AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler: “This has been a year of growth, expansion, investment and victories—and I am very excited to build on this work in the years ahead.”
The nation’s largest labor federation supported a wave of organizing across America’s economy and public services, centered new voices and achieved transformative political gains that strengthen the nation’s workforce.
Today the AFL-CIO marks the one-year anniversary of the historic election of Liz Shuler as president and Fred Redmond as secretary-treasurer of the federation. The first year of the Shuler-Redmond administration has been characterized by transformational leadership at an unprecedented moment that is harnessing the energy of unions and putting power into the hands of working people. Their administration has led the AFL-CIO to expanded union membership, key legislative and political victories, and reinvigorated the labor movement.
“A year ago today, I committed to amplify the voices of working people, invest in the tools we need to organize and innovate, and stand with workers to strengthen and reshape the labor movement—and I am so proud of the progress we’ve made,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “This has been a year of growth, expansion, investment and victories—and I am very excited to build on this work in the years ahead.”
“I have been proud to stand together with Liz in the fight to give every worker in this country a shot at a good union job, and I am looking forward to building on our strong foundation in the years to come,” said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond. “I am especially proud of the progress we’ve made toward creating a truly inclusive labor movement that meets the needs of young workers and historically marginalized groups, including women and communities of color.”
The Shuler-Redmond administration has been defined by its commitment to working people and marked by new strategies and powerful accomplishments. Throughout their tenure, the AFL-CIO has expanded by adding new affiliated unions; launched the Center for Transformational Organizing to bring together the brightest minds in organizing, technology and capital strategies to build strategic organizing campaigns around sectors and industries; rolled out a historic initiative focused on making sure the emerging clean energy sectors create good union jobs; launched the Southern Workers Opportunity Fund to support workers’ rights campaigns in the South; advanced new bargaining and policy strategies around automation and artificial intelligence through the AFL-CIO Technology Institute; created the AFL-CIO Sports Council to support organizing and bargaining for professional athletes, like the 5,000 minor league baseball players who organized; and more.
Additional Background
- As a result of successful organizing campaigns that have reached every industry and sector of America’s economy, the labor movement grew by more than 200,000 workers last year.
- AFL-CIO-affiliated unions notched key victories at employers like Activision, Apple, Ascension hospitals, Blue Bird Bus, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, REI, Rutgers and Yale University, The New York Times, Ultium Battery and many more, as part of a wave of unprecedented organizing and collective action. At the end of the year, the National Labor Relations Board reported the highest number of union election wins in any year since 2005.
- This past year, the federation played a critical role in advocating with our affiliates for the passage of historic, pro-worker legislation spearheaded by the Biden administration, including the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. Together, these bills will reshape U.S. construction, manufacturing and supply chains. Shuler, Redmond and key labor leaders and allies across the movement are leading the charge to ensure these new investments create millions of good, family-sustaining union jobs in manufacturing, technology and clean energy.
- The federation partnered with the Permission to Dream program, created by the Chris Gardner Foundation, to put students from disadvantaged communities on the path to good careers through the security of a union job. As part of the collaboration, the AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions will expand access to registered apprenticeship programs in the building and construction trades.
- The union movement has advanced several groundbreaking clean energy initiatives that are centered on working people, including initiatives to open up organizing opportunities in offshore wind and its supply chain, and pro-worker approaches to federal funding for clean power projects and hydrogen hubs.
- During the 2022 midterm elections, union members flexed our political power—not just at the federal level, but also down-ballot. The federation launched a robust and far-reaching political program centered on organizing that reached millions of union households in key battleground states, expanded pro-worker majorities in the U.S. Senate, and led to key electoral wins in states like Michigan, where the Legislature repealed its “right to work” law.
Contact: Isabel Aldunate, 202-637-5018