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Media Focus on Pittsburgh Local 5’s Training

 September 28, 2009

The AFL-CIO Convention, the G-20 summit and a recent tour of delegates from the National Association of Counties have focused labor and mainstream media attention on the contribution of Pittsburgh Local 5 to the city’s renaissance. 

On September 18, Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato hosted county officials from Arizona, Maryland, Florida, New Jersey, Georgia and Ohio on a tour of Local 5’s apprenticeship training center. 

In an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Edwin Rosado, legislative director of the National Association of Counties, says, “This is the side of a union that you never see.  How they create good-paying jobs that are the basis of what makes a middle class.”

One week earlier, members of the International Labor Communications Association visited the training center and interviewed several young apprentices on how their training will help them survive in a difficult economy that has forced many of their peers, including some with college degrees, into low-paying jobs.

The labor journalists, who were in Pittsburgh attending ILCA’s biennial conference prior to the start of the AFL-CIO Convention,  included IBEW members from local unions in San Francisco and Chicago and communications specialists from the International Office.