(Washington, D.C.)—AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler provided the labor movement’s view on the first 100 days of the Trump administration today at The 100 Days Conference.
In her keynote address, Shuler highlighted the way working people across the country are standing up for each other and fighting back against the administration’s attacks on unions, federal and immigrant workers, and essential government services. She highlighted the events organized by the AFL-CIO’s Department of People Who Work for a Living that have brought out workers and community members who are telling the stories about how DOGE’s cuts are impacting their and their families’ lives. Shuler also lifted up the labor movement’s fight against the Trump administration’s actions in court, including its executive order that represented the most significant attack on unions in history.
Remarks by President Shuler as Delivered:
Good afternoon, everyone. I’m Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO. I’m very honored to kick off this event and welcome you to the 100 Days Conference. I want to thank our three hosts for bringing us together today—not just those in the room, but everyone watching online [...]
Democracy means rule by the people.
I’m here today representing a labor movement which believes in that idea at our very core. Fifteen million working people who know: My voice matters. That me and my brothers and sisters are the ones who shape my union, my future, and the future of organized labor.
And it is because of that belief in democracy that we stand up every day against the concentration of wealth and power that exists in our country right now.
One hundred days ago, when we heard Elon Musk was going to get his own department and have a hugely outsized voice in how our government worked, we decided to do something about it. We created our own department—the Department of People Who Work for a Living—to help working people raise their voices about what’s going on in their lives.
We started hosting town halls and hearings in communities all over the country. Places like Macon, Georgia, and Asheville, North Carolina; places our politicians don’t often go to, that aren’t red or blue strongholds. We set them up with a very simple idea. If you have a story, if you’ve been affected by what’s gone on, come out tonight. We want to hear from you.
Over two weeks, thousands of Americans showed up. Not just Democrats. Not just activists. People from every walk of life who said, “I’ve never come to one of these before, but what’s going on has changed my life, changed my community.” Working people who had been fired from the only job they’d worked in 20 years, over email. Veterans who served in active duty who suddenly couldn’t get the care they needed.
But I’ll tell you the other thing I saw, which was: People finding every way they possibly could to stand up and fight back, and protect not just themselves but their neighbors.
A retired letter carrier in Charlotte [North Carolina], Jacqueline Sandle, who said, “They’re jeopardizing the jobs and the services my friends count on. I will not, I cannot sit back and watch that unfold.”
A local leader at the Cargill plant in Davenport, Iowa, Simplice Kuelo, who said, “Those same immigrants they’re threatening—we put food on America’s tables. And so I’m fighting not just for our workers but for every family in this country.”
Lori Hendricks, a nurse at Mission Hospital in Asheville, who said, “My patients count on Medicaid. I will fight with everything I have to protect it—and vote out those who threaten it.”
Organized labor gives voices like these a platform. We amplify them wherever we go, especially in this town. These stories and countless more are going to be heard in Congress and the White House, to make sure every politician claiming to carry the banner of the working class knows: What we’ve seen the past 100 days ain’t it!
They’ve attacked independent thought—in the media, in higher education, in our judicial system, and especially in our unions. The stated reason for stripping one million workers of their collective bargaining rights was: We didn’t like it that your unions were fighting back. They’ve attacked our most vulnerable—our immigrant brothers and sisters, like Kilmer Abrego Garcia, and trans and queer Americans with the goal of dividing us.
They’ve attacked the coalitions that are most equipped to fight back—and they have started with organized labor, because authoritarians always start with organized labor. They came immediately for our federal workforce: cutting funding that Congress appropriated. Firing workers with no process, lying about their performance. Trying to get other workers to quit.
When our unions fought back, with grievances and lawsuits, what we saw in response was the single biggest act of union-busting in American history. One million federal workers—illegally stripped of their collective bargaining rights. Moving to cancel their union contracts with the stroke of a pen. Recently saying to those who haven’t filed grievances yet: We’ll give you your rights and contracts back if you keep your mouths shut and fall in line.
This administration is missing something fundamental about our labor movement. We do not “fall in line” for autocrats. We know an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. Today it’s our federal workers. Tomorrow it’s our state and local unions. And the day after that it is the basic rights and dignity of every working person in this country.
The question for us right now is the same as it’s been for every coalition in history that has stood up in a crisis of democracy. How do we build the mass movement? How do we create power when all the traditional levers of power are out of our control?
I stand here today representing 15 million working people, across 63 unions, in every sector of the economy. What I can tell you from talking to those workers, protesting with those workers, striking with those workers is that there is a common agenda that unites the vast majority of this country right now.
It’s our job to deliver that agenda, and it starts right now. Asking every American a very simple question: Are you better off now than you were 100 days ago?
Do you feel safer knowing that the people who inspect our food, and keep our water clean, and make sure our planes are flying in the sky have been fired from their jobs? Is life for you and your family easier now that the people who run our child care centers, and work at our Social Security offices, are not there anymore? Does it make sense to you that your dad, your mom, your loved one might get thrown off Medicare—so that billionaires get another tax cut they do not need?
The fact that Trump is underwater right now on every issue—inflation, the economy, taxation, even immigration—it does not happen by accident. It happens because we have been effectively sharing that message and building power.
The labor movement, alongside every movement represented in this room, teaches us: We can rewrite this country’s history if we have the will and the organizing strength to do so.
The standard at the turn of the 20th century was a 60-hour workweek until workers in Chicago and elsewhere organized for something better. Child labor was a permanent fixture of our economy until Mother Jones, and the newsboys, and Bread and Roses strike in Massachusetts rallied the country around reform. Discrimination in the workplace was the norm until the labor movement and civil rights movement came together, and fought for the Civil Rights Act and Fair Labor Standards Act.
Right now we have that kind of energy and enthusiasm at the grassroots level. We have tens of thousands showing up to rallies, and protests, and town halls who are ready to do something. We have entire communities coming out to protect their immigrant brothers and sisters. We have brave lawyers taking the fight to this administration winning in court, so that thousands of Americans can return to their jobs. We have people organizing together and forming unions in places we never have before, like the Deep South, saying, “If the government isn’t going to fight for me, or raise my minimum wage to a livable wage, screw it. I’ll stand with my co-workers and do it myself.”
This is the moment for all of us to work in common cause to connect ourselves to that agenda the vast majority of Americans are rallying around.
We don’t have to think [the] government is perfect, but we can all come together to defend the rights of our federal workers, knowing that we’re next in line.
We don’t have to pick a candidate for 2028, but we can all agree to demand more out of our politicians, when our rights and freedoms are under attack.
We don’t have to choose sides when it comes to the basic dignity and humanity of all people, including immigrants, trans and queer Americans, and those under direct attack from this administration.
Jen, you wrote something late last week that I want to close with, because I’ve been thinking about it every day since. You wrote: “Democracy does not defend itself. Nor can we expect politicians to save us from autocrats’ clutches. The decision to capitulate or to resist rests with each of us. The sum of all those decisions will determine if we succeed or fail.”
None of us on our own—as individuals or within our individual organizations—can defeat an autocracy or an oligarchy. But it’s up to all of us to work together, and create that virtuous cycle: Where we rise up and protest, politicians respond to that, because they see it is popular, where courage begets more courage and more people get involved.
When we do that, we’re doing something more than fighting back. We are building something new. We are building a movement that will go in and rewrite the rules, and bring dignity and fairness to all people. Let’s use this conference, this 100-day milestone as the moment to come together. To strategize, organize and start to create the kind of society we all want to live in. Thank you.
Contact: Mia Jacobs, 202-637-5018