The Southeast Minnesota Area Labor Council represents over 40,000 union members throughout Southeast Minnesota. The mission of the Southeast Minnesota Area Labor Council is to improve the lives of working families—to bring economic justice to the workplace and social justice to our state and the nation.

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This week Robert Reich, secretary of labor in the Clinton administration and professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, leads a discussion on what we can do to close the inequality gap as the AFL-CIO continues its crucial conversation about the future of working people and of unions at www.aflcio2013.org.

 

As commonsense immigration reform moves through the U.S. Senate, people and groups on the losing side of the debate are making outrageous claims in bogus studies and TV commercials. Let’s take a minute and revisit some of the facts about immigration reform.

Immigration reform with a path to citizenship and workplace rights doesn’t just benefit aspiring citizens and their families. It's good for all workers. Earlier this year, we published a 10-point checklist showing how all workers will benefit from fixing our broken immigration system. Here are just a few. Read the entire article.

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The AFT and First Book—a nonprofit that has distributed more than 90 million new books to children across the United States—have joined forces with New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) to help encourage a culture of reading for low-income and middle-class students.

This video features AFT’s team-up with First Book to place books in the homes of the children of Freeport, N.Y., a community devastated by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

 

 The Southeast ALC will be joining Centro Campesino and other community members to celebrate Cinco de Mayo and rally for Comprehensive Immigration reform.

  Today's announcement of a roadmap to citizenship for more than 11 million aspiring Americans is a testament to the unstoppable momentum in our country to create a just and compassionate immigration policy. Read more >>>

  With the Minnesota Legislature set to take up a minimum wage increase, small business owners joined a growing coalition of Labor unions, non-profit organizations, and faith groups in calling for a meaningful increase in the minimum wage. These business owners say a minimum wage increase would be a net positive.

 The AFL-CIO and United Way have a long tradition of working together. Read more >>>

President Obama Begins First Major First Trade Negotiations as Trans-Pacific Partnership Countries Meet In U.S. This Week

Diverse MN Coalition Backs Obama Promise of Trade Reform State Leaders Call for a 'New Deal or No Deal' in TPP Talks

MINNEAPOLIS - Trade negotiators from the U.S. and seven Asian and Latin American countries are meeting in San Francisco this week to begin the first major trade talks since President Obama first took office. These proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) discussions are being closely watched as the forum where the administration will first define a trade policy.

SE MN working families join together to tell Wall Street Banks to help fix the crisis that they helped create.

Hundreds of union activists in Southeast Minnesota have decided to join the fight to Turn Around America. Click here to become a SE MN Area Labor Council E-Activist!

MOTHER SAYS READ A BOOK: "Sit down and read,” urged Mother Jones. “Educate yourself for the coming conflicts." Arm yourself this summer with great labor reads at The Union Shop.

Edgar Paez considers himself fortunate to be able to campaign across the United States this month against the proposed U.S.-Colombia free trade deal. Twenty-two members of his union – assassinated for their activism – weren't so lucky. Employees of Coca-Cola, Nestle and other multinational corporations, "they were killed because they were fighting for workers to be paid better – and that would have resulted in the companies not making as much profit," he said.