In the first of many concrete moves after the AFL-CIO passed a resolution at its national convention to create new and lasting community partnerships to open and broaden the labor movement, the federation announced today that it entered a new national partnership with United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS).  The primary goals of the new alliance are to strengthen workers' rights and build power for students and workers. One of the major themes of the national convention was the need for the AFL-CIO to make the labor movement more open and to forge stronger alliances with non-labor groups, and this is the first step down that path.

The AFL-CIO quadrennial 2013 convention in Los Angeles was a flurry of exciting activity that promises to remake the labor movement in the United States and build a movement for all working people to deal with the new challenges and political landscape working families must navigate. While there were many important discussions and plans made at the convention that will be expanded on in the coming months and years, here are 10 important initiatives that came out of the resolutions passed by the convention delegates that you should know about.

The role of art in amplifying workers' voices, as well as changing perceptions about worker movements, got a great display in Los Angeles recently. This slideshow highlights some examples (view the full slideshow).

Two themes prevailed at the AFL-CIO's global convention held in Los Angeles. The first was a deep indignation over the unbridled growth of corporate interest and money power in American politics. The second was a quieter understanding that the unions that once anchored people power in this country must reinvent themselves to survive. That reinvention depends on a new awareness among America's workers that their fate is bound to the fate of workers worldwide.

In his Friday edition of the Texas AFL-CIO News, Ed Sills the state federation’s communications director, points out two articles of interest you may have missed on the labor movement’s southern organizing strategy and a lifetime achievement award for poet and former UAW member Philip Levine.

For those who followed the AFL-CIO 2013 Convention online this past week, here is full video coverage of the proceedings from Sunday to Wednesday, including speeches from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez and more. Watch Trumka's speech in this blog post, then click here to access the rest of the videos. 

In case you missed it, the AFL-CIO kicked off its 2013 convention last Sunday with a pre-conference diversity event featuring a powerful speech by civil rights leader Rev. James Lawson. 

Bankruptcy is being used by corporations—and now even by entire cities—as a sword to cut themselves free from legal obligations to workers who earned their pensions and retirement health care benefits. Wednesday’s action session “Bankrupting Retirement: Retirement Security and Bankruptcy as an Employer Strategy” at the 2013 AFL-CIO Convention convened four seasoned veterans of the battle to protect workers from a bankruptcy code skewed in favor of corporations. The discussion was moderated by Brandon Rees, acting director of the AFL-CIO Office of Investment.

In 2004, after a long string of Republican governors and the shockingly narrow defeat of Prop. 72—which would have ushered in the most progressive health care reform ever implemented in the United States—California labor leaders got mad. And then they got organized. 

As the AFL-CIO 2013 Convention comes to a close, delegates passed a number of resolutions on Wednesday, including support for the U.S. Postal Service, reclaiming the promise of public education and improving the effectiveness of grassroots action in the labor movement, among others.