The United Way and the AFL-CIO share core values that are at the center of the organizations’ long partnership, United Way of Tarrant County CEO Tim McKinney told delegates at the recent Texas AFL-CIO convention.

McKinney said that the values and aspirations found in the national AFL-CIO constitution mirror those of United Way.

The AFL-CIO constitution states that work is what we do to better ourselves, to build dreams and to support our families. But it says work is more than that. Work cures, creates, builds, innovates and shapes the future. Work connects us all. These are very powerful words and United Way shares this value.

Read McKinney’s full remarks.

Since 1946, the AFL-CIO and United Way Worldwide have enjoyed a cooperative relationship through which the labor movement and United Way at the state and local level provide services to union members, our families and our communities.

The AFL-CIO and United Way work together to:

• Solicit contributions from workers through payroll deduction, which account for about two-thirds of the funds that United Way raises each year.
• Train union members to assist co-workers and their families with information about available local services and to refer them to the appropriate organizations.
• Recruit, train and help place members of organized labor on the decision-making bodies of health and human-service organizations. This is done at the national, state and local levels.
• Provide a staff of more than 160 full-time AFL-CIO Community Services liaisons to serve as links between their state federations and central labor councils and United Way in 165 communities across the United States. In addition, 18 local labor agencies and four state labor agencies receive direct United Way support.
• Coordinate, lift up and promote community services activities of union members in the community.