Labor & Employment Law

Progressives Set for America?s Future Now Conference, June 7?9

By James Parks

More than a year into the Obama administration and with November elections just ahead, progressive activists will gather June 7?9 in Washington, D.C., to forge a strategy to build a majority for real change in America.

The America’s Future Now conference, sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future (CAF), traditionally is the largest gathering of progressives in the country. There’s still time to register for the conference. Register now here or click on the America’s Future Now icon above. 

Grassroots activists and policy-wonk analysts have gathered at the campaign’s conferences each year for six years to forge an economic agenda for change?and the organizing strategies for taking that agenda to the country. 

In 2006 and 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama spoke powerfully at the conferences as he was building an unprecedented citizen campaign for change. And in 2008, he was elected president, running on many programs championed by the progressive movement.

At the conference, progressives will discuss strategies to take on the corporate lobbies that stand in the way of change, drive the movement for jobs now and devise ways to create a majority for change and challenge both obstructionist Republicans and timid Democrats.

Even though President Obama deserves credit for stopping the economic free-fall inherited from the Bush administration, one of the big questions progressives are asking: “Where is the plan to create the 11 million jobs needed to get the U.S. workers back to work?” This conference will give progressives the opportunity to form plans to move the progressive agenda front and center in the 2010 elections, on Capitol Hill and in the White House.

We’ll join in frank discussions on other key topics for working people such as “Health Care Reform?The Next Step,” “Immigration Reform,” “Working Class Anger?Does It Go Left or Right?” “Next Generation Progressives,” “Holding Congress Accountable” and “Can Congress Work in Polarized Age?” Click here for the full conference agenda. 

An all-star list of speakers will address the conference, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Other speakers from the union movement include AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker; United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard; Karen Nussbaum, executive director of the AFL-CIO community affiliate Working America; and Larry Gold, AFL-CIO associate general counsel.

Also speaking are Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington; Jared Bernstein, economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden; Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.); Democratic Reps. Alan Grayson (Fla.), Donna Edwards (Md.) and Barbara Lee (Calif.); former White House adviser Van Jones; former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean; NAACP President Benjamin Jealous; and Janet Murguía, president of the National Council of La Raza. Click here for the latest confirmed list of speakers.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on May 27, 2010 (boomark / email).