On Sept. 8, the AFL-CIO will kick off its national convention in Los Angeles. The last time it was held in L.A. was in 1999, when the AFL-CIO announced its historic declaration for a legalization program for all undocumented immigrants, increased workplace protection for immigrant workers and an end to employer sanction laws, which it supported back in 1986 as part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). The national convention this year in L.A. will also be a historic one. With union density at around 12% (the private sector below 7%), the labor movement today is in a state of crisis. As the recent deep recession, or depression, as some economists have labeled it, has shown us, the labor movement is really the only safety net that we have in this country for the working class.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka sat down with USA Today's Susan Page to discuss the upcoming quadrennial AFL-CIO Convention to be held in Los Angeles in September, and how the federation is looking to make the labor movement more open and inclusive to anyone who wants to join, and creating a movement for all working people. 

Read Page's story here and watch the video of the interview after the jump. 

Yesterday, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Shuler, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker and Reps. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.) and Donna Edwards (D-Md.) led an online discussion on how we can make our movement all it can be for working women, as the AFL-CIO continues its crucial conversation about the future of working people and of unions.

See what people said about working women here and check out some highlights of the conversation after the jump.

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Shuler, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker and Reps. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.) and Donna Edwards (D-Md.) are leading an online discussion on how we can make our movement all it can be for working women, as the AFL-CIO continues its crucial conversation about the future of working people and of unions.

They will be moderating the online discussion on Wednesday, July 31, from 1–2 p.m. EDT. Please join the conversation at http://go.aflcio.org/ConvQ9 and encourage others to participate. We need broad and diverse voices to help shape the future of working people.

For the past several months, the AFL-CIO has been asking you how we can create momentum around the commitment to building a stronger future for working people. 

In mid July, we examined what people have been telling us in our in-person listening sessions and online. To date, more than 4,700 people attended in-person listening sessions, including four regional state federation and central labor councils and more than 950 comments were posted to www.aflcio2013.org. 

Leaders of the labor movement are looking at how to create a re-energized movement that’s even more relevant to working people’s lives—and we need your advice. When it comes to making a difference for women today, what’s working and what do we need to change? What are the most important issues for working women? How can we make the biggest impact on those issues? How can we swell the ranks of women leaders—and why does it matter? As we put together recommendations for action at the AFL-CIO Convention in September, we need your voice, your ideas and your perspective on all this and more.

The AFL-CIO, MomsRising.org and AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Shuler hosted a tweetchat yesterday on what workplace issues women care most about. 

See some highlights from the tweetchat after the jump. 

The AFL-CIO and MomsRising.org invite you to a tweetchat today at 2 p.m. EDT to discuss the well-being of and most pressing issues facing women and moms in the workplace. Join us to share your comments, resources or questions by adding the hashtag #WellnessWed to your tweets at that time.

What kind of movement do working people need to build a better future? What changes should labor make? Those are some of the questions I posed to you two months ago—and Daily Kos readers and progressives everywhere have offered all kinds of ideas. We’d like to hear more—even your off-the-wall ideas. Please share your thoughts by commenting on this post or go to AFLCIO2013.org. We’re still listening. Already, at in-person gatherings as well as online, we’ve heard from more than 5,600 people—union members, activists, allies, academics and others.

Join Robert Reich on Thursday, June 20, noon–1 p.m. EDT for the seventh in the AFL-CIO series of live online discussions on how we build a movement for the future of working people. Reich, former secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton and Chancellor’s professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley—and the AFL-CIO—wants to hear your ideas on new ways the labor movement can change economic trends that hurt working people. He poses this question:

The rich keep getting a bigger share of the economic pie while everyone else’s share keeps shrinking. What should be done to reverse this trend?