Portside

In light of the youth-driven surge of union drives at Starbucks, Amazon, Apple and elsewhere, the AFL-CIO – the main US’s labor federation – is facing growing pressure to undertake a bolder effort to help today’s burst of unionizing expand far faster

Our federation and its affiliates are not ready to confront the challenges of using our existing base in certain industries to grow in non-union sectors of those industries and linked industries. Those discussions and strategies require challenging the inertia of the status quo. They are difficult discussions that challenge the power and positions of our elected trade union leaders. The interplay of the old and the new is one of the keys for renaissance. . .

'... how are we going to translate that energy to work on the ground, to spread that energy through the locals?'

In his powerful speech to the AFL-CIO convention, the famed economist says '95% of the gains from 2009 to 2012 went to the upper 1%.'

In a more promising departure from past practice, the AFL-CIO has allocated time for daily convention “action sessions”—numbering about fifty in all. This smorgasbord of panel discussions tilts heavily toward political topics and seems designed to give the proceedings the trendy buzz of a Netroots Nation conference. Many of these workshops showcase the federation’s new or old ties with community-based labor support groups, immigrant workers centers, among others.