Kenneth Mason is the director of labor relations at Aramark Corporation, which is a food service, facilities, and uniform service provider to many kinds of clients, including those in healthcare, education, business, and leisure. Early in his career, he was the international vice president of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, a national union which represents builders of tracks, railroads, bridges, and buildings. Thus, because of his experiences on both sides of the table, he is well equipped to communicate with employees, union leadership, and management.
Maureen May
President, PASNAP
Maureen May is a registered nurse and president of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP). She also serves as a vice president of the Philadelphia AFL-CIO Central Labor, as president of the Northeastern Nurses Association (NENA), and the Saint Agnes Alumni Association. Maureen’s passion for safe quality patient care began thirty-seven years ago when she started her bedside career and took an oath to “do no harm.” Advocating for the rights and safety of patients and frontline healthcare workers is the driving force behind her work as a union leader.
What sector does your union service (healthcare, construction, etc.)?
Healthcare.
What are the benefits that unions (your particular union, if applicable) offer their members?
A collective protected voice in advocating for patient safety. Benefits include representation and collective bargaining agreements in which members directly negotiate. PASNAP is the true definition of a member driven union – we are not a service union.
What brought you to organizing and/or the issue of worker advocacy?
The deteriorating conditions at the bedside – IOM’s “To Err Is Human Study” – I was an active participant in that study. 100.000 patients/year were dying from medical error. I took an oath to “Do No Harm.”
How will Pennsylvania’s labor force evolve in the next five years?
Labor is having a great moment right now! With the most recent union organizing success of Amazon workers and the number of striking workers on the picket line this past October, I believe that union density will grow over the next five years.
What kind of impact does organized labor have on local communities?
Organized labor promotes safety and accountability at the bedside and by extension, supports the well being of the community.
Tommy McKiernan
1st Vice President, Philadelphia Firefighters’ and Paramedics’ Local 22
Tommy McKiernan is the 1st vice president of the Philadelphia Firefighters’ and Paramedics’ Local 22 of the International Association of Fire Fighters. Local 22 represents about 4,500 current and retired paramedics, firefighters, EMT’s, and officers of the Philadelphia Fire Department. Local 22 is committed to advising and educating both its members and the general public about fire hazards and fire safety.
Tom Melcher
Business Manager, Pittsburgh Regional Building and Construction Trades Council
Tom Melcher has been the business manager of the Pittsburgh Regional Building and Construction Trades Council since 2018. His responsibilities include supporting the interests of the building trades unions and its members. He is also a member of the Iron Workers Local Union No. 3, which he joined in 1975. Tom is also the vice president and an executive board member of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO.
Albert Mezzaroba
Of Counsel, Genova Burns
Albert Mezzaroba is of counsel for Genova Burns, a law firm with locations in Camden, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is also a member of the Employment Law and Litigation and Labor Law Practice Groups. He started his career in Philadelphia, and his specialty is employment law. Albert is also a member of the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board.
Erica Mulberger
Executive Director, Advance Central PA
Erica is the executive director of Advance Central PA, where she supports Central Pennsylvania’s private sector led Workforce Development Board (WDB) and 9-county Local Elected Officials Board to address workforce demands in partnership with education and economic development. Erica collaborates with the WDB members and other partners to identify training needs of local industry to make innovative, cost-effective system changes to increase the skills of youth and jobseekers. Erica is also responsible for the overall operations of six PA CareerLink® offices plus Advance Central PA’s mobile workforce unit, The Link.
Gerald Mullery
Representative for the 119th District, Pennsylvania House of Representatives
State Representative Jerry Mullery was sworn into the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2011 to represent Pennsylvania’s 119th Legislative District in Luzerne County. Prior to taking office, he practiced law and focused his legal career on helping the injured and disabled. Representative Mullery’s priorities include fighting for good jobs and strong unions, safe neighborhoods, quality schools, low taxes, and environmental protections. Using his personal knowledge and experience to help workers, he serves as Democratic chair of the House Labor and Industry Committee. Mullery resides in Newport Township with his wife, Michele, and their four children: Leah, Lauren, Liam, and Louden. He is a graduate of Greater Nanticoke Area High School, King’s College, and Duquesne University School of Law.
Ross Nicotero
President, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85
Ross Nicotero is the president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85, which represents about 4,500 transit and allied workers in Pittsburgh. Most recently, Ross has facilitated a partnership between the union and the Mon Valley Unemployed Committee where the director of the latter, Barney Oursler, coaches members of the union who have been terminated in the process of applying for unemployment benefits and the like.
Barney Oursler
Director, Mon Valley Unemployed Committee
In 1978, Barney went to work at US Steel’s Irvin Works mill, became a local union officer at United Steelworkers Union Local 2227, and organized the Steelworkers Rank and File Fight Back movement.
As steel and other manufacturing shut down in the region in the early 1980’s, Barney helped found the Mon Valley Unemployed Committee, becoming its coordinator and then co-director. That organization mobilized tens of thousands of workers to pass state and federal legislation over the next 25 years. MVUC leaders wrote and passed the only state law in the country protecting unemployed people from mortgage foreclosure, federal amendments to laws benefitting trade-impacted workers, legislation that eliminated 184,000 ($728 million) welfare liens against PA homeowners, and helped create the Blue Cross Blue Shield Caring Program in 1985 that became the model for Pennsylvania and Federal Children’s Health Insurance Program.
After building a statewide organization responding to Klan and Neo-Nazi activity in the state, Barney was a leader of a four year Living Wage campaign for the Alliance for Progressive Action, then Pittsburgh’s Jobs With Justice chapter.
He became organizing director and then executive director of Pittsburgh UNITED in 2008. That coalition of faith, labor, community, and environmental organizations has successfully won Pennsylvania’s first Community Benefit Agreement, the One Hill CBA, passed historic legislation establishing prevailing wages for service workers, clean construction and stormwater mitigation and in 2015, won legislation for Paid Sick Days for 50,000 city workers, and enacted and funded Pittsburgh’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
The unions, faith, women’s rights, environmental, and peace and justice organizations at the Pittsburgh United Workers Organizing Table in 2015 collectively won union recognition for 5,000 Pittsburgh low wage service workers and $100 million in wages and benefits for those workers. The coalition has conducted a five year campaign organizing thousands of sewer ratepayers to change the regional sewer authority’s $3 billion plan to stop sewage from entering the rivers to a community benefitting, climate protecting, job increasing, green first investment.
In the fall of 2018, Barney returned to staff the Mon Valley Unemployed Committee. Since 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mon Valley Unemployed Committee has been organizing to get hundreds of thousands of unemployed Pennsylvanians benefits in the Fix UC/Pay Benefits Now Campaign.
What sector does your union service (healthcare, construction, etc.)?
All unemployed workers.
What are the benefits that unions (your particular union, if applicable) offer their members?
Advice and representation in appeal hearings if needed (all free).
What brought you to organizing and/or the issue of worker advocacy?
Being an exploited worker when working as a graduate student teaching 1/2 faculty load for 1/10th the salary.
How will Pennsylvania’s labor force evolve in the next five years?
If any of the Republican candidates for Governor win in November, Pennsylvania will become a Right-to-Work-for Less state and unions will be fighting to survive.
Brain Pollitt
President, TWU Local 234
Brian Pollitt is the president of TWU Local 234. He started his career with SEPTA as a bus operator 31 years ago. A staunch unionist, he has served his membership as a section officer, an executive board member, as vice president, executive vice president, and president throughout the years. He’s also on the International and AFL-CIO executive boards. Brian worked his way from the bottom to the top and has been an integral part of negotiations for the last 20 years.
What sector does your union service (healthcare, construction, etc.)?
Public Sector (mass transit).
What are the benefits that unions (your particular union, if applicable) offer their members?
Good wages and great benefits.
What brought you to organizing and/or the issue of worker advocacy?
Being an advocate for the people has always been a part of my makeup.
