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. 

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.

Nearly 800 young working people, activists and students from across the country kicked off the AFL-CIO Next Up Young Workers Summit in Minneapolis today by doing what union members do best—helping others in need. 

Kurston Cook, with the AFL-CIO, is in Minneapolis and sends us this.

Some 800 young workers from across the country are convening in Minneapolis today through Sunday for the AFL-CIO Next Up Young Workers Summit to discuss topics ranging from the future of the union movement to the future of the economy. 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler and U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis will kick off the second annual Next Up Young Workers Summit in Minneapolis tomorrow. Hundreds of young working people, including organizers and students from across the country, will meet in Minneapolis Sept. 29-Oct. 2 for the Summit, part of the AFL-CIO’s efforts, led by Shuler, to reach out to working people under age 35. 

U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis will headline a panel, along with AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler at the second annual AFL-CIO Next Up Young Workers Summit beginning later this week. Since taking office in 2009, Solis, the daughter of union members, has changed the direction of the Labor Department from one that favored employers to one that protects working people.

The unemployment rate for young workers between ages 16 to 24 has skyrocketed as millions of young people have lost jobs and school enrollment has steadily increased over the past decade.