AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka opened the fourth day of the AFL-CIO 2017 Convention talking about the Workers' Bill of Rights:

Sisters and brothers, working people need a bill of rights.

A collective bargaining agreement for America. 

This will serve as a platform for our members to rally around. It will give prospective members a clear statement of our values. And it will provide political candidates and elected officials with a litmus test for our support. 

We simply refuse to accept the reality of struggling to make ends meet in the richest country in the world at its richest point in history. And so we demand rights that ensure we are able, through our work, to lead better lives.

More than 60 international labor guests attending the AFL-CIO convention in St. Louis, Mo.,
crossed the river to Granite City, Ill., to visit the United Steelworkers Locals at the U.S.
Steel plant that has operated there for decades.

At the AFL-CIO Convention in St. Louis, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka honored the imprisoned president of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), Han Sang-gyun, with the George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award. Han has been in jail since December 2015, serving a three-year sentence for defending trade union rights and fighting back against corporate corruption and the repressive government of former South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

At the 2017 AFL-CIO Convention, the delegates passed a resolution calling for the creation of a Workers' Bill of Rights. Speaking in support of the resolution, President Richard L. Trumka said:

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka opened the third day of the AFL-CIO 2017 Convention talking about economic rules and an independent political voice:

Policy is what shapes the economy, and too many of those policies have produced a windfall for the rich and the well-connected and doomed millions to compete for the scraps left over. 

Brothers and sisters, this must end. 

Our movement is the great equalizer in an otherwise cruel economy.