Delegates to the 23rd AFL-CIO Convention approved plans to advance the labor movement in the next century through intensified organizing and stronger organization at the state and community levels.

Delegates also made an early endorsement of the Democratic presidential primary candidate. Receiving the endorsement was Vice Pres. Al Gore of Tennessee.

GCIU Pres. James J. Norton said: "The Clinton-Gore administration has always been supportive of labor issues, and Clinton has vetoed legislation that would have been harmful to organized labor. We can expect the same performance from Al Gore."

Norton noted that Gore's COPE (Committee on Political Education) record as a U.S. senator was 88 percent, despite the fact that Tennessee is a right-to-work state.

Convention delegates backed Gore against his main challenger, former three-term New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, in an early endorsement meant to encourage labor mobilization to counteract a huge campaign war chest by the Republican front-runner, Gov. George W. Bush of Texas.

In a convention address, Gore pledged to remedy one of labor's main objections to free trade agreements negotiated by the Clinton administration by writing worker and environmental protections into treaties. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico, those protections were added as side agreements and are rarely enforced.

"As president, I will insist on and use the authority to enforce worker rights, human rights and environmental protections in those agreements," Gore said. "Trade should lift up living standards around the world, not drag them down in the United States. And as president, I'll work to lift up labor standards around the world."

On the first day of the convention, new union members, including new GCIU members from locals around the country, were called up to the stage to celebrate.

AFL-CIO Pres. John J. Sweeney outlined some of the organizing, bargaining, legislative, and political victories that demonstrate a reinvigorated labor movement.

But with so many people left out of the nation's current economic prosperity and so little movement on issues crucial to working families – better wages, health care, and schools for all Americans, Sweeney urged union members to work even harder to forge coalitions across union and geographical boundaries that will lead to even greater strength.

"Let us use our new-found solidarity to change our movement from one separated by industry and craft and sector to one bound together by a determination to combat corporate greed and eliminate human need," Sweeney said. "And let us use our new-found strength to change America from a nation separated by economic walls into a community where prosperity is a shared condition; where decisions are made by the many, rather than dictated by the few; where work is a means to a better life, and not a life unto itself; where every family is a working family; and where good schools, affordable health care, decent housing and freedom from hunger are verities and not just visions."

The federation's plan – called the "New Alliance" – to restructure state federations and central labor councils calls on every union member and local union to get involved in the restructuring process. The plan is based on several years of work by the AFL-CIO Committee 2000, on which GCIU Pres. Norton served. The process will include "re-mapping" states along lines agreed to by unions in each state and community; defining roles, responsibilities, standards, and resources of the state federations and labor councils; and developing strategies for coordination among the federations, local councils, local and national unions, and their members.

In other action, delegates were introduced to the AFL-CIO's new Internet community, Workingfamilies.com, that Sweeney said will "bridge the gap between the technological haves and have-nots." The innovative new program will provide Internet services to union members for $14.95 a month and offer home computers with full financing for a price as low as $600.