Queens: Working Families United

The labor movement in Queens is still gaining momentum, despite national trends indicating the opposite, the city’s preeminent union leader told The Queens Courier this week.
“The labor movement — especially in Queens County — is strong, as evidenced in the great strides that labor has made with future union members — new Americans,” said Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin, who is also president of the New York City Central Labor Council. “We’re doing a great job of organizing and it’s reflecting in our numbers. New York’s union membership is actually up, despite the national membership shrinking.”
numbers back him up. Nationally in 2004, 12.5 percent of wage and salary workers were union members, down from 12.9 percent in 2003, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau.
But New York had the highest percentage of union membership in the country (25.3) and the second-highest member total (two million). New York also gained union members from 2003.
McLaughlin pointed to a number of efforts that are making this possible, especially here in Queens.
“We are reaching out and working with immigrant groups, who are the future union members in this city and especially here in Queens,” he said. “Whether or not they are members now is irrelevant — their issues are our issues and that relationship is allowing us to get stronger and grow.”
McLaughlin also said that recent events at the national level involving large unions disaffiliating from the AFL-CIO, is not affecting local relationships here.
“I put together a meeting with all of the disaffiliated principals and we reached an agreement that they will be marching in our Labor Day Parade,” McLaughlin said. “The unity that we have gives us a better opportunity to survive this. I look at the glass half full — this disaffiliation is temporary and its also a healthy debate for us to have.”
The disaffiliated unions are the Social Services Employees Union, the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.
“We earn a good income and we negotiate pensions and health care in virtually every public and private sector of today’s city economy,” McLaughlin said. “Those are all indicative a labor movement that is alive and kicking.”
Looking toward Labor Day celebrations, the parade willtake place on Saturday, September 10 and go up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
editrich@queenscourier.com