Summer 2002
Volume 109 - No. 1
Summer 2002
Volume 109 - No. 1
BLE Focus
On top of the Hill
The TTD's strong leadership gives a face and a voice to millions of transportation workers
During its history, three men have served as the President of the TTD: Richard I. Kilroy of the Transportation Communications Union; Walter J. Shea of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; and Sonny Hall of the Transport Workers Union. These three have lead the TTD through a period of turbulence for the labor movement.
The TTD is currently led by Sonny Hall and Secretary-Treasurer Patricia Friend. The Executive Director is Edward Wytkind.
Sonny Hall (right) is International President
of the Transport Workers Union of America, representing more than 100,000
men and women employed in the nation's transportation and allied industries.
Hall was elected to this post at the Union's 19th Constitutional Convention
in October, 1993. Previously Hall had served as President of TWU Local 100,
the largest local union of TWU, representing nearly 38,000 members who operate
the New York City subway system and both public and private bus lines.
Mr. Hall served in virtually every union position from Shop Steward on up. He was named President of Local 100 in May 1985 and subsequently elected to full three-year terms in December 1985, 1988 and 1991. He joined TWU in 1950 as a Bus Cleaner for the old Omnibus Corp. and became a Bus Operator in 1957. In between, he served tours of duty in both the Marines and the Army. Mr. Hall was elected an International Vice President at TWU's 17th Constitutional Convention in September, 1985. He was appointed Executive Vice President by the International Executive Council on January 9, 1989, and was elected to that post for a four year term at the Union's 18th Constitutional Convention in October 1989.
Mr. Hall was elected Secretary Treasurer to the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department in 1995, and he was elected to the AFL-CIO's Executive Council at the Federation's convention in October, 1995. Mr. Hall holds a B.A. from the Cornell Labor College and studied military and criminal law at the University of New Mexico.
He is the son of a retired New York City Bus Operator, now deceased, who served the riding public for 30 years and was an early member of Local 100. Mr. Hall and his wife, Maureen, are proud parents of a son, Kevin Hall.
Patricia Friend (left) is Secretary-Treasurer of the TTD and the International
President of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), AFL-CIO, representing
46,000 members at 26 carriers in the United States. Friend assumed leadership
of the largest flight attendant union in the world in January 1995 and was
elected to her second four-year term in 1998.
Born in the Midwest and raised in Oklahoma, Pat's distinguished career began in 1966 when she became a flight attendant for United Airlines. She brings 30 years of union activism and leadership experience to her role as International President. Her hands-on experience handling grievances, mediations, contract negotiations and union administration led to her being elected to a two-year term as Local Council President at United in Chicago while simultaneously serving in the position of MEC Grievance Chairperson. She was then elected MEC President of United. During her tenure as MEC President, the Union expanded dramatically from 12,000 to 15,000 members before she left office at the end of 1989. Seeking broader experience, Ms. Friend transferred to international flying in 1991 and was based in London where she remained until appointed to the ESOP Committee by United's AFA leadership in early 1993. As Chair of that committee she represented the interests of the United flight attendants in the buy-out plan until negotiations with the company ended and the committee disbanded at the end of September 1994.
In addition to her role as AFA's president, Ms. Friend is one of seven women on the 54-member AFL-CIO Executive Council. As a Council member, she presides as Chair of the AFL-CIO Safety and Occupational Health Committee. She also serves at the Secretary-Treasurer of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO. In addition, she participates as a member of several other AFL-CIO committees, including the Committee on Working Women; Public Affairs; Organizing; Social Policy; International Affairs; and the Committee on the Future (Committee 2000). On the international level, Ms. Friend serves as the Chair, North American Committee/Civil Aviation Section of the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF). The ITF represents over five million transport workers worldwide.
Ms. Friend is based in Washington, D.C. as part of United's international crew and remains on the United seniority list.
Edward Wytkind (right) is the Executive Director of the Transportation
Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD), a Washington, D.C.-based labor organization
representing several million workers in the private and public sectors of
the aviation, mass transit, rail, trucking, highway, longshore, maritime,
and related industries. TTD is the transportation policy and legislative
arm of its parent organization, the AFL-CIO, which represents more than
13 million workers in the United States. Prior to his appointment to this
post in the fall of 1991 by the Executive Committee - TTD's highest governing
body between conventions - Wytkind served as TTD Assistant Executive Director.
Wytkind oversees TTD's daily legislative, public policy, and regulatory programs and initiatives, serving as transportation labor's chief spokesman. One of Wytkind's primary duties is to work together with TTD's 34 affiliated unions representing transportation labor's collective interests before the United States Congress, the executive branch and independent agencies of the Federal government including the U.S. Department of Transportation and its transit, aviation, railroad, highway, research and special programs, and other modal agencies, the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Mediation Board, the National Transportation Safety Board, the Surface Transportation Board and the White House. Wytkind also regularly testifies before Congress and provides a transportation labor perspective to conventions, conferences and other labor, industry and government meetings. He has also been a guest lecturer at several universities.
Wytkind has spent most of his professional career in the labor movement working in a number of areas including congressional affairs, public policy development, public and media affairs, strategic campaigns, organizing and writing. The labor organizations he has worked with in various capacities include the AFL-CIO, the United Steelworkers of America, the rail unions, the Communications Workers of America and TTD during the Organization's infant stages of development. Previously, he worked as a senior account executive for Conway and Company, a public affairs firm, and as a news reporter and associate editor covering radio and television business, labor, regulatory and technology news.
Wytkind is currently appointed by the U.S. Trade Representative and Secretary of Labor to serve on the Labor Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations and Trade Policy, which consults the President and Congress on trade policy issues including proposed agreements and treaties. Currently, he serves on the Board of Trustees for the Norman Y. Mineta International Institute for Surface Transportation Policy Studies, and is a Voting Member of the Railroad-Shipper Transportation Advisory Council, a body created by Congress whose members are appointed by the Chair of the Surface Transportation Board.
Previously, Wytkind served on the Board of Directors for the Transit Development Corporation and worked with public and private transit industry representatives to advance a strong federally supported transit research agenda.
Wytkind, 40, is a former union supermarket clerk from Los Angeles, California, and today continues to hold membership in the United Food and Commercial Workers (Local 400, Landover, Maryland). He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1983 from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is married to Lorrie McHugh-Wytkind. They reside in suburban Washington, D.C., with their son and daughter.
© 2002 Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers