- Liz Shuler made history as the AFL-CIO's first female president 100 days ago.
- The head of the largest labor union has overseen sky-high approval ratings and thousands on strike.
- Insider spoke to Shuler about her goal to organize like never before and seize upon this enthusiasm.
When Liz Shuler rides on an airplane, she often has an experience that will be familiar to most travelers: Her seat mate asks, "What do you do?"
Five years ago, after saying she worked for a labor union, Shuler said, most people would put their noses back in their books. Today, she's met with reactions like "awesome" and "amazing."
"There's a genuine excitement out there," Shuler said.
It's not just airplane riders who are excited. More than 100,000 American workers at companies like John Deere and Kellogg's voted to authorize strikes in October and November to demand better pay and working conditions.
Despite decades of declining membership, labor unions are enjoying their highest approval ratings among Americans since 1965, as well as support from President Biden who said he intends "to be the most pro-union president, leading the most pro-union administration in American history." As corporations raked in record profits this year, workers have started to again use their collective power to lift standards for entire communities and demand that they reap some of that financial windfall.
Shuler is at the forefront of the change, as the first female president of the country's largest labor federation, the AFL-CIO, which works with 12.5 million members at 57 unions, including the unions representing strikers at Deere and Kellogg's. She's not considering 2021 a victory, but just the start: "If we're not looking through the lens of how to grow our movement, we're really missing the point."
Shuler made history as the first woman to helm the federation after being elected in August when longtime leader Richard Trumka unexpectedly passed away. She is set to fill the role until next summer, and told Politico she plans to run for reelection in June. Now, as she approaches her 100th day in office, Shuler is focused on turning this "pivotal moment" of potential into lasting change.
"That's my hope — if we look back 100 years from now, it'd be like, this was the moment that we organized like never before and brought the opportunity for a union to every working person in the country," Shuler told Insider.
"The challenge we have in front of us is, how do we build the labor movement to meet the moment and build on all this energy and enthusiasm?" Much of the answer, she's said, lies with young workers and those who no longer want to settle for low-paying work, amid the so-called labor shortage.
Sending 'a ripple effect' through the labor market
Shuler said that during October, she was out on more picket lines than she could count.
"[I've] been so moved by the courage that I've seen and the solidarity of workers having each other's backs," Shuler said.
She pointed to the 10,000 Deere workers who recently concluded a month-long strike through three contract offers, finally accepting one that contained an $8,500 signing bonus, a 20% wage increase over the contract's six-year stretch, and beefed-up retirement benefits. The company still reported record profits.
Some of the mightiest American corporations are seeing union drives. Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama, who famously failed to unionize in a vote earlier this year, are set to vote again after the National Labor Relations Board's regional director found the tech giant had shown "flagrant disregard" for the mail voting process, which "compromised the authority of the Board and made a free and fair election impossible." Google and Starbucks are other names to see union activity.
"It really has a ripple effect across an entire labor market, that rising tide lifting all boats," Shuler said.
A pathway to a well-paid job with benefits
As her first 100 days in office pass, Shuler has latched onto the mission to make sure every American has access to a secure, well-paid job where they only need one paycheck to make ends meet, and receive benefits like healthcare and retirement. "We would argue a union job gets you there," Shuler said.
More broadly, Shuler said that people are taking advantage of this cultural moment to find a pathway to a better job. Some call it the "Great Resignation" or "Great Reshuffle." Others say there's a "labor shortage" as people get pickier about what jobs they'll accept.
"We want to be at the center of that," she said. The labor movement can become an "ecosystem," the "glue" for workers who want to upskill or move around or change industries altogether.
Right now, Shuler said, the economy is not working for most working people. Corporations "have all the power," and the only way to "rebalance" is to put more power into the hands of working people.
"How do we do that?" she asked. "We form more unions."
That means that as big as 2021 has been for the labor movement, it's not even the beginning in Shuler's eyes.
One concrete next step: Passing legislation like the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would make organizing easier; some of the PRO Act appears in Democrats' Build Back Better reconciliation package.
"We could unleash unprecedented organizing, and that would truly rebalance the scales of the economy," Shuler said.
New faces, industries, and issues joining the labor movement
Shuler said a new generation of workers is negotiating and using their leverage for a whole new set of priorities.
Whole new sectors are unionizing or taking collective action — including firms in Big Tech, gaming, and digital journalism — and pushing forward collective bargaining to address topics that traditionally haven't been subjects of bargaining, such as corporate social responsibility and environmental impact.
"Workers in tech are no different than workers in any other workplace," she said. "They want respect and dignity."
As part of its growth, Shuler said that the labor movement will work to center issues important to women and people of color even more. For instance, she noted unions have been negotiating provisions like equal pay and paid leave into its contracts for decades.
"The labor movement is the largest working women's organization in the country. A lot of people don't think of us in that way, but we represent six-and-a-half million women," Shuler said.
The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that women in unions are paid more than their counterparts, and that collective bargaining helps close pay gaps for workers of color.
Shuler also sees the younger generation coming up through the workforce as key to organizing, and said the labor movement has to seize this moment to bring them into the fold.
"They're tailor made to be union leaders," she said. "We cannot wait to get young people into our leadership. We can't wait until they've been in our movement 10, 15, 20 years. We need to capture their leadership now."