AFL CIO Community Services - Palm Beach-Treasure Coast - (561) 375-6678

Union Members of the Palm Beach-Treasure Coast working together for a Better Community

The American labor movement has a long and proud tradition of community service. Even before collective bargaining, unions took care of their own and helped the community. As unions grew and matured they developed more sophisticated ways to help people and participate in community efforts to help working families and improve community life. Since the creation of the AFL-CIO, unions formalized this tradition with the creation of the AFL-CIO Community Services Program.

From its inception AFL-CIO Community Services has been about helping people by providing assistance to members and others in need through pass the hat collections and by helping people find community and public resources. As well, unions have supported community agencies providing these services with union sponsored volunteer efforts and union endorsed fund raising for these agencies.

Helping people and communities remains at the core of the program. The modern AFL-CIO Community Services Program seeks to address the shortcomings of our public and private systems by providing services to those in need and the inequities of social and economic systems that prevent working families from realizing their full potential. AFL-CIO Community Services can help build capacity in unions and central labor councils to enable unions to more effectively help people by mobilizing for better services, funding those services and bringing about critical changes to enhance opportunities for good jobs and good benefits in our communities. Helping people is more than handing someone a bag of groceries when they are hungry. It’s about creating an environment in which working families can flourish and participate in humane and vibrant communities.

The AFL-CIO Community Services Network is the core of the Program. As a result of an almost 70 year partnership with the United Way, unions have a network of over 225 full time AFL-CIO Community Services staff working with AFL-CIO central labor councils and state federations.

Tags: Community Organization