylvania Web site:www.stateofworkingpa.com
Union Veterans Council
The AFL-CIO launched its first-ever Union Veterans Council in July 2008 to bring together union veterans on the issues that matter most to veterans, their families and working men and women.
The purpose of the Union Veterans Council is to bring together union leaders and union members who are veterans to speak out on veterans’ issues and influence public policy to improve the quality of life for U.S. veterans and their families. The two primary areas of focus for veterans are access to good jobs and access to quality health care.
The Union Veterans Council will hold government officials, candidates and elected officials accountable to the needs of military veterans and their families. The UVC will make our positions on veterans’ issues known to candidates for public office and support the appointment of labor-friendly veterans to government agencies at all levels. The UVC will also encourage union veterans to take leadership roles in other veterans’ organizations and will strive to form coalitions and alliances with other veteran groups around union veterans’ issues.
