IAM 41st Grand Lodge Convention delegates heard from the President of the New York City Central Labor Council, Vincent Alvarez, the first full-time President and first Latino President of the Council.
“We’re very proud of the fact that we’re the largest regional labor federation in this country, and we recognize the responsibility that comes along with that,” said Alvarez. “We work hard every day with our affiliates across the city to do what we can to make sure that we’re not only continuing to survive, which is difficult sometimes in this country, but to thrive as well”
Alvarez commended the IAM’s commitment to prioritize organizing to bring new members into the labor movement.
“You have done a phenomenal job organizing. I really want to compliment you, President Bryant, on the victories that you’ve had over the past several years,” said Alvarez.
“If we are going to be successful, whether it’s here in New York City or anywhere in this country, we need to have a growth strategy,” said Alvarez. “We need to expand and grow this labor movement and it’s not going to happen magically, we’re gonna have to do the hard work to organize.”
Alvarez expounded on the strength of collective action and the growing power of working people who stand together against corporate greed.
“Here in the City, we had 70,000 workers who went out on strike in this past year, and we’ve used that power shown in the streets and translated it into strong collective bargaining agreements and contracts,” said Alvarez.
The New York labor leader left IAM delegates with encouragement to be proud union members while in the historically union-strong city.
“Union members built this city, we service this city, we maintain this city, we feed this city, we keep it safe — morning, noon, and night. We make this city work day-in-and-day-out, and the Machinists are a huge part of this city!”
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