(Washington, September 25, 2013) – Today, the Iowa Federation of Labor praised the national announcement of a partnership between the AFL-CIO and United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS). The alliance between AFL-CIO and USAS will strengthen collaboration at the local level between the groups around organizing and advocacy to build power for students and workers.
The new partnership builds on calls for innovation and inclusion at the just-concluded AFL-CIO convention in Los Angeles, where delegates agreed to open the door to the labor movement and engage with allies outside unions to tackle the challenges confronting working people. Iowa AFL-CIO leaders, Charlie Wishman and Mark Cooper, attended the convention as delegates and voted in favor of resolutions which aim to broaden the labor movement and make the labor movement more inclusive by developing stronger formal partnerships with community groups, worker centers, and school organizations focused on workers’ rights issues.
Today’s partnership agreement between the AFL-CIO and USAS is the first concrete step since the convention unanimously agreed to expand community partnerships.
“It was incredibly exciting to be part of the national AFL-CIO’s most innovative and diverse conventions in recent history,” said Charlie Wishman, Secretary Treasurer of the Iowa Federation of Labor AFL-CIO. “I was very honored to be a part of pushing forward changes that will expand the diversity of our movement, and we look forward to working together with USAS on campaigns that will extend shared prosperity to all workers, all students and our communities.”
As part of the nation’s largest youth-led campaign organization dedicated to building a student-labor movement, USAS has worked on locally and nationally-coordinated campaigns for corporate accountability and economic justice in partnership with organizations of workers.
Example: “Through USAS, students work to expose and hold accountable corporations that exploit people who work on our campuses and in the overseas factories where our collegiate apparel is produced,” said Lingran Kong, Regional Organizer Representative for USAS.
