The labor movement played a decisive role in the election of a pro-worker majority in the U.S. Senate. After delivering the 2020 election for President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, we regrouped and remobilized to keep the momentum going in Georgia.
(January 21, 2021, MILWAUKEE, WI) -- Stephanie Bloomingdale, President of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, released the following statement as President Biden issues an executive order calling on OSHA
(January 12, 2021, MILWAUKEE, WI) -- Stephanie Bloomingdale, President of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, released the following statement on Governor Tony Evers’ 2021 State of the State address:
Working people are bearing the brunt of this global pandemic and economic crisis. The physical toll, death, pain, and suffering that Oregon’s frontline and essential workers have experienced is unprecedented.
Coupled with the economic collapse that has exacerbated long-term inequities for low wage workers and BIPOC communities, workers are hurting and they need protections.
Randi Weingarten
on Wednesday, July 8 2020 - 12:21pm
Daniel DiSalvo asks: “Will Unions Let Schools Reopen?” (op-ed, June 30). Of course! The AFT published our school reopening plan in April. We said it isn’t a question of whether to reopen, but how to do it safely. We need the infrastructure and investment to physically distance, stagger classes, provide personal protective equipment and test, trace and isolate new cases.
The New York Times
on Monday, July 6 2020 - 9:14pm
Racial disparities in who contracts the virus have played out in big cities like Milwaukee and New York, but also in smaller metropolitan areas like Grand Rapids, Mich., where the Bradleys live. Those inequities became painfully apparent when Ms. Bradley, who is Black, was wheeled through the emergency room. Early numbers had shown that Black and Latino people were being harmed by the virus at higher rates.
On June 29, 2020, an appeals court upheld Republican-authored attacks on voting rights in Wisconsin.
During the COVID-19 pandemic having access to safe voting is a fundamental underpinning of our democracy. After forcing in-person voting in April during the COVID-19 health pandemic, Republicans have now limited options for safe, early in-person voting.
This month’s historic Supreme Court ruling that LGBTQ employees are protected in the workplace by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was another step forward in the march for equality. While there is much to celebrate, this ruling comes as our nation is suffering from centuries-old systemic racism and grieving its latest victims. George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were killed by police officers. Twenty-five-year-old Ahmaud Arbery was gunned down on a run by two white men. We need to say their names, know their stories, and recognize why they were deprived of a full life.
The New York Times Magazine
on Wednesday, June 24 2020 - 9:04pm
Race-neutral policies simply will not address the depth of disadvantage faced by people this country once believed were chattel. Financial restitution cannot end racism, of course, but it can certainly mitigate racism’s most devastating effects. If we do nothing, black Americans may never recover from this pandemic, and they will certainly never know the equality the nation has promised.
Richard Trumka
on Wednesday, June 17 2020 - 9:14pm
America is suffering under the crushing weight of three crises, which are a public health pandemic, an economic free fall, and structural racism. They are knotted together in that untangling one depends on how we untangle the others. For instance, structural racism is deeply ingrained in the share of black workers unemployed and dying from the coronavirus. Today, thousands of working people across the country will join together in a national day of action called the Workers First Caravan for Racial and Economic Justice.
