AFL-CIO Vice President Duane Woerth
March 08, 2007
Las Vegas
AFL-CIO Executive Council statement
For three decades, AFL-CIO Vice President Duane Woerth has devoted his career to improving the lives of the members of his union, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), the largest pilots’ union in the world. Indeed, he has a long and distinguished career both as a pilot and a union activist. He started out in the U.S. Air Force and retired with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel from the Air National Guard. Currently a B-747 Captain, he has flown at Northwest Airlines for 23 years and before that at Braniff Airlines for five years. In both airlines, he has been an ALPA activist and leader. Capt. Woerth served as the Chairman of the Northwest Master Executive Council, the highest union governing body for the Northwest pilot group. His ALPA sisters and brothers, recognizing his dedication and effectiveness, selected him to be their First Vice President, then Executive Vice President and later President.
His achievements as President of ALPA have been impressive. He organized and merged six pilot groups with a total membership of nearly 12,000, which represented the period of greatest growth in the union's history. Even when ALPA was experiencing a large decline in its dues revenue, he significantly improved the union's financial strength. Under his leadership, ALPA has increased dramatically the political awareness and grassroots involvement of its members. In fact, the participation rate and total contributions to ALPA-PAC, the union's political arm, have doubled. And despite an often powerful right-wing opposition, ALPA’s influence as the voice of pilots has steadily grown in Washington, D.C.
As a Vice President of the AFL-CIO and member of its Executive Council, Capt. Woerth has won respect throughout the union movement as a member of the Federation’s Executive Committee, Vice Chair of the Strategic Approaches Committee and Chair of the Subcommittee on Independent Union Raids. He has been an extraordinary voice on behalf of reform of corporate bankruptcy laws, national security and transportation issues.
On behalf of the women and men of the unions of the AFL-CIO, the Executive Council expresses its gratitude and appreciation to Capt. Duane Woerth for his service and devotion to the members of ALPA and to the union movement.