Steve Mellon

1 month ago | unionprogress.com | Steve Mellon

We tried to approach it as just another Thursday night in Pittsburgh. Buses rumbled up Centre Avenue in a light rain. We entered the Hill District and thought about dinner as we passed Freedom Corner. We made a note to check the scores of the opening-round games of the NCAA tournament. Then we turned onto Deviliers Street and saw the line of people outside Ebenezer Baptist Church. It extended all the way down the block, then snaked east onto Wylie Avenue.

1 month ago | unionprogress.com | Steve Mellon

Steve Kelly, a tall man wearing a purple hooded sweatshirt, stood at a small podium in Downtown’s Mellon Square Park on Tuesday morning and talked about the importance of his union, SEIU 32BJ. Its members keep Pittsburgh and its offices clean. In Kelly’s words, they are “the heartbeat of the city.”Kelly then looked up and pointed to a young woman standing behind the wall of reporters and TV cameras lined up for the day’s news conference.

1 month ago | unionprogress.com | Steve Mellon

Here’s a moral dilemma we should present to every Sunday school class in America:You’re facing pressure from your wealthy boss to provide tax relief for people who can afford fleets of private jets, but in order to do so you must eviscerate a program that’s keeping some of your most vulnerable neighbors alive and prevents others from lying in their own excrement. You must make a decision that aligns with the values you profess. In the case of the Sunday school class, that means your faith.

1 month ago | unionprogress.com | Steve Mellon

Abby Gabriel, 15, kicked off her pink shoes shortly before 11 a.m. Friday. It had been a busy morning. Now Abby’s sock-covered feet could finally breathe. Several minutes before, Abby was the center of attention. Her mother, Erin, had stood at a podium and introduced Abby to a crowd of about 100 people gathered in the portico of the City-County Building in Downtown Pittsburgh. TV crews and reporters clustered together in the front row, facing Abby.

1 month ago | unionprogress.com | Steve Mellon

Jeff Miller asked the same question over and over. No one had an answer. There is no answer, not in the current political climate. “When will it ever end?” he asked. The words held so much weight you expected them to fall clanging to the floor. Instead, there was silence as Miller listed the names of the dead:Sam Nordquist, 24, a biracial trans man tortured and killed in an Upstate New York town. Tahiry Broom, a 29-year-old Black trans woman shot to death in Detroit.