AFL-CIO Vice President Michael O'Brien
March 08, 2007
Las Vegas
AFL-CIO Executive Council statement
Ever since AFL-CIO Vice President Michael O’Brien was hired as a Bristol Township, Pennsylvania, school bus driver some 35 years ago and joined Transport Workers (TWU) Local 282, the union movement has been his life. He became a shop steward and was elected to his local union’s Executive Board and then as its President. In 1983, he joined the TWU international staff as an organizer and rose through the union to become Transit Division Representative, Transit Director, Vice President and Executive Vice President. After more than a generation of service to his union, his TWU sisters and brothers chose him as their International President.
Through the years, brother O’Brien has helped leaders of TWU locals negotiate more than 100 contracts for transit properties, municipalities, school districts, universities and utilities. He led a highly publicized strike of food service workers against the anti-union Marriott Corp. And he has helped lead countless political campaigns for candidates who support working families.
As Vice President of the AFL-CIO, O’Brien has contributed enormously to the Executive Council as a member of the committees on Civil and Human Rights, Member Education and Training, Organizing and Article XX Appeals.
But throughout his career as a trade unionist, his heart and soul have been in organizing—helping more working people join the union movement. In 1983, he and his fellow TWU organizers went to Dallas to begin organizing workers in a series of regional commuter airlines that eventually became American Eagle. He later helped organize many more workers in school districts and municipalities in New Jersey and Georgia. He always has acted on his belief in the pivotal importance of organizing for TWU and the rest of the union movement.
On behalf of the women and men of the unions of the AFL-CIO, the Executive Council expresses its appreciation to Michael O’Brien and thanks him for his extraordinary service and devotion to the members of the TWU and the entire AFL-CIO.