Under Shuler-Redmond’s leadership, the AFL-CIO grew the federation to 65 unions and 15 million workers in their first full term
(Minneapolis)—Convention delegates from across the nation’s largest labor federation reelected Liz Shuler and Fred Redmond to lead the AFL-CIO today, as president and secretary-treasurer, respectively.
When elected to their first full terms in 2022, the team made history: Shuler as the first elected woman president of the AFL-CIO, and Redmond as the highest-ever ranking Black labor leader. During their time in office, they grew the federation from 57 to 65 affiliated unions, including the affiliation of the 2 million service and care workers of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and supported new organizing to bring the collective membership of the federation to 15 million workers and growing.
“Serving as president of the AFL-CIO has been the honor of a lifetime, and I am deeply moved to be reelected for a second term,” said Shuler. “My union story is like so many others, growing up in a working-class family that scraped to get by from paycheck to paycheck until our lives were changed by an IBEW apprenticeship. Our family lived the union difference. Financial stability overnight, a career with skill and dignity for my dad, and a passion for organizing—that turned into a lifelong mission—for me. I am extraordinarily grateful for the trust that this movement has placed in me, and I will continue to lead our federation in delivering that union difference and changing lives for working families across this country just like mine.”
“In just two generations, my family went from Mississippi sharecroppers to living in poverty on the South Side of Chicago to me becoming the highest-ranking African American in the history of the American labor movement—and it’s all because my dad got a union job at an aluminum mill and became a member of United Steelworkers Local 3911,” said Redmond. “When I joined my dad at the mill, I also joined a movement and a legacy of trade unionists who sacrificed and fought to make our jobs safer, our workplaces more equitable and our society more just. At this unprecedented moment, with attacks on worker and civil rights from the most anti-labor administration in history and the wealthy and well-connected consolidating power and profit, we will be led by that history and continue their fight. I’m honored to be able to do that alongside my partner President Shuler and my union brothers and sisters.”
In their second term, President Shuler and Secretary-Treasurer Redmond committed to:
- Mobilize to put more pro-worker candidates into office.
- Organize to ensure working people can make their voices heard and have their votes at the ballot box count, without fear or intimidation.
- Continue to grow union power in every workplace, organizing millions more members and building an economy for working people.
- Fight back against corporate greed and push forward the AFL-CIO’s Workers First AI Agenda, so that workers are empowered with a seat at the table and a say in artificial intelligence (AI) development and implementation on the jobsite, training and upskilling, and protections for their civil rights and basic right to organize.
Added Shuler: "We will bring people together across party lines and we will check corporate power. We will defend our democracy and we will give working people hope for a better life. Everything that we won as working people in this country we won because we fought for it—because we knew it was worth it for ourselves and every generation after us. We're ready to continue that fight.”
During President Shuler and Secretary-Treasurer Redmond’s first term they have also:
- Created the AFL-CIO Technology Institute and the State Federation AI Task Force, which is leading the way on a workers-first agenda for artificial intelligence with thought leaders across industries and in advocacy for pro-worker legislation on the federal, state and local levels.
- Created the AFL-CIO Sports Council, now composed of 10 players’ associations, to build power among athlete-workers in professional sports and win the contracts they deserve.
- Steered the labor movement through the second Trump administration and its attacks on immigrant workers by providing legal and front-line community support; on the National Labor Relations Board, other federal labor agencies and laws by taking the administration to court; and on federal workers, who responded by organizing tens of thousands of new members into their unions.
- Fostered a generational shift in the diversity of the labor movement by supporting the expansion of new types of workers and industries that are unionized and organizing the South. Today, the charge is being led by women, young workers and Black and Brown workers, and the most diverse elected officers at the head of international unions than at any time in the movement's history.
The AFL-CIO’s 30th Constitutional Convention will run from June 7 to June 10 in Minneapolis, and will be livestreamed here.
Contact: Mia Jacobs, 202-637-5018