The head of Western New York’s Labor Federation is retiring, after a decade in the job.
Unions certainly aren’t what they used to be, but the Labor Federation s sprawl across Western New York includes 145,000 members of constituent unions, public and private, from healthcare to grocery workers. A former Teamsters Local 449 official, Richard Lipsitz said the federation still does the traditional labor patterns, including supporting striking workers. Local strikes that we supported. The Catholic Health campaign we supported. The Verizon strike, which was national. The GM strike, which was a national strike. We helped the BTF and ATU achieve labor agreements, after more than a decade for the BTF and eight years for the ATU. We did organizing campaigns, including at Wendt industrial, Spot Coffee organizing campaign, Lipsitz said.