(DUNKIRK) – Nearly 30 Representatives of Organized Labor from across Chautauqua County met in Dunkirk earlier this week to begin mapping out Labor’s plans to make the County-wide Democratic Party aware that it wants to be more involved in its decisions, and also set their sites on looking within Labor’s own ranks to run Union Candidates for a host of Elected Offices - as well as Democratic Committee seats in the Cities of Dunkirk and Jamestown and, for that matter, in every County Town and Village.

In a meeting chaired by Dunkirk AFL-CIO Central Labor Council President Doug Stock, representatives from several major Labor Unions - who are part of the newly-created Chautauqua County Labor Coalition - met for two hours at United Steelworkers of America Local 2693’s Union Hall in Dunkirk Tuesday (January 17th) evening.  The Coalition consists of both the Dunkirk and Jamestown AFL-CIO Labor Councils, whose combined Union affiliations represent 5,000 Union Members across Chautauqua County in both the Public and Private Sectors.

Among those Unions represented at the meeting were the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA), the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), the United Steelworkers, the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), 1199 SEIU (Service Employees International Union) Healthcare Workers East and the Public Employees Federation (PEF).

At the end of the meeting, which was covered by WNYLaborToday.com, the Union Leaders and Representatives in attendance agreed on several points of action, including:

• That Organized Labor across Chautauqua County will formally make a request to the County-wide Democratic Party that it have a greater involvement in its overall process;

• That Democratic County Legislators individually meet with the Chautauqua County Labor Coalition and its Member Unions on a regular basis;

• And that the Labor Coalition will begin to recruit Union Members from across the County to run for a variety of Elected Offices, as well as individual Democratic Committees that exist in the Cities of Dunkirk and Jamestown, in addition for open slots on a number of Town and Village Democratic Committees across the County.  Should there be no Democratic Committee in existence in any Town or Village, the Labor Representatives voiced their interest in not only assisting the Democratic Party in creating them, but – again – reaching out to interested Union Members to fill those slots.

During the meeting, a number of Labor Representatives voiced their frustration of “being taken for granted” by the Democratic Party in Chautauqua County, which, they said, underscored the need for the Labor Coalition creating a new plan of action to attack the problem. 

“Democrats are usually the ones that work with the Labor Movement and stand up for our causes.  At the very least, we want an active role within the Party.  It’s another reason why we’re rebuilding our Labor Coalition to push things forward.  We’ve gotten a lot of help from IBEW Local 106 and (its Business Manager) Dave Wilkinson down in Jamestown and more and more of Labor across Chautauqua County are now getting aboard,” Dunkirk AFL-CIO Labor Council President Stock told WNYLaborToday.com.

IBEW Local 106 Business Manager Wilkinson, meanwhile, told WNYLaborToday.com the re-energizing of the Labor Movement across Chautauqua County – which saw at least three individual major rallies held in support of Working People last year in Mayville, Jamestown and Dunkirk, with each attracting a couple of hundred Labor Activists – has “reinvigorated a number of old (Labor) warhorses, who are now speaking so articulately” about the need for Working People and Union Members alike to involve themselves in the process.

But Organized Labor is also upset, Wilkinson added, with those Elected Officials it has endorsed and subsequently supported  in the past who are now in office who’ve sidestepped Union Members who’ve publicly rallied during 2011, and instead chose to enter County and Municipal Buildings “through the back door” to avoid encountering and speaking with them.

“We want to be involved in the Democratic Election Process and we’re now holding ourselves accountable for what’s happened in the past.  Our Elected Representatives need to ask for Labor’s in-put.  We’ve left others to guide themselves and we’re out to change that, and I feel personally responsible for sitting on the sidelines, watching what was happening over the past ten years and pretending not to notice.  We also need to involve our younger Union Members in the process and get them involved too, because they ‘are’ our future.  We’re also going to start running candidates for public office and let me tell you, Labor will not allow having any more races where Republicans run unopposed,” Wilkinson told Your Regional, On-Line Labor Newspaper.