A puzzlement for local labor leader

Maybe, on Labor Day, at the head of the annual Labor Day parade of union members - the T-shirted battalions of union teachers, truck drivers, trash crews, postal workers, hospital dieticians, building engineers, stagehands, and riggers - Patrick J. Eiding will be able to forget, for a moment, the relentless union bashing he often encounters.

To Eiding, 73, president of the Philadelphia Council of the AFL-CIO, a federation of about 100 Philadelphia-area union locals, it seems so frustratingly backwards.

Why, he wonders, are people angry at workers who have good union jobs with good benefits? Instead of being angry at those people, why aren't they more angry that their own jobs don't pay decent wages and benefits? "The jealousy factor in our country kills us," he said.

Question: How do you explain unions' decline?

Answer: There was a time in Philadelphia when you could walk to work and almost every corner had a factory and almost every factory had a union. Those businesses left. The factories went overseas.

Q: So what's the response?

A: If a person's working, we should be out there representing them - the fast-food people, the immigrant workers who are working in dark, dank places and nobody is watching out for them.

Q: Why do unions encounter so much hostility from the ultra-right and big-business interests?

A: Because we're the only threat to their power. We're the last bastion of a voice for working people.

Q: Are there examples of companies and unions working together?

A: Every time you went to a refinery, you had to have a drug test. Suppose [a worker] goes to a refinery and works for seven days and then he goes to a different refinery. He had to have another drug test. We put together a card, [which shows whether the worker passed a recent screening]. You can swipe it and go from refinery to refinery. The refineries saved millions of dollars. That was our idea.

Q: You sit on many boards - United Way, the Urban Affairs Coalition, National Association of Workforce Boards. Why?

A: I feel very strongly that if labor is not at the table, they are always knocking at the door later to get in.

Q: How did you get into the union?

A: I had a brother who was working in the insulator and asbestos union.

Q: As soon as you became a journeyman, you were named a foreman.

A: I expected a full day's work. If you didn't work, you weren't going to be with me. What the world doesn't realize, the employer has to make money or he'll go out of business and then you don't have any place to work.

Q: Sometimes the building trades get a bad rap.

A: The sad part is that people don't understand how construction works. When people get terminated, the employer makes the decision, not the union.

Q: People slam the building trades for nepotism and not being diverse.

A: People from both sides make that decision, not just the union. On an [apprentice] board, there are three employers and three union folks. People say [unions] lean toward nepotism, but it may be that ABC Insulation Co. has a top-notch guy whose son wants to get into the union. That happens.

Q: Are you handy at home?

A: Just a couple years ago, I changed all the bathrooms, put new vanities in. I'm a little slower than I used to be.

Title: President, Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO, since 2002.

Home: Torresdale.

Family: Wife Liz; daughters Cheryl Best, 48; Joan Bernard, 45.

Education: North Catholic High School, GED from U.S. Army.

Union: Insulators and Asbestos Workers Local 14. Led the local for 29 years.

Chief charity: Asbestos Workers Mesothelioma Fund.

Up next: Develop younger leadership in union ranks; take up the guitar.

With his hands: Built an addition to his house. Can fix cars.

In the car: Singing "Old Shep" by Elvis Presley.

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Office: Center City.

What: Federation of more than 100 union locals representing many trades and professions.

Combined members: More than 100,000.

Structure: Nonprofit, local branch of the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor federation.

Revenue: $912,000.

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Ten things Pat Eiding wants to tell you about unions. www.inquirer.com/jobbing

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