The United States should adopt a universal and automatic voter registration system to boost participation and ensure all citizens have the opportunity to participate in the democratic process, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said this morning.

Speaking to the Funders' Committee for Civic Participation (FCCP), Trumka said a strong and growing grassroots democracy movement needs to come together to “push back against the next wave of state-level attacks on the right to vote.”

Samuel Sukaton is a graduate of UCLA, a youth member of the APALA-Los Angeles Chapter and will be an inaugural participant in the Generations United mentorship program. For more information on the APALA convention and to register, visit http://www.apalanet.org/Labor-Community/apala-2011-convention.html. 

I’m going to the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) 11th Biennial Convention for my family. My mom is an Indonesian immigrant LVN working three jobs to pay off student loans; she spent 20 years finishing her bachelor’s degree, then went back to school again for nursing. My dad has a doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University and works for the U.S. Postal Service; both of them love their jobs, value education and raised me to work hard, study hard and do the right thing.

Asian American and Pacific Islander workers who belong to unions enjoy a large wage and benefit advantage over their nonunion counterparts, according to a new report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).