IAFF Conferences Break Record Attendance

January 24, 2008 -- The IAFF held its Ernest A. “Buddy” Mass Human Relations Conference and Affiliate Leadership Training Summit in New Orleans, Louisiana, back-to-back this week, setting record attendance.

More than 400 IAFF members registered for the Human Relations Conference, which featured an almost entirely new workshop schedule, with topics including diversity in the fire service, passing the CPAT and leadership skills.

More than 900 affiliate leaders are currently attending the Affiliate Leadership Training Summit.

IAFF General President Harold Schaitberger delivered the welcome address for the Human Relations Conference on the opening day – also Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday observance.

“We are here on this momentous day commemorating and celebrating the life and teachings of the most influential Civil Rights leader in this nation’s history,” he began. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., whose dreams and life journey set this nation on a course that finally began to establish justice for all in this great country, was a man who not only believed the self-evident truth that all of us are created equal, but who more than any man or woman in the history of the United States pursued the elation of those unalienable Rights endowed by our Creator.”

Schaitberger noted that King was also a man vision of those shared goals of the civil rights and labor movements and worked to bring the power of both together before many this country’s forefathers were really prepared to begin acknowledging the progress both could make together.

Speaking in 1961 to the fourth AFL-CIO national convention – which at the time was dominated by white males – noted that both African Americans and union members were fighting for “decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, education for their children and respect in the community, Reverend King knew that those were the dreams then for workers everywhere.

“We’ve grown since those days, Schaitberger continued, “and have seen integration in fire departments, especially in cities and towns where you might least expect it – in the south and southwest – where urban departments are overall much more diverse than they were just a few decades ago.

“The artificial boundaries of justice and equal opportunity that were erected on our job years ago have begun to come down, but brothers and sisters, there is much more to do.”

He suggested that this International union have a dream – a dream for the continued success, progress and enlightenment of the IAFF and for the future of its members. “It should be the dream that unites and strengthens the bond of the brother and sisterhood that flows through our profession so strongly,” he said.

Schaitberger concluded his remarks by reminding IAFF leaders of their commitment to stand up for those that have too often been left standing alone. “You’ll be standing up for what’s right and leading our union in the pursuit of our dream!”