Pittsburgh union leader Jack Shea remembered as a 'giant' in labor movement

Jack Shea was the face of the Allegheny-Fayette Central Labor Council when he was its president for close to two decades, speaking at labor rallies and supporting strikers on the picket line.

Shea died Monday, Aug. 29, 2022. He was 79.

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald called Shea a “giant” as a longtime labor leader who became president of the county labor council in 1998 and continued in that role as president of what evolved into the Allegheny-Fayette Counties Labor Council, before retiring in 2017.

“His tools were many — whether it be a bullhorn, picket sign or union ballot — but he never lost sight of the fact that his successes meant even more to others — good pay, better benefits, health care, improved working conditions and more,” Fitzgerald said.

Shea taught his fellow labor leaders how to help lead the movement and get results for working families, said Darrin Kelly, president of the Allegheny-Fayette Central Labor Council.

“The labor movement in Western Pennsylvania is as strong as it is because of Jack Shea. Jack was the leader that all of us would follow into any fight, any day, anywhere,” Kelly said.

While Shea was president, the labor council continued to organize one of the largest Labor Day parades in the country.

Shea will be remembered this Labor Day “in a way that is fitting for such a legendary labor leader,” Kelly said.

Shea started his career in 1967 as part of a union organizing committee at his workplace. After the plant’s workers joined the union in 1974, Shea became the union president, then moved to be a representative of the International Union of Electrical Workers. He later became the organizing director for a 13-state district for the IUE/CWA. going up and down the eastern seaboard, from Pennsylvania to Florida.

To Barney Oursler, director of the Mon Valley Unemployed Committee, Shea “really opened his arms up to people in more than the labor movement.”

Shea cared for the jobless workers and still considered them as part of the labor movement, said Oursler, who has been with the organization since the 1980s.

Shea also served on the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority board since 2004, and served on the boards of numerous local organizations, charitable and civic.

“He believed in giving back,” Fitzgerald said of his community service.