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LEADING THE MARCH
Meet labor’s leading lady Elizabeth Shuler, the grand marshal of the 2019 parade
BY BILL PARRY
When the 2019 NYC Labor
Day Parade steps off on
Fifth Avenue on Saturday,
Elizabeth Shuler will
proudly wear the sash as this
year’s Grand Marshal.
Shuler became the youngest
person to ever serve on the
American Federation of Labor’s
Executive Council when
she was elected at age 39, and
her meteoric rise saw her elevated
to secretary-treasurer
— the second-highest position
in the labor movement — a position
she holds at 49 years old.
“I grew up in a union
household in Oregon and went
to work as a union representative
at Local 125,” Shuler recalled.
“In electric utility you
wear a lot of different hats. I
always had a thirst for learning
combined with a can-do attitude
while getting her chops
at the local level.”
Five years later she was
matching wits against energy
giant Enron, the so-called
“smartest people in the room.”
“Enron came in and took
a wild west approach to the
electrical world,” Shuler said.
“They wanted to take cheap
hydroelectric power from the
Pacifi c Northwest and sell it to
California and make a bundle
of money. We built coalitions
and we beat down the beast
with people power.”
When the scandal-ridden
corporate giant went bankrupt
in late 2001, her father
Lance, a longtime power lineman
working at a subsidiary
of Enron, found himself
caught in the fallout.
“Enron eventually collapsed
and my dad lost his pension,”
Shuler said. “I still get
emotional about that.”
Shuler’s union work was
noticed by IBEW in 1993, when
the powers that be sent her
to California to fi ght against
Proposition 226, the so-called
“Paycheck Protection” that
threatened the lifeblood of
union political fundraising.
Shuler’s next stop was
Washington, D.C., where she
lobbied Congress on issues including
energy and electricity,
telecommunications, health
care, transportation, apprenticeship
and training, pension
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Shuler (center) looks to women and people of color as the future of the nation’s labor movement because they
already represent the majority of the population. AFL-CIO
reform and unemployment,
in addition to developing political
education programs
and mobilizing local unions
throughout the country to get
out and vote.
“What I did was bring my
voice to the halls of Congress
trying to balance the scales of
power against the rise of the
corporations,” Shuler said.
“So I left Oregon and before
you know it 20 years has gone
by.”
Throughout her career,
Shuler has seen the corporations
gain power and labor
give ground. Last year, only
10.5 percent of American
workers were union members.
“We would say labor law is
broken. Nowadays it takes real
heroes to organize in these
conditions where so many jobs
have been shifted overseas
and regulatory structures are
under assault,” Shuler said.
“Meanwhile, the cost of health
care makes it hard for unions
to grow.”
SCHNEPS M A4 EDIA • NYC WORKS • SEPT. 6, 2019
The theme of the 2019 NYC
Labor Day Parade is “Building
Worker Power Together,”
and Shuler has been working
on that in her leadership position
at the AFL-CIO.
“We have to make labor
more modern and relevant to
working people,” Shuler said.
“Women and people of color
will be the majority of the
country. There are already 6.5
million women in the labor
movement.”
She also launched the AFLCIO’s
Next Up Young Workers
Initiative to open up leadership
opportunities and create
space for youth activism. Today’s
young workers are part
of the largest generation to
enter the workforce since the
baby boomers and the most
technology savvy generation
in American history.
“They’re being crushed
by student debt and they are
stuck in the gig economy
working three low-paying jobs
with so few jobs having benefi
ts,” Shuler said. “We are engaging
and mobilizing a network
of young people across
the country and they are organizing
for new union members.
We need to connect the
dots and prioritize emerging
areas of the economy.”
One industry in particular
is drawing Shuler’s scrutiny.
“The video game industry is
now three times the size of Hollywood.
It’s huge and once you
have your eyes on it you start to
understand just how big it is,”
Shuler said. “They’re making
money hand over fi st but it’s a
modern day sweat shop with
workers doing 16 hour shifts in
the dark with no breaks with
no overtime with unfair and
unhealthy working conditions.
The type of thing that started
the labor movement in this
country.”
Shuler might succeed
AFL-CIO president Richard
Trumpka who, at age 69, is
said to be planning an exit
strategy towards retirement.
“Well, we do have our next
national convention in 2021 and
I would certainly want to be in
the conversation,” Shuler said.
For now, she is thrilled and
excited to be leading the parade
up Fifth Avenue.
Elizabeth Shuler, secretarytreasurer
of the AFL-CIO and
the highest ranking woman in
the U.S. Labor movement, is the
grand marshal of the 2019 New
York City Labor Day Parade.
AFL-CIO