About Us

What We Do

Chartered by the National AFL-CIO, the Greater Boston Labor Council’s mission is to improve the lives of working families within the 24 communities in our jurisdiction. Our goal is to build a movement of unions and workers to advocate for working family issues in city and town halls throughout Greater Boston. The Greater Boston Labor Council also seeks to reach out to progressive allies within our communities to form coalitions to advance the cause of economic justice. Through our Committee on Political Education (COPE), the Greater Boston Labor Council is actively engaged in the political process. We endorse and campaign for candidates for municipal office who are supportive of the needs of union members and working families.

Good Jobs. Stronger Communities.
Good union jobs mean stronger communities. Union workers earn 28 percent more than nonunion workers and are more likely to receive health care and pension benefits than those without a union. In 2004, median weekly earnings for full-time union wage and salary workers were $781, compared with $612 for their nonunion counterparts. Unions lead the fight today for better lives for working people, such as through expanded family and medical leave, improved safety and health protections and fair-trade agreements that lift the standard of living for workers all over the world. Unions have made life better for all working Americans by helping to pass laws ending child labor, establishing the eight-hour day, protecting workers’ safety and health and helping create Social Security, unemployment insurance and the minimum wage, for example. Today, thousands of workers want to join unions. But most employers fight workers’ efforts to come together by intimidating, harassing and threatening them. In response, workers are reaching out to their communities for help exercising their freedom to improve their lives.

SERVING