If Julie Garrett wasn’t in her union, she says she would be working a minimum wage job with no benefits, barely able to support her 4-year-old daughter.

Young people need to know what we’re facing…corporations are taking over and workers are losing out. If we didn’t have unions, we’d all be working for minimum wage, or much lower.

Garrett, 35, a member of the Federation of Social Workers (IUE-CWA) Local 81381 in Rochester, N.Y., and an employee in the Monroe County Department of Social Work, is one of 62 young labor leaders who traveled all over the United States to convene at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C., for the first Young Worker Leadership Institute this weekend. 

Check out the AFL-CIO's new Innovators website feature, "Not Your Daddy's Labor Movement," here.

Leave behind what you know about Robert's Rules of Order and structured union meetings. A new generation of emerging labor leaders across the country is bringing young workers together in paintball games, music festivals, trivia nights and pub crawls—all with an activist edge.

This is a cross-post from the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center.

Sisanda Mbokotho, a representative of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the nation’s largest union, led a workshop on global worker solidarity at the AFL-CIO Next Up Young Workers Summit.

Emelle Israel, AFL-CIO Media Outreach fellow, is in Minneapolis for the Next Up Young Workers Summit and sends us this report.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka came to Minneapolis today to help send off the 800 attendees concluding the Next Up Young Workers Summit. He capped off a successful weekend with an inspiring speech that called for young people to use their “critical imagination,” their ability to look at problems and come up with new and different solutions.

The 800 young workers, activists and students at the AFL-CIO Next Up Young Worker Summit in Minneapolis announced their strong support of the Occupy Wall Street protesters:

 ”The world in which we live isn’t working for the vast majority of people. The top 1 percent controls the economy, makes profits at the expense of working people, and dominates the political debate. Wall Street symbolizes this simple truth: a small group of people have the lives and livelihoods of working Americans in their hands.

Ja-Rei Wang, AFL-CIO Media Outreach fellow, is in Minneapolis for the Next Up Young Workers Summit and sends us this report.

The focus stayed on jobs yesterday in Minneapolis on the third day of AFL-CIO’s Next Up Young Worker Summit. After attending workshops organized and led by summit participants, the 800 young workers, organizers and students came together for a town hall to discuss ways to keep the spotlight on the issue on every participant’s mind.

Emmelle Israel, AFL-CIO Media Outreach fellow, is in Minneapolis for the Next Up Young Workers Summit and sends us this report.

Along with 800 young workers, students, and activists, I marched down the streets of downtown Minneapolis, calling for “Good Jobs Now!” during the 2011 AFL-CIO Next Up Young Workers Summit.

Emmelle Israel, an AFL-CIO Media Outreach fellow, is taking part in the Next Up Summit and sends us this report.

A poll among young people attending the 2011 AFL-CIO Next Up Young Workers Summit shows their highest priorites are economic security, job security and government action to improve the nation’s economy.

Hundreds of young people from across the country will march through downtown Minneapolis this afternoon to call for good jobs and a middle-class economy. Starting at 5 p.m. CDT, the group will march from the Hilton to the City Government Plaza Light Rail Station.

The economic and social problems, the hate and the fear we see around us today can only be solved by a fresh generation of committed, smart, tireless and creative activists, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler told the nearly 800 young workers, activists and student  at the Next Up Young Workers Summit today.