The 1995 election of John Sweeney as president of the AFL-CIO ushered in a new era in the labor movement. On the day of his electoral victory he led an impromptu march up Manhattan’s Fashion Avenue protesting wages and work conditions in the garment industry. Within weeks, he had established a multi-million-dollar fund to finance television and radio commercials, town rallies and telephone campaigns to hammer away at the evils of wage discrimination, job insecurity and union-busting corporations, criticizing the GOP’s candidates and the anti-organized-labor policies of a Gingrich-led Congress.

Sweeney was one of three children born to a couple who emigrated from Co. Leitrim and settled in the Bronx. His father was a city bus driver and a member of the Transport Workers’ Union under the Co. Mayo labor leader Mike Quill. His mother was a domestic worker for a wealthy family in Manhattan.

Sweeney studied economics at Iona College, working at a union job as a gravedigger to pay his way. Upon graduating he worked for IBM. When the opportunity came to take a position with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, Sweeney jumped at it, although it meant a drastic pay cut. He went on to work for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and was soon president of the New York janitors and building worker’s local. He was elected president of the International in 1980. At a time when union membership was shrinking, the SEIU, under Sweeney’s leadership, doubled in size over a 15-year period. The string of Sweeney’s union successes prompted other labor leaders to nominate him for the presidency of the AFL-CIO. Since his election he has designated a third of the AFL-CIO’s annual budget to organize new members over, a two-year period. He created new management posts to create leadership positions for women and minorities as part of his plan to do away with the concept of the labor movement as the domain of white males. In discussing the need to reverse the trend of downsizing and declining wages in order to close the gap between the highest and lowest ranking workers in society, he quotes John F. Kennedy: “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

Active in several Irish organizations, Sweeney has long participated in Irish affairs. In 1995, he accompanied President Clinton on his historic peace mission to Belfast and Dublin. Last year he won the Gold Medal of the American Irish Historical Society.