We Proudly Celebrate Black History Month

Feb 2

Black History Month is a time for reflection and recognition as we celebrate the Black labor leaders and union members, both past and present, who have advanced real change.

The struggle for equity absolutely continues, and our task of protecting our fundamental rights remains as important as ever. The labor movement plays a critical protective role against the Trump administration and its enablers as they attack diversity, equity and inclusion policies and programs, attempt to trample our rights, and whitewash our history. 

We’ll feature the stories of new Black History Month labor leaders and activists throughout the month here.

President Trump likes to say he is delivering for working people. He promised on the campaign trail to protect “Black jobs.” But like so many of his promises, this is an empty one. In fact, we have been living with the effects of Trump’s policies since he took office a year ago, and the only thing he has delivered for us is employment uncertainty and financial insecurity. 

Black unemployment has now surged to more than 7%, nearly double the country’s overall unemployment rate. For both Black Americans as a whole and Black women in particular, unemployment has reached its highest level since 2021 and will likely continue to grow. 

Most Americans say they’re still struggling just to make ends meet. President Trump promised to “make America affordable again,” but instead, his administration and its allies in Congress spent the past year driving up costs, holding down wages and letting jobs disappear—including good-paying jobs that would help keep energy bills from skyrocketing. 

We’ll keep fighting to hold the Trump administration accountable when it pushes anti-worker, anti-Black policies. That’s why we need your help to tell Congress to fix the affordability crisis now. Please make a call.

Trump’s economy may be working for his billionaire buddies, but for the rest of us, it’s a disaster. It’s time to take our country back to ensure that Black workers—and all workers—finally get the fair shot at getting ahead that we deserve.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, wrote that “we are…tied in a single garment of destiny.” And that remains true today. We are all connected in the same struggle for dignity as working people—no matter our race, nationality or immigration status. What affects one of us affects all of us.

That is at the heart of the civil rights and labor movements—a connection rooted in shared values and the pursuit of economic and racial justice through solidarity, collective action and nonviolent civil resistance. 

Together, we will advance the march toward progress. Stay strong. Stay united.

P.S. I recorded this video message for Black History Month. Please take a look and share:

Tags: Black History Month

Get to Know AFL-CIO's Affiliates: AFSCME

Feb 2

This is the next post in our series that will take a deeper look at each of our affiliates. The series will run weekly until we’ve covered all 64 of our affiliates. Next up is AFSCME.

Name of Union: American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)

Mission: AFSCME members provide the vital services that make America happen. They work to ensure dignity and security for public service workers across the country. By organizing new members, they build their capacity to strengthen public services, improve working conditions, negotiate decent wages, and safeguard pensions and health benefits.

Current Leadership of Union: Lee Saunders was elected AFSCME president in 2012, the first African American to hold that position, after previously serving as secretary-treasurer and in many other roles with AFSCME since 1978. He was raised in a union household in Cleveland. His mother was a member of the American Association of University Professors, a teacher at a community college and a community organizer. His father was a union bus driver for the city. Elissa McBride serves as secretary-treasurer. AFSCME has 34 international vice presidents serving different regions.

Members Work As: With hundreds of job categories, members work in behavioral health, corrections, early childhood education, emergency services, environmental stewardship, health care, higher education, home care, child care, housing, human services, K-12 schools, law enforcement, libraries, museums and other cultural institutions, nursing, probation and parole, public administration, public works, legal services, transportation, sanitation, and more. 

Industries Represented: States, cities, counties, other local governments and schools, as well as the federal government and private employers performing public services.

History: During the depths of the Great Depression, a group of state employees in Madison, Wisconsin, formed what would later become the Wisconsin State Employees Union/Council 24 in an effort to defend the state’s civil service system and stand up to political cronyism. Four years later, in 1936, the American Federation of Labor granted a charter for AFSCME, which united the Wisconsin group with numerous others that had formed across the country after the success in Madison.

At the end of 1936, the union had 10,000 members. Growth was difficult at first, but by 1946, the union stood at 73,000 members. The merger that formed the AFL-CIO brought AFSCME another 40,000 members.

AFSCME was active in the struggle for racial justice in the 1960s, during the presidency of Jerry Wurf. The 1968 strike of AFSCME sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, was a signature moment in civil rights and labor rights history. It was in Memphis, in support of the sanitation workers’ struggle, that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

AFSCME continued to grow during the 1970s and 1980s, with a focus on bringing together independent associations of public employees in an effort to harness the collective power of so many voices. Almost 60 associations, representing 450,000 people, joined AFSCME by affiliation or merger, pushing total membership past the 1 million mark.

AFSCME’s growth across the country gave the union a more powerful voice when it came to fighting injustice. In September 1981, AFSCME’s 60,000-member delegation, the largest from any single union, led the march at the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Day, a massive demonstration in Washington, D.C., demanding fair treatment for workers. That same year in San Jose, California, AFSCME Local 101 staged the first strike in the nation’s history over the issue of pay equity for women. The action attracted national media attention and helped spark the pay equity movement.

For decades, corporations, billionaires and their allies have engaged in a coordinated and well-financed effort to weaken the power of public sector unions such as AFSCME. In 2018, in a case called Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, the most business-friendly Supreme Court in history ruled in favor of anti-worker forces, overturning decades of precedent to make the entire public sector “right to work.” Many pundits predicted this would be a death blow. But because of the work put in by AFSCME, together with other public sector unions and the AFL-CIO, AFSCME has emerged in the strongest possible position. No politician or judicial decision can contain the collective power of working people. Hundreds of thousands of fee payers have converted to AFSCME members since early 2014.

Current Campaigns: AFSCME People works to elect candidates who will fight for AFSCME members and priorities. The AFSCME GO campaign is the union’s response to the attacks on public services and public service workers by anti-union lawmakers, the new administration and billionaires. The AFSCME Cultural Workers United campaign has given 50,000 workers at museums, libraries, zoos and other cultural institutions a voice on the job.

Community Efforts: From credit cards to credit counseling, AFSCME Advantage offers union members and their families a wide array of financial products to meet their everyday needs. AFSCME awards several scholarships for members and their families. AFSCME provides members with training and education. AFSCME publishes a daily news blog. AFSCME sells merchandise in their online store.

Learn More: Website, Facebook, X, Bluesky, Instagram, YouTube, blog

Black History Month Profiles

Feb 2

For Black History Month, we're taking a look at a group of leaders who are currently actively making Black history across the labor movement. Check back daily for a new profile and meet some of the people working to improve not only their community, but also to improve conditions for working people across the country.

Here's who we've featured so far:

• Raquel Caines of OPEIU

Tags: Black History Month

Black History Month Profiles: Raquel Caines

Feb 2

For Black History Month, we're taking a look at a group of leaders who are currently actively making Black history across the labor movement. Check back daily for a new profile and meet some of the people working to improve not only their community, but also to improve conditions for working people across the country. Today's profile is Raquel Caines of the Office & Professional Employees (OPEIU).

Raquel Caines is a shop steward and group coordinator at United Federation of Teachers, where she has worked for seven years. “What we can learn from both labor and black history,” she said, “is if you fail to define yourself, you will live by other people’s definition of you. It is important that we are in a moment where history is not watered down.”

Tags: Black History Month

Service & Solidarity Spotlight: Blizzard Quality Assurance Workers Ratify Video Game Union Contract with Microsoft; Secure Wage Increases and Other Benefits

Feb 2

Working people across the United States regularly step up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our Service & Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

A strong majority of quality assurance workers at Blizzard Entertainment’s Albany, New York, and Austin, Texas, locations overwhelmingly voted to ratify a union contract at Microsoft. The workers are represented by Communications Workers of America (CWA) locals 1118 and 6215, respectively.

The three-year contract includes guaranteed wage increases; enhanced regulations around the usage of AI and generative AI in the workplace; protections on fair crediting and name recognition on shipped video games; reasonable disability accommodations without discrimination or retaliation; protection to immigrant workers from unfair discipline and loss of seniority while streamlining legal verification; restrictions on mandatory “crunch time” or excessive overtime hours; and other benefits.

“At a time when layoffs are hitting our industry hard, today is another big step in building a better future for video game workers at every level,” said Local 1118 member and Blizzard Albany quality analyst Brock Davis. “For quality assurance testers, this contract provides us wages to live on, increased job security benefits, and guardrails around artificial intelligence in the workplace.”

“After nearly two decades in the video game industry, it feels great to work with my fellow union members in ratifying a fair contract that makes it easier to see a real, long-term career in this work,” said Local 6215 member and Blizzard Austin senior quality analyst Matt Gant. “This agreement gives us a better working environment with increased pay, benefits, and layoff protections that include recall rights and ensures that quality assurance work remains a stable and respected role for the workers who will build games long after us.”