Good Jobs & Worker Power

MeidasTouch Network

Written by AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler

We just wrapped our 30th AFL-CIO Constitutional Convention, a gathering of our 65 affiliated unions and state and local labor federations across the country. It showcased the power of our fighting labor movement in this moment, and provided the opportunity for us to chart a path forward.

This moment and that mission were reflected in our theme—With You: It’s Better in a Union—because it’s going to take all of us joining together to build a better future. And it was reflected by our hosts, the Twin Cities labor movement, who have shown the country where the community has shown all of us what it means to come together as a community to defend your neighbors and co-workers against attacks on our rights and freedoms.

The convention is also where our Federation elects its leadership, and I was honored to be re-elected as AFL-CIO President, alongside Fred Redmond as Secretary-Treasurer. In my acceptance speech I told the story of my dad and how landing a good union job changed everything for our family. We went from living paycheck to paycheck to living the union difference. Better wages. Benefits. Stability. A future. That’s what a union makes possible. And that’s what we are fighting like hell to win for every working person in this country.

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Our economy is at the most significant crossroads since the industrial revolution—and it’s because of AI. In my remarks, I laid out the challenges workers face from greedy tech CEOs rushing out development and implementation of AI without even thinking about workers. We know this first-hand: from workers’ stories across industries, from how corporations talk about their plans, and even from a moment I sat in Congress with a bigtech billionaire crew, who not only never once mentioned workers, but as soon as I talked about the impact on working people, Elon Musk started making origami.

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