North Shore Federation of Labor Returns from AFL-CIO Convention with Clear Mandate: Build Worker Power and Shape the Future of Work
CLEVELAND — Leadership from the North Shore AFL-CIO Federation of Labor joined thousands of union members, leaders, and activists from across the country at the AFL-CIO's 30th Constitutional Convention in Minneapolis, where working people adopted an ambitious agenda to continue to grow unions, strengthen democracy, protect worker rights, expand economic opportunity, improve workplace safety, rebuild American industry, and ensure that emerging technologies serve humanity—not the other way around.
The resolutions adopted during the convention are a roadmap for action and a call to continue to build worker power in every workplace and community.
At a time when corporate power is increasingly concentrated, working families continue to face economic challenges and attacks on collective bargaining. At the Convention, the labor movement made clear that the future must be shaped by working people—not dictated by powerful interests.
Convention delegates adopted resolutions calling for the labor movement to organize millions of new workers, defend democracy and voting rights, strengthen workplace protections, expand access to affordable health care, improve retirement security, rebuild domestic manufacturing, invest in critical infrastructure, protect public services, and ensure every worker has the freedom to join a union and bargain collectively.
The convention also reaffirmed labor's commitment to civil rights, immigrant rights, workplace equity, worker solidarity around the world, and the principle that an injury to one is an injury to all.
Yet one issue emerged throughout the convention as a challenge unlike any other because it touches every worker, every industry, and every community: artificial intelligence.
Artificial intelligence is already transforming manufacturing, health care, education, transportation, logistics, public services, media, and the creative economy. It is changing how employers make decisions, how work is performed, and how productivity gains are distributed. The question is no longer whether AI will reshape our economy. The question is who will benefit.
Will AI become another tool used to concentrate wealth, eliminate jobs, monitor workers, undermine professional judgment, and erode human dignity? Or will it become a tool that improves safety, enhances productivity, supports creativity, strengthens public services, and creates broadly shared prosperity?
The labor movement's answer is clear: workers must have a voice in how AI is developed, implemented, and governed.—Executive Secretary Brian Pearson
Workers deserve a seat at the table when new technologies are introduced. Workers must have the right to bargain over technological change. Human oversight must remain central in decisions affecting employment, health care, education, public safety, and public services. Creative workers must have their intellectual property protected. Innovation must serve people—not the other way around.
Here in Northeast Ohio, we have an opportunity to lead. We call on elected officials, employers, educators, faith leaders, and community stakeholders to join the Federation in a serious conversation about the future of artificial intelligence and the future of work. Together, we must ensure that technological progress strengthens worker dignity, protects jobs, respects intellectual property, and creates opportunities that are shared by all.
The labor movement has faced transformational moments before. Workers fought to ensure that the Industrial Revolution did not come at the expense of human dignity. Workers secured workplace safety laws, retirement security, collective bargaining rights, and labor standards that helped build America's middle class.
We are entering another such moment.
The North Shore AFL-CIO leadership team returns home from this convention energized and united around a clear mission: organize more workers, strengthen our communities, defend democracy, and ensure that the future of work is shaped by working people.
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MEDIA CONTACT: Brian Pearson, bpearson@clevelandaflcio.org or 330-402-8411.
The North Shore AFL-CIO Federation of Labor is Ohio’s largest central labor council, representing the collective voice of 80,000 working people across Cuyahoga, Lake, and Geauga counties.