WILL Empower joins with working women and their organizations across the nation in lauding the election of the first woman to serve as President of the AFL-CIO and in celebrating this historic moment.  Liz Shuler is a long-time champion of working women, and we look forward to her leadership as AFL-CIO President as she centers women’s fundamental issues and concerns, both on the job and in communities. 

Women make up nearly half of union membership, and are on track to soon be a majority of union members.  Many of today’s union members and activists are women working as teachers, nurses, tradeswomen, journalists, professors, bus drivers, and so much more.  They have been at the forefront of recent labor struggles, and often are the essential workers most impacted by the pandemic. Women routinely shoulder the burdens of care, often on an unpaid basis. Nearly two million women have dropped out of the labor force since the pandemic’s start, in part because of the lack of secure options for child and elder care. Women are often the behind-the-scene “she-roes” who make workplaces and unions run; they deserve to be fully represented at all levels of the nation’s union movement. 

Shuler’s election stands to mark a bellwether moment for women in unions, helping to bring women leaders to the core of the labor movement’s leadership ranks at all levels. As Shuler often reminds us, union women together make up the nation’s largest women’s organization. We offer Liz Shuler our heartfelt congratulations and are ready to support her efforts in any way possible.  

WILL Empower (Women Innovating Labor Leadership) is a joint initiative of Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for the Labor and the Working Poor and Rutgers University SMLR’s Center for Innovation in Worker Organization (CIWO). 

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Contact: Lily Ryan, lily.ryan@georgetown.edu  

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