Today’s labor movement advances the hopes and aspirations of all working people to build a stronger, more equitable America. With you, the labor movement leaves no one behind.
Unions change lives. When workers come together in a union, through collective bargaining, we turn low-paying jobs into good jobs that help families not just survive, but get ahead. When we stand in solidarity, we win safety, respect and fairness at work. We protect our fundamental freedoms and create democracy on the job. We raise the standards for all workers—both union members and those who are not yet—to create a path toward a better, more affordable life. We set the gold standard for health care and retirement security. We built the middle class and we can rewrite the rules of our economy again. And strong unions make for strong communities—neighbor standing shoulder to shoulder with neighbor, worker with worker.
Since our federation last convened four years ago, workers responded to historic corporate greed and economic inequality with a tidal wave of organizing. They are winning seats at the table, giving working people a voice and challenging the structures of power. Workers are organizing in the face of attacks on their jobs and rights, fighting back in hospitals, on college campuses, in schools, in hospitality, in entertainment, in sports, in journalism, in transportation, in manufacturing and the trades, and in the federal and local governments. They are bargaining collectively to put more money in working people’s pockets. Unions won breakthrough victories in the South and under the leadership of young workers, women workers and workers of color, including in manufacturing, health care, education and professional sports. They took on big risks by refusing to bow down to massive companies like Apple, Starbucks, Amazon, Disney, Boeing, Hilton, Sony, Kaiser Permanente and more. We are all better off today for those collective acts of courage and defiance.
But at this moment, everything workers have organized, fought and died for is in jeopardy.
The Trump administration’s billionaire-first agenda is creating an economy where everything is too expensive and our wages aren’t keeping up. Where our immigrant co-workers and neighbors are targeted, families and communities ripped apart. Where corruption is driving our politics and trying to drown out our voices. Where civil rights and liberties—including even the most fundamental right to vote—are under attack.
These threats are real and dangerous, but at every struggle for freedom, equality and progress, the labor movement has been there. We have been integral in the fights for civil rights, immigrant rights and women’s rights. When we fought for an eight-hour workday, they called it unrealistic. When we said we deserve health and safety protections because our jobs shouldn’t kill us, they said the bosses would never give in. But our power in solidarity made it happen. As the United States celebrates 250 years, we were there—the first recorded strike in American history by the New York Journeyman Tailors was in 1768.
That history is our power and our path forward. The labor movement convenes at this 2026 AFL-CIO Convention to elevate the dignity of work and struggles of working people today— economic pressure and instability, corporate concentration and democratic erosion—but also at a moment of opportunity.
Over the next four years, we will unite millions of workers to build and hold power together in unions, protecting and strengthening our democracy and providing a check on corporate control of our economy by:
- Unleashing the power of millions to break down barriers and ensure every worker who wants a union can join one. Our movement must be a home for not only our 15 million members, but also the more than 50 million more who would join a union today if they could. We know that to create transformational change in the lives of working people, the moment demands taking risks and bold, innovative approaches to organizing and collective bargaining. Therefore, we will expand our investment in campaigns and align our politics and organizing to build lasting power. We will work across unions and beyond to grow the movement and deliver immediate protections and long-term structural change. We will equip our members with the skills and tools they need to challenge union-busting and unchecked corporate greed. And we will hold each other accountable to track and ensure progress toward our shared goals.
- Standing in solidarity to protect and advance workers’ rights and freedoms at home and abroad. We know that the rules are rigged against us. To ensure everyone who wants a union can join one and build power for the working class, we must vote up and down the ballot for political candidates who will champion our cause and deliver the change we need. We will organize and mobilize year-round in our unions and our communities. We will support and invest in the infrastructure needed to build and sustain an effective political movement across the country. We will center a workers-first agenda and remain laser-focused not on party, but on our priorities, and elect real, pro-worker champions. And because the political and economic forces workers are fighting transcend borders, so will our solidarity.
- Building a broader movement to create an economy that works for all of us. We will harness the undeniable energy for change to organize in new industries and workplaces. We will win contracts that protect and grow good union jobs and give working people a chance to get ahead. We will meet the innovation of artificial intelligence to ensure technology supports and creates opportunity for all, not only enriching the world’s wealthiest technology companies. We will protect every worker’s future and ability to retire with dignity. And our movement will leave no worker behind and will not allow hate or bigotries in any form to divide us.
In the streets and on the shop floor, in union halls and at the ballot box, working people are rising up and fighting to take our power back. Together, we will build a country where the economy supports working people, rather than serves the billionaires and bosses. Where we can build on the hard-won victories of the past, make the hopes and aspirations of all working people a reality today, and pave the way for the wins of tomorrow. With those already part of our movement and the millions more who want to join—with each and every one of you—we will create the future we deserve.