http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jPprLWkz_VlcW70MHOWUPurgdKAwD9AOMO600By SAM HANANEL (AP) – 2 hours ago
PITTSBURGH — Richard Trumka, who rose from the coal mines of Pennsylvania to the top ranks of the nation's labor movement, took the helm of the AFL-CIO on Wednesday, ushering in a more aggressive style of leadership and vowing to revive unions' sagging membership rolls.
The first new AFL-CIO president in 14 years, Trumka pledged to make the labor movement appeal to a new generation of workers who perceive unions as "only a grainy, faded picture from another time."
"We need a unionism that makes sense to the next generation — young women and men who either don't have the money to go to college or are almost penniless by the time they come out," Trumka told hundreds of cheering delegates in a speech at their annual convention.
Trumka, 60, a charismatic, former head of the United Mine Workers, embraced the challenge of rebuilding union ranks that have fallen from a high of 35 percent in the 1950s to just 12.4 percent today.
It's a feat his predecessor, John Sweeney, failed to accomplish as the U.S. continued to lose millions of manufacturing jobs and employers grew more resistant to union organizers.
Trumka insisted that unions remain the best way to lift workers into the middle class during a time of economic turmoil. He said the growing number of Americans working as temps, contractors and telecommuters are "walking a tightrope without a net" as they work for low wages, no health care and little job security.
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