Working people across the United States regularly step up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our Service & Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.
Delegates at the AFL-CIO’s 30th Constitutional Convention unanimously reelected Liz Shuler as president and Fred Redmond as secretary-treasurer.
“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,” Shuler said. “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,” Redmond said. “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.”
Watch President Shuler’s acceptance speech here. Watch Secretary-Treasurer Redmond’s speech here.