Share
President Richard Trumka, Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler and Executive Vice President Tefere Gebre faced no opposition and were re-elected to another four-year term of office at the national AFL-CIO convention in St. Louis.
Trumka, the former president of the United Mine Workers, has led the labor federation since 2009. Shuler, a former staff member for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, in 2009 became the first woman elected as the federation’s secretary-treasurer.
As a teenager, Gebre fled violence in his home country and made his way to a refugee camp in Sudan. He holds several firsts: In 2013 Gebre became the first immigrant, political refugee, black man and local labor council leader elected as a national officer of the AFL-CIO.
The three re-elected officers addressed the convention near the close of a six-hour session, commenting on a turbulent nation and world and the challenges ahead for the labor movement.
Gebre told convention delegates, ‘as elated as I am with this second term elected, you know these are tough times. Wages are not rising… Tension is high…”
“All of us or none of us — it’s not just a slogan,” Genre said. Our survival depends on it.”
“We are joined in work that contributes to something greater than ourselves,” Shuler said.
“My head is spinning as the world careens in unexpected turns,” she said. “We’re not doing enough to get ahead of change and turn it into opportunity.”
“I think we need to try things more and take risks and not be afraid to fail,” she added. “We have reached a tipping point. Just focusing on protecting what we have is far more dangerous than taking risks.”
“We know we have a huge target on our backs,” Shuler said. “What are the new ways we can make unions valuable and indispensable?”
“If we demonstrate value,” Shuler continued, we become essential and Right-to-Work becomes irrelevant because workers will want to join us.”
Elected to a third term as AFL-CIO president, Trumka began his remarks with a tribute to his father. “My father was a lifelong coal miner who knew the value of solidarity… I followed my father into the mines and into unionism…”
“Together we can build a ladder to a better life and climb that ladder,” Trumka said.
The CEOs have people fighting for a place on the bottom rung of the ladder, Trumka observed, and labor’s opponents are tough and ruthless and have deep pockets.
But, he continued, “workers are the real power in America… We are ready for this fight.”
“No matter what we hear from the nay-sayers, we ain’t done yet,” Trumka declared. “We’ll come together. We’ll stand together. We’ll fight together… for an economy and a political system no longer rigged against us.”
“We’re going forward to a better day for all working people,” Trumka said. “We do the work. This is our country. And it’s time the American worker took it back.”
View more photos from the convention at the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation Facebook page.