Courtesy of the North Dakota AFL-CIO
A delegation of eleven young workers from North Dakota attended the national AFL-CIO’s Next Up Young Workers Summit last weekend in Chicago. USW local 560 sent ten young workers and the North Dakota AFL-CIO sent one staff young worker as the eleventh member of the North Dakota delegation.
The summit had a total attendance of 1000 young workers from all around the United States and a few delegations of international young workers. The event was believed to be the most diverse AFL-CIO event in it’s history with attendees coming from a wide variety of sectors and backgrounds. The four day summit was packed with over 80 topical breakout sessions, punctuated with periodic daily plenary sessions and state-based planning sessions.
Notable speakers included: AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler, AFL-CIO Executive Vice-President Tefere Gebre, Actor and Activist Danny Glover, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), and many incredible young leaders in the labor movement.
The focus of the summit was on building power for young workers by taking action, so actually taking action was a big part of the summit. Summit participants took part in a variety of actions such as door-knocking in a labor-endorsed city alderman candidate to rallying for “the fight for $15” at local low-wage establishments to rallying for fair treatment of Guitar Center employees.
“A major goal we have heading home from this summit is to increase the presence of North Dakota young workers at our regional labor events as well as the next young workers summit. We would love to see young workers from a variety of North Dakota locals and organizations next year,” Dan Jackson said. “We’re definitely going to be reaching out to them and letting them know what a good experience this was for us.”