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A Summary of Resolutions Passed at the 30th AFL-CIO Convention

North Shore AFL-CIO Staff
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The 30th AFL-CIO Constitutional Convention brought leaders of the 65 affiliated unions and state, area, and central federated bodies together in Minneapolis to set the programmatic and policy agenda of our movement for the next five years.

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. Here is a summary of each resolution, with priority resolutions marked with an asterisk:

Resolution 1: With You, It's Better in a Union

The AFL-CIO is reaffirming that unions are the best vehicle for improving workers' lives, strengthening democracy, and challenging corporate power. The federation sees the next four years as a period of aggressive growth and movement-building in response to attacks on workers, civil rights, immigrants, and democratic institutions.

Objectives:
  • Make organizing the federation's top priority.
  • Support innovative organizing campaigns across sectors.
  • Invest in political programs that elect pro-worker candidates.
  • Expand solidarity with workers globally.
  • Ensure AI and emerging technology benefit workers, not corporations.
  • Build alliances that leave no worker behind regardless of race, gender, immigration status, or occupation.

*Resolution 2: We Are the Organized Power of Working People

The AFL-CIO commits to growing by at least 2 million members by 2032 and making organizing the central mission of the labor movement.

Objectives:

  • Launch large-scale organizing campaigns.
  • Align political endorsements with organizing goals.
  • Expand local labor-community organizing efforts.
  • Train thousands of new worker-organizers.
  • Coordinate bargaining and strike activity where possible.
  • Support workers who lack traditional bargaining rights.
  • Fight for passage of the PRO Act and other labor law reforms.
  • Combat worker misclassification.
  • Explore sectoral bargaining and new organizing models.
  • Use pension capital to support worker-friendly investments.

Resolution 3: We Stand Up for One Another

The AFL-CIO formally ties economic justice to racial justice, gender justice, LGBTQ+ rights, immigrant rights, and civil rights.

Objectives:
  • Fight workplace discrimination.
  • Advance pay equity.
  • Support paid leave and affordable care policies.
  • Build stronger partnerships with civil rights organizations.
  • Center marginalized workers in organizing campaigns.
  • Defend transgender workers and LGBTQ+ rights.
  • Support the Equal Rights Amendment and Equality Act.
  • Advocate reforms to reduce mass incarceration and improve reentry opportunities.

Resolution 4: We Refuse to Be Divided

The AFL-CIO adopts a strong pro-immigrant agenda and rejects attempts to divide workers based on immigration status.

Objectives:
  • Advocate for a pathway to citizenship.
  • Oppose mass deportations and workplace raids.
  • Defend due process rights.
  • Build rapid-response networks for immigrant workers.
  • Strengthen partnerships with faith and community organizations.
  • Fight voter suppression efforts targeting immigrant communities.
  • Push employers and investors to oppose anti-worker immigration policies.

*Resolution 5: We Want Democracy and Government That Works for All of Us

The AFL-CIO views attacks on voting rights, collective bargaining, federal workers, journalists, and democratic institutions as direct threats to workers.

Objectives:
  • Protect voting rights and expand voter access.
  • Oppose gerrymandering and voter suppression.
  • Support campaign finance reform.
  • Require support for collective bargaining as a condition of labor endorsements.
  • Rebuild federal worker bargaining rights.
  • Defend public services and public sector unions.
  • Protect press freedom.
  • Modernize regulatory systems to better protect workers.
  • Defend academic freedom.
  • Expand civics education, including labor history.

*Resolution 6: We Want a Decent Living for All

The AFL-CIO adopts a comprehensive affordability agenda focused on wages, health care, caregiving, retirement security, education, and tax fairness.

Objectives:

Raise Wages

  • Increase minimum wages.
  • End subminimum wages.
  • Strengthen prevailing wage protections.
  • Combat wage theft.

Health Care

  • Protect Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act.
  • Expand prescription drug price negotiation.
  • Challenge health care monopolies and private equity abuses.

Care Economy

  • Establish universal paid leave.
  • Make child care affordable.
  • Expand long-term care services.

Retirement

  • Protect Social Security.
  • Strengthen pensions.
  • Oppose risky retirement investments.

Public Education

  • Defend public schools.
  • Expand career and technical education.
  • Support community schools.
  • Establish AI and technology safeguards.

Tax Fairness

  • Raise taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations.
  • Close tax loopholes.
  • Restore IRS enforcement.

*Resolution 7: We Want Good Jobs Today and Tomorrow

The AFL-CIO calls for a worker-centered economic strategy focused on manufacturing, infrastructure, workforce development, trade, and artificial intelligence.

Objectives:

Industrial Policy

  • Rebuild domestic manufacturing.
  • Strengthen supply chains.
  • Invest in energy, transportation, aerospace, shipbuilding, and critical industries.

Trade

  • Renegotiate USMCA.
  • Strengthen trade enforcement.
  • Use tariffs strategically.
  • Restore Trade Adjustment Assistance.

Procurement

  • Expand Buy America policies.
  • Favor union-made products.
  • Protect the Jones Act.

Workforce Development

  • Expand union apprenticeship programs.
  • Protect workforce development funding.

AI

  • Establish worker-centered AI policies.
  • Prevent AI from replacing workers without protections.
  • Fight workplace surveillance.
  • Require bargaining over technological change.
  • Protect intellectual property and creative workers.

*Resolution 8: We Want Healthy Lives and Safe Workplaces

The AFL-CIO is reaffirming that health care and workplace safety are fundamental worker rights. The resolution combines a broad health care agenda with an aggressive workplace safety agenda, arguing that workers should not have to sacrifice their health, lives, or economic security to earn a living.

Objectives:

Health Care

  • Defend Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP, and ACA coverage.
  • Reverse cuts that reduce access to health care.
  • Restore funding for public health and medical research.
  • Expand mental health and substance abuse treatment.
  • Protect reproductive health access.
  • Move toward universal health care through a Medicare-for-All style system.

Health Care Workforce

  • Improve staffing levels in hospitals and nursing homes.
  • Establish nurse-to-patient staffing standards.
  • Expand health care workforce training pipelines.
  • Prevent workplace violence in health care settings.
  • Ensure AI supports—not replaces—professional judgment.

Nutrition & Public Health

  • Restore SNAP funding.
  • Fight food insecurity and hunger.
  • Strengthen public health emergency preparedness.

Workplace Safety

  • Fully fund OSHA, MSHA, and NIOSH.
  • Strengthen whistleblower protections.
  • Combat heat illness, workplace violence, silica exposure, asbestos, infectious diseases, and ergonomic injuries.
  • Expand protections for temporary, contract, and public sector workers.
  • Strengthen workers' rights to refuse unsafe work.
  • Bargain and organize around health and safety issues.
  • Establish worker-centered AI safety guardrails.

*Resolution 9: We Want a Just and Peaceful World

The AFL-CIO adopts a worker-centered international agenda, arguing that worker rights, democracy, migration, trade, and peace are interconnected globally.

Objectives:

Global Labor Solidarity

  • Strengthen relationships with unions around the world.
  • Support independent unions and democratic movements globally.
  • Expand international worker-to-worker solidarity campaigns.

Trade & Economic Policy

  • Enforce labor standards in global supply chains.
  • Strengthen USMCA labor enforcement.
  • Preserve Trade Adjustment Assistance.
  • Combat unfair trade practices and dumping.
  • Hold multinational corporations accountable.

AI & Technology

  • Promote global worker-centered AI standards.
  • Protect copyright and intellectual property rights.
  • Challenge tech monopolies and digital oligarchies.

Peace & Human Rights

  • Support diplomacy and conflict resolution.
  • Advocate for ceasefires and humanitarian protections.
  • Defend democratic self-determination.

Migration

  • Defend migrant worker rights.
  • Oppose exploitation through guest-worker programs.
  • Protect refugee and asylum rights.
  • Support pathways to legal status and citizenship.

Resolution 10: And We Know How to Get It Done

This is the AFL-CIO's organizational blueprint. It focuses on strengthening state federations and central labor councils so the labor movement has the infrastructure necessary to achieve all other goals.

Objectives:

Strengthen Labor Infrastructure

  • Invest in state federations and labor councils.
  • Increase affiliate participation.
  • Improve coordination across unions.
  • Expand leadership development and training.

Focus on Five Core Functions

  1. Political Action
  2. Legislative Advocacy
  3. Community Engagement
  4. Organizing
  5. Crisis Response and Strike Solidarity

Structural Reforms

  • Improve governance and accountability.
  • Modernize constitutions and procedures.
  • Strengthen COPE and political coordination.
  • Evaluate structures that lack capacity.

Resolution 17: Revitalizing Domestic Shipbuilding, Ship Repair, and Maritime Industries

The AFL-CIO views rebuilding U.S. shipbuilding as both an economic and national security priority.

Objectives:
  • Support domestic shipbuilding investment.
  • Expand shipyard workforce development.
  • Support the SHIPS for America Act.
  • Increase commercial and defense shipbuilding funding.
  • Oppose outsourcing shipbuilding and repair work overseas.
  • Support trade enforcement against China's maritime practices.
  • Educate members and policymakers about the industry's importance.

Resolution 18: Protecting Veterans, the VA, and Federal Workers

The AFL-CIO opposes privatization of the Department of Veterans Affairs and defends both veterans' benefits and the rights of VA workers.

Objectives:
  • Oppose VA privatization efforts.
  • Restore collective bargaining rights for VA workers.
  • Protect veteran health care and benefits.
  • Ensure AI and automation remain under human oversight.
  • Demand transparency in claims processing technology.
  • Mobilize legislative and grassroots support for the VA.

Resolution 23: Honoring Pope Leo XIV

The AFL-CIO formally recognizes Pope Leo XIV's commitment to workers' rights and social justice, linking his papacy to the legacy of Pope Leo XIII and Rerum Novarum.

Objectives:
  • Promote labor-faith partnerships.
  • Educate members on labor's role in Catholic social teaching.
  • Build relationships with faith communities.
  • Advance worker dignity, fair wages, and labor rights as moral issues.

Resolution 25: Protecting Union Jobs Against Anti-Competitive Corporate Behavior

The AFL-CIO argues that corporate consolidation hurts workers just as much as it hurts consumers.

Objectives:
  • Oppose anti-worker mega-mergers.
  • Demand labor impact reviews during merger investigations.
  • Strengthen antitrust enforcement.
  • Fight wage-fixing and no-poach agreements.
  • Eliminate abusive non-compete clauses.
  • Combat worker misclassification.

Resolution 26: Supporting Affordable Groceries and Good Jobs

The AFL-CIO opposes electronic shelf labels (ESLs) and surveillance pricing, arguing they increase grocery costs and threaten union jobs.

Objectives:
  • Support bans on electronic shelf labels.
  • Oppose surveillance-based pricing.
  • Protect grocery workers' jobs and hours.
  • Defend consumer privacy.
  • Support the Stop Price Gouging in Grocery Stores Act.

Resolution 28: Federal Film & Television Production Incentives

The AFL-CIO supports federal incentives to bring film and television production jobs back to the United States.

Objectives:
  • Support federal production tax credits.
  • Encourage domestic hiring.
  • Promote incentives in rural and distressed communities.
  • Coordinate federal and state incentives.
  • Protect and expand entertainment industry jobs.

Resolution 32: Honoring the Workers of September 11th

The AFL-CIO honors the workers who responded to 9/11 and commits to protecting survivors and responders suffering long-term health consequences.

Objectives:
  • Commemorate the 25th anniversary of 9/11.
  • Protect the World Trade Center Health Program.
  • Defend the Victim Compensation Fund.
  • Support unions whose members suffer 9/11-related illnesses.
  • Advocate worker-centered disaster response policies.
  • Ensure future responders receive adequate protections and benefits.

Resolution 33: Support AFT's Boycott of Target and Shop Local

The AFL-CIO endorses the American Federation of Teachers' boycott of Target and encourages members to shop locally for back-to-school purchases until Target changes its position regarding ICE enforcement and democracy-related concerns.

Objectives:
  • Educate members about the boycott.
  • Promote local businesses and union-friendly retailers.
  • Encourage back-to-school shopping alternatives.
  • Build community coalitions around economic and immigration justice.

Resolution 41: Justice for Virginia's Public Service Workers

The AFL-CIO condemns the veto of collective bargaining legislation in Virginia and commits to supporting public employees' right to organize and bargain collectively.

Objectives:
  • Support Virginia public workers' organizing efforts.
  • Advocate for statewide collective bargaining rights.
  • Highlight the connection between bargaining rights and public services.
  • Expose the historic anti-union roots of Virginia labor law.
  • Mobilize labor support for future legislative efforts.