Today marks the first day of the AFL-CIO’s quadrennial convention in Pittsburgh. More than 1,000 delegates are expected to be in attendance. They will have their hands full with a packed agenda that includes electing new officers, setting priorities for the federation and debating health care reform, job safety, green jobs, immigration, and the economic crisis

A Washington Post article published on Labor Day casts some light onto the AFL-CIO’s next president Richard Trumka. Trumka comes from a long line of coal miners in Pennsylvania. After working in the mines himself, he attended college and then Villanova law school “in preparation for a career of union activism” where he was class