Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on Thursday commended AFSCME members for their commitment to public service and pledged to stand with them in their fight for workers’ rights.
Now in his second term as Minnesota’s chief legal officer, Ellison was a special guest speaker at the AFSCME 47th International Convention in Chicago.
“It’s an honor to be with you right here, right now fighting every day for public service workers,” Ellison said. “Your fight is my fight.”
AFSCME President Lee Saunders praised Ellison’s courage for standing up to the Trump administration’s attacks on public services and aggressive immigration enforcement tactics.
“Like AFSCME members, he was built for this moment to take on the wealthy special interests and those who seek to rob working people of our power,” Saunders said.
Ellison has a strong record of supporting labor and collaborating with AFSCME members on important issues that impact the workplace. He encouraged strong turnout among union voters in the midterm elections this fall.
“We need to see wins so big that more people start to rethink their union-bashing strategies,” Ellison said. “And then once we win, the real work starts. We need to launch a movement in every state where we have an amendment to every state’s constitution guaranteeing the right to collectively bargain. … That’s a battle I love.”
Ellison has joined with other Democratic attorneys general in successfully challenging Trump administration policies that would harm workers and the services they deliver to their communities.
“Our solidarity teaches us that the road to a fair, just and prosperous democracy starts with justice for workers, but it doesn’t end there,” Ellison said. “It ends when everybody is able to earn a fair wage. It ends when everybody can love who they want without fear or apology. It ends when everybody can afford health care and nobody goes bankrupt because they got sick. And we can only get there with the union spirit, the AFSCME spirit, that I feel so strongly in this room.”
Ellison is running for a third term as Minnesota’s attorney general. In May, he was endorsed by the members of AFSCME Council 5.
Before becoming attorney general in 2019, Ellison represented the Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007-19, where he fought to protect consumer rights, worker rights, civil rights and human rights.
Ellison is the first African American and the first Muslim American to be elected to statewide office in Minnesota.
