Sec.-Treas. Richard Trumka and Exec. V.P. Linda-Chavez Thompson to Join Sweeney Campaign Team for Re-Election at 2005 AFL-CIO Convention

Today I am proud to announce my plan to run for re-election for President of the AFL-CIO, along with Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka and Executive Vice-President Linda Chavez-Thompson, at the AFL-CIO’s next convention in the summer of 2005.

A united union movement is the single strongest force for fairness and justice for America’s working men and women. And that is especially important now, in this gilded era of global corporate greed. It is our absolute responsibility to reach out as never before, and make sure that all workers who want to change their lives through a union get that chance.

Eight years ago, we ran for office calling for an AFL-CIO that focused on changing and growing the labor movement and making workers’ voices heard in their workplaces, their communities, the nation and the global economy. We’ve achieved a lot. We have made growth the number one priority of our movement, more unions than ever are focused on organizing and we are building a movement to defend workers’ freedom to form unions. We have created a political program for the labor movement that is second to none -- a model imitated across the political spectrum. We are changing the debate about trade and globalization and we’re building power for workers in the capital markets. We have created a vibrant new labor movement at the grassroots, helped unite the union movement to stand up for immigrant workers’ rights, and brought thousands of young people into our efforts through Union Summer and campus outreach.

Yet working men and women and our unions face more challenges than ever. We have to escalate our efforts to confront America with its own human rights crisis, the destruction of American workers' freedom to form unions, and escalate our capacity at every level to help workers form unions.  We must create a new industrial policy to stop the hemorrhaging of middle class manufacturing jobs that are the backbone of this country and we must work to extend quality, affordable health care to every man, woman and child in America. The fight for good jobs, secure, defined benefit pensions, civil and workers’ rights and workers’ freedom to form unions has never been more urgent. We face one of the single most anti-worker Administrations in decades, and we must focus our efforts on making sure that the next Administration is one that values working people.

As I travel around the country, I see the energy and excitement it will take to make the fight -- and I see tremendous pride in what we have already done.

Only if we address our challenges together – as a unified labor movement – can we possibly bring about the changes, the growth and the power necessary to win a better standard of living for working men and women and a better America.  

John J. Sweeney, President 
John J. Sweeney was elected president of the AFL-CIO at the federation's biennial convention in October 1995 and has been re-elected twice since then. At the time of his election, he was serving his fourth four-year term as president of SEIU, which grew from 625,000 to 1.1 million members under his leadership. An AFL-CIO vice president since 1980, Sweeney was born May 5, 1934, in Bronx, N.Y.

His trade union career began as a research assistant with the Ladies Garment Workers. In 1960, he joined SEIU as a contract director for New York City Local 32B. He went on to become union president and to lead two citywide strikes of apartment maintenance workers. In 1980, he was elected president of the international. Sweeney is the author of America Needs A Raise: Fighting for Economic Security and Social Justice. 

Linda Chavez-Thompson, Executive Vice President
Linda Chavez-Thompson became the highest-ranking woman in the labor movement when she was first elected to the new position of AFL-CIO executive vice president at the federation's 1995 convention. Born in Lubbock, Texas, on Aug. 3, 1944, Chavez-Thompson was elected to the AFL-CIO Executive Council in 1993.  

At the time of her election, she was vice president of AFSCME and executive director of AFSCME Council 42. In a seven-state district traditionally not friendly to labor—Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah—she steered the union's efforts to a number of successes. Among them: an organizing drive in Texas that brought in 5,000 new members and the passage of a collective bargaining law for public employees in New Mexico. 
 
Richard L. Trumka, Secretary-Treasurer
The youngest secretary-treasurer in AFL-CIO history, Richard L. Trumka was first elected to the post in October 1995 at the age of 46. Born in Nemacolin, Pa., on July 24, 1949, Trumka was elected to the AFL-CIO Executive Council in 1989. At the time of his election to secretary-treasurer, he was serving his third term as president of the Mine Workers.  

At the UMWA, Trumka led two major strikes against the Pittston Coal Co. and the Bituminous Coal Operators Association. The actions resulted in significant advances in employee-employer cooperation and the enhancement of mine workers' job security, pensions and benefits. In 1994, President Clinton named him to the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform to represent the interests of working families. 

Contact: Lane Windham (202) 637-5018