AFL-CIO convention spotlights strength, solidarity of Minnesota’s labor movement

June 7, 2026 by

Minnesotans who joined the solidarity efforts during Operation Metro Surge take the stage on Day 1 of the convention. (AFL-CIO photo)

Union leaders and activists from across the U.S. are gathering in the Twin Cities this week for the 30th AFL-CIO Constitutional Convention, the American labor movement’s biggest event.

The national labor federation picked Minneapolis as the site of its four-day convention well before a violent surge of federal agents in Minnesota drew worldwide outrage over the winter. But among the first orders of business on Day 1 was a recognition of local unions’ role in organizing resistance to the occupation.

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, reelected to a five-year term later in the day, turned the Convention Center stage over to three local leaders, Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham, St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Kera Peterson and Minneapolis RLF President Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou.

The presidents offered visiting delegates an overview of unions’ response to Operation Metro Surge – and the work that prepared Minnesota’s labor movement to meet the moment with solidarity.

The federal occupation saw unions raise funds for mutual aid and legal defense of detained members. Unions tapped into local solidarity networks, hosting training sessions for constitutional observers and preparing members to respond if ICE showed up on their worksite. And union members not only showed up in the streets as observers and demonstrators, but dozens of activists trained to become “union peacekeepers,” who kept marches safe and orderly.

“They thought Minnesota nice meant we would stand by quietly while federal agents disappeared our friends, neighbors and co-workers,” Burnham said. “But they mistook kindness for weakness. They invaded a winter people in winter, and our solidarity froze them in their tracks.”

(AFL-CIO photo)

Delegates on the convention floor rose for a standing ovation as Burnham welcomed anyone in the room who joined the solidarity efforts in Minnesota onto the stage.

“Now they know Americans are not afraid,” Burnham said. “They know if they send ICE into any of your communities, you will fight just as hard.”

Shuler thanked Minnesotans for their “sacrifice and resilience” before returning to the business of the convention – committee reports, elections and a roll call of affiliated unions, which included the 2-million-member Service Employees (SEIU) for the first time in 21 years.

The AFL-CIO also recognized seven new affiliates representing professional athletes, including WNBA players, who this year won historic gains in a new union contract, and Major League Baseball players, who are in a bitter round of negotiations with owners intent on suppressing their pay with a salary cap.

The theme for the 2026 convention is “With You, It’s Better in a Union.” Organizers expected between 1,500 and 2,000 delegates and guests to attend the four-day affair.

Delegates from the AFL-CIO’s 65 affiliated unions and from state and local labor councils come together at conventions to conduct required business and chart the future of the labor movement.

The event will feature prominent guest speakers and expert panelists to discuss issues facing workers and their families, from artificial intelligence to the rising cost of living.

AFL-CIO Minneapolis convention, Sunday June 7, 2026. Afternoon plenary. Photo: Jay Mallin
AFL-CIO Minneapolis convention, Sunday, June 7, 2026. Photos: Jay Mallin

The convention put a spotlight on Minnesota again on Day 1 when the AFL-CIO recognized the state’s labor movement as one of two recipients of the 2025 Meany-Kirkland Human Rights Award, celebrating the most powerful examples of solidarity in action from across the world.

Minnesota shares the award, presented during a dinner reception, with the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BKDP).

The federation’s executive board announced winners of the award in March. Its announcement cited Minnesota union activists’ “courage and commitment to fighting for democratic rights” during the surge that began last December.

Peterson, president of the St. Paul RLF, said the convention was an “exciting opportunity for our nation’s union movement to find inspiration and advance the coalition work that will meet the challenges ahead for working people across the country.”

“The world watched as Minnesotans joined together last winter to protect our neighbors and defend our democracy, and local unions and federated labor bodies, through their organizing work, helped build power and solidarity to meet that moment,” she added.

Both Shuler and Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond were re-elected on Day 1 after no other nominations emerged from the floor.

Watch video of the convention’s proceedings at aflcio.org.

— Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Statewide labor convention opens with political call to action

September 17, 2012 by

Election-year politics dominated Day 1 of the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s 51st Constitutional Convention in Rochester yesterday, as speakers, including U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, urged delegates to take action in support of labor-endorsed candidates up and down the Nov. 6 ballot.

Klobuchar, whose campaign for a second term has the state labor federation’s endorsement, said unions will succeed in the 2012 elections by sticking to their vision for the U.S. economy – one that creates shared prosperity, preserves opportunities for all and rewards those who work hard and play by the rules.

“As hard as this (economy) is, it could be so much worse,” Klobuchar said. “We have to keep focused on the economic agenda, and that’s what I’ve done.”

Klobuchar and other speakers drew a sharp distinction between President Obama’s economic plan and the vision offered by Republican nominee Mitt Romney. One candidate puts middle class families first, she said; the other serves the interests of the richest 1 percent.

“In order to bring the debt down – which it actually doesn’t do – they’re proposing $250,000 in additional tax cuts for people making over $1 million,” Klobuchar said. “That’s totally the opposite of what we need to do.”

Liz Shuler, secretary-treasurer of the national AFL-CIO, called Romney the “outsourcer in chief.”

“At Bain Capital he destroyed jobs and bankrupted companies like they were toys in his personal toy chest,” Shuler said, adding that Romney “even outsources his own bank accounts to Bermuda and Switzerland and other tax havens so he doesn’t have to pay his fair share to support this country.”

Delegates to the convention also heard about political efforts closer to home, including the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s plan to rebuild labor majorities in both houses of the Minnesota Legislature. Republicans in the House and the Senate, Minnesota AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson said, have done much over the last two years to divide workers, weaken unions and make it harder to vote – but they haven’t done much to create jobs.

“They tried to throw everything they could at us,” Knutson said. “They tried to weaken collective bargaining, gut prevailing wage, reduce safety standards and attack the professionals that educate our children… There were hundreds of attacks.”

Ultimately, DFL Gov. Mark Dayton helped stave off most attacks on workers. But as Nov. 6 draws closer, Knutson said, union members must remember how narrow Dayton’s election was.

“If 2.4 percent of union members had voted for Emmer instead of Dayton, Tom Emmer would be governor, and our state would look just like Wisconsin,” she said, referring to the all-out attack on collective bargaining that took place after Republicans swept control of that state’s government in 2010.

“If we do what we need to do – knock the doors, make the calls, get those fliers out at the worksite, talk to our friends and neighbors – we will elect a pro-worker majority to the Minnesota Legislature that will put us, middle class families, to work,” Knutson added. “If we fail, Right to Work will come back with a vengeance.”

After the conclusion of business Sunday, the convention floor became the site of a brief Labor 2012 campaign phone bank, as delegates called fellow union members on behalf of endorsed candidates from Southeast Minnesota.

The Minnesota AFL-CIO’s convention continues today. Delegates participated in workshops this morning, and were scheduled to hear from more speakers, including Dayton, this afternoon.

Today’s schedule also includes presentations on union organizing, the campaigns to defeat both constitutional amendments on the Nov. 6 ballot and the lockout of 1,300 American Crystal Sugar workers in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa.

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St. Paul Steelworkers pitch manufacturing policy to Dems’ platform committee

August 3, 2012 by

Bob Ryan, a Steelworker from St. Paul’s Rock-Tenn paper-recycling plant, addresses the DNC platform committee.

Eighteen of the nation’s most prominent lawmakers listened last weekend as two Steelworkers from St. Paul testified about the importance of revitalizing the U.S. economy with initiatives designed to grow middle-class manufacturing jobs.

Bob Ryan and David Hallas, members of the United Steelworkers union, addressed the committee charged with drafting the Democratic Party’s platform in advance of its national convention Sept. 4-6 in Charlotte. The Platform Committee met in Minneapolis the weekend of July 27.

Ryan and Hallas offered committee members several suggestions for supporting American manufacturers and the middle-class workers they employ, including infrastructure investments, “Buy American” laws and trade agreements that level the playing field for domestic manufacturers.

“My manufacturing union job at the paper mill has given me a good, middle-class standard- of- living,” Ryan told committee members. “America now desperately needs a Democratic vision for how to address our national and local economic … challenges to keep us a strong economy in the global marketplace.”

Ryan is a member of Steelworkers Local 264, which represents 500 workers at the Rock-Tenn plant in St. Paul’s Midway district. Hallas is a member of Local 7263, representing 350 workers at the Gerdau Long Steel plant, located off Highway 61 and Interstate 494.

Ryan reflected for committee members on what the Rock-Tenn plant has meant to his family, which enjoys a “good, middle-class standard of living” as a result of his job, he said.

But like many manufacturing jobs, Ryan’s has been threatened in an era of global competition, as companies are increasingly able to exploit cheap labor supplies overseas. Rock-Tenn, a paper recycler, competes with companies that collect waste paper from municipalities and, in turn, ship it to recycling companies in China.

“Waste paper is now the largest export by volume to China,” Ryan said. “Instead of exporting waste paper, we should keep it here to create and sustain good jobs for value-added products in the U.S.”

To protect jobs like Ryan’s, he said, Democrats must commit to policies that reward companies for keeping jobs in the U.S. The party’s leaders also must commit to confronting China and other countries that fail to abide by the rules of fair trade, particularly when it comes to currency manipulation and protectionism.

“The Asian tiger refuses to play by the rules of global trade and sees trade as a one-way ticket to our market, without our having the competitive access to their own markets,” Ryan said. “This must stop.”

Hallas offered another suggestion for revitalizing the manufacturing sector: pairing increased investment in public infrastructure with “Buy American” laws that ensure the materials used to build and repair highways, bridges and water systems come from U.S. companies whenever possible.

Hallas talked about the pride he and other workers at Gerdau took in producing the 63-millimeter anchor bar bolts that secure the new Interstate 35-W bridge to bedrock in Minneapolis.

“I remember well that as the steel bars moved from one work station to the next, we steelworkers reminded each other of our skills and the importance of what we were doing,” he said.

Hallas also responded to criticisms of “Buy American” laws – that they create inefficiency and waste, that they could spark trade wars with other countries.

“Most industrialized countries already utilize their own domestic procurement requirements,” Hallas said, pointing to “Buy Canadian” laws and “Buy European” laws in Canada and the European Union. “Providing a preference for domestic content is fully within the rights of the United States.

“As national polling shows, Americans not only support U.S. manufacturers and their workers, but they also favor ‘Buy America’ preferences when their tax dollars are spent on public infrastructure projects. American voters understand what’s at stake: good-paying jobs and the strength of the U.S. economy.”

The U.S. economy’s manufacturing sector was hit particularly hard during the most-recent recession. According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the industry lost 2 million jobs – or 17 percent of its workforce – between December 2007 and December 2009, when U.S. manufacturing employment fell to its lowest level in six decades.

Efforts to stem the tide of job losses took a hit last month, when Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have eliminated a tax credit U.S. employers use to move jobs overseas – and replaced it with a 20 percent tax break for the costs of moving jobs back to the U.S.

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