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Count Me In: What We Accomplished in 2019

Jeremy Sprinkle
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Thank you for all you did this year to support our state federation and help working families. In 2019, we continued to advance our goal of winning better policies for working people. In February, we held our biennial legislative conference, which had record attendance from both union members and legislators. In addition, we held six local legislative meetings and two town halls around the state to gain support for our policy agenda and the AFL-CIO Workers’ Bill of Rights. And thanks to our efforts, for the first time in years a bill was introduced in our legislature to repeal our state’s ban on public employee collective bargaining.

Read our 2019 Annual Report (PDF).

Sisters and brothers, change is in the air. Across North Carolina and the country, working people are rising up and taking brave workplace actions. Half a million people walked a picket line in the past year—including CWA members who work for AT&T and UAW 2404 members who work for General Motors. That’s more strikes and workplace actions than we’ve seen in a generation. And public approval of unions is at a 50-year high.

Now is the time to grow our movement. That’s why our state federation is hiring an organizer to help affiliated unions organize new members.

We are also focused on building political power for working people by electing labor champions—including our own members—to federal, state, and local office. Thanks to your help this year, we elected or re-elected six union members to local office, including state fed executive board and CWA member, Yvonne Kinston, who won a seat on the Fayetteville city council. We have an opportunity in 2020 to elect more labor champions and make our state and our country better places for working people.

Together we win, so I hope you will say “Count Me In!” to mobilize your members, elect union-endorsed candidates, and work to build a bigger, more engaged, more powerful labor movement.