AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler's remarks as prepared for the 2025 Tradeswomen Build Nations Conference.
Good morning, sisters and brothers! Union family!
Thank you so much, Sidney [Jablonski], my IBEW sister! Thank you for that introduction, and sharing your story. Can we give it up for Sidney one more time? That was amazing!
I’m so, so happy to be with you here in sisterhood today. To be with the entire NABTU Tradeswomen Committee, who give so much time to make this the incredible event it is!
To TradesFutures, to our NABTU leaders and general board of presidents. Thank you to Sean McGarvey and Brandon Bishop, what an incredible team. They fight tirelessly every day for working women and working families. Sean, your leadership, the investment and commitment you’ve poured into tradeswomen has been unprecedented, and as your IBEW sister, I’m beaming with pride.
Amazing. The largest gathering of tradeswomen in the world!
I was telling some folks earlier: I’ve been coming to this conference for nearly two decades now. Who all remembers when we were a few hundred strong out in California?
And now I look around here in Chicago at thousands of women, from every walk of life, who are changing not just their lives but our unions, our communities, our country. Think about how incredible that is!
Today I want to celebrate the incredible progress we’ve made; and what we can do to go even further.
And to me it comes down to the power each of us has and how we use it. Everyone in this room has power and influence and sometimes we don’t even realize it.
We hear a lot about influencers these days — the social media world is full of them — you know what I’m talking about, right?
People who have these huge followings who are posting videos about food and what we should eat; beauty influencers who are telling us what facial products to buy; or self help gurus, video gamers, people who unbox things online — you name it.
They have massive followings and get paid to influence us. If you ask kids in junior high what they want to be when they grow up, you’ll hear “I want to be an influencer.”
Well, I say, everyone in this room is an influencer. You have the power to influence each other and those around you and your communities.
Sidney coming up here, telling her story, that’s being an influencer. Any time we get involved in pushing a piece of local legislation, or those conversations at the Thanksgiving table, or the courage we show on the job site to ask for something we need. That ripples out and makes an impact.
[Pause]
A few weeks ago I was listening to this great podcast called The Burnout Collective. First and foremost I want to congratulate them on what is an amazing description of their podcast — which literally says “We’re tired AF. We’re sick of this shit” — talking about the gig economy, and how fed up we all are for trying to live in this broken status quo.
But on this podcast, they had a special guest. Someone that we’re honoring as one of our August Tradeswomen Heroes: Rachel Cannon, an Apprentice, from IBEW Local 280 out in my great home state of Oregon.
She started telling her story about going to college, taking out student loans, because that’s what we’re told to do if you’re smart, right? She graduated when the job market was tanking in 2010. Doing odd jobs, barely getting by.
And then she’s driving around, and hears an ad on the radio. And it asks the one question so many of us have had, at some point in our own journeys: Are you being paid less than you’re worth? She goes to that local union. She interviews for that apprenticeship.
And I really love this part — there’s some guy there who tells her, ‘Oh, you’re a chick so you’ll probably get it.’ As if that hasn’t been the case for men since the beginning of time.
But she goes in there and scores 98 out of 100 on the test. She gets that apprenticeship and the rest is history.
And she spends the rest of that podcast explaining to the listeners exactly why it’s better in a union. Talking about making ten times what she was making piecing together odd jobs. Talking about what collective bargaining means and how we could look at the cost of living going up, and negotiate a raise because of that union contract. Talking about the steady stream of work; and the constant training and upskilling.
Rachel going on that podcast, that is the definition of being an influencer. It’s not about money. It’s not about having the biggest following. It’s about using the power that we all have inside of us, to make the difference.
[Pause]
We’re in the middle of a tough moment right now. No doubt about it.
Forget how you feel about politics; who you voted for. We are missing common sense right now, aren’t we?
Does it make any sense for this Administration to cut money from apprenticeship programs in this moment when we need more of us in the trades?
Does it make sense to gut the services our communities need, so billionaires like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos can get another tax break and buy another yacht?
Does it make common sense to go backwards on all the anti-harassment rules we’ve fought for for decades and the equity regulations that have opened the door for women in construction because the people running our government think that’s part of the “woke agenda”?
We’ve lost that common sense, haven’t we? And what we’ve seen these past few months as a nation — this horrific political violence, the division, the partisanship, the vitriol, it goes even further than that.
We’ve lost the ability to see each other as human beings; that connective tissue.
But I’ll tell you today: More than anyone else in this country, union women are the ones who can rebuild that trust.
We’re the ones showing up at the town hall meetings, talking about what our communities need and bringing solutions.
We’re the ones during COVID who were going door to door, making sure our friends and our neighbors protected themselves.
We’re the ones, on the job, who pay attention to the details and bring people together to make sure things get done right, aren’t we?
We’re the ones who, when tempers are flaring, can bridge differences and find common ground.
[Pause]
There is no person on Earth who is more dedicated to their community, who is willing to make things happen than a union woman.
And we need to lean into that power, that influence, more than we ever have before.
Let’s be honest: as Sean said, that wave of opportunity we had coming from the federal government investments in infrastructure and clean energy is gone.
Now it’s up to us to educate those around us on what’s happening, why it’s happening and who’s responsible.
Let’s build deep connections in our locals and in our communities, so that people see the union as the place to go to make the change.
So that’s my challenge for all of us here today: How will we use our influence?
Can we be like our sister Veronica Leal, a Painter right here in Chicago — who blazed her own path for 20-plus years and then turned around and started teaching her own apprenticeship program, so that more women had one to follow?
Can we be like Mallory Davies, our LIUNA sister in Seattle. Who told me she’d been mostly behind the scenes and yet because of her union, because of her brothers and sisters, she started to say: Why not me? Why don’t I do more? She started working with her business manager to recruit more women into the local, and she kept going, getting more active and now she’s the unions regulatory and safety coordinator, passing legislation at the State House!
Can we tell our story like Sidney and Rachel, or start our own podcast, or show up to that City Council meeting, or use the information you get at this conference to organize more people on the job or in your neighborhood around the issues that matter to us?
Think right now — ask yourself, what will I commit to right here, right now — that builds on the pathbreaking work that came before you, and takes us to the next level? That’s what this moment demands of us.
Union women, we’re exactly what this country needs right now to get us back to common sense, back to seeing the humanity in each other, so we all can make progress and win for working people.
So are you ready to lead?
Are you ready to step into your power?
Are you ready to march out there today and grow this movement?
I’m so proud to be marching alongside you! Thank you!