AFSCME Next Waver Campaigns for President Obama’s Election – and Her Own

by Joye Barksdale  |  September 06, 2012

Shannon Schroeder (Photo by Fred Watkins)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – For Shannon Schroeder, it’s not enough to vote in the upcoming election. She’s running for office.

Schroeder, 33, is a first-time delegate to the Democratic National Convention. She’s a member of Council 65, Local 748 and a staff representative for Council 65, and a candidate for the Minnesota House of Representatives.  

Her involvement in the labor movement and politics began when she was a graduate student at St. Cloud State University and worked for a Head Start organization. She eventually became president of her local, and a career of union activism was born. Now, she’s persuading other members of AFSCME’s Next Wave to join her on the frontlines.

“Many members of the younger generation didn’t grow up in union households,” Schroeder said. “Younger workers have been almost ‘privileged’ in the sense that with so many of the rights they have now, those fights have already been won, like the eight-hour workday.”

But with workers’ rights under attack throughout the country, no one should take gains made in the past for granted, she added.

“With what’s happening in Wisconsin, Ohio, and many other places, I think we’re all realizing that our rights can be taken away. Minnesota is progressive compared to other states, but even there, a right-to-work-for-less law has been proposed. We can’t let that happen.”

The growing anti-worker, anti-union sentiment gave her all the more reason to run for office.  

“A lot of people are fearful of taking that step and running for office, because you’re putting yourself out there and opening yourself to attacks,” Schroeder said. “But watching the assault on working families and the middle class in my state, I felt like I had to stand up.”