Closing the North Carolina AFL-CIO convention on Friday, state Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs thanked union organizers for their support and pledged to fight for their rights.
“I want you to know that I will not back down from any fight to protect your rights and freedoms,” Riggs said. “I am committed to a North Carolina where workers are protected, freedoms are exercised, and families can thrive.”
On the conference’s first day Wednesday, Gov. Josh Stein made a similar promise to help create a North Carolina that supports working families. The second day of the gathering largely focused on the federal crackdown on government employees under the Trump administration and how labor leaders can take a stand.
The annual convention also saw a changing of the guard in the NC AFL-CIO, with MaryBe McMillan stepping down as union president after eight years in the role. Riggs swore in her successor, Braxton Winston II, a former Charlotte City Council member who was the 2024 Democratic nominee in the state labor commissioner race.
McMillan commended Riggs for remaining steadfast and fighting for the voting rights of North Carolinians amid the monthslong election challenge by her opponent, Judge Jefferson Griffin.
“She never gave up,” McMillan said. “She fought fiercely for voting rights and for justice, for all of us, for our democracy, and to make sure that all of us had a voice in that democracy.”
Riggs swears in the NC AFL-CIO’s 2025 leadership guard at their convention in Wilmington on Friday, September 12, 2025. (Photo: Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline)Riggs said she was grateful for McMillan’s 20 years of organizing in the state’s largest labor federation, adding that there remains much work to do to achieve fair conditions for workers.
“We are in a state where wages are too low and workers do not have adequate protections. We’re in a state where unions don’t have the ability to fully organize or advocate for our workers,” Riggs said. “But in this moment here, looking at what’s happened in the last year, I want to celebrate the progress that you have made for our state and our people. North Carolina is better because of the people in this room.”
She commended the growing number of unions in the state as well as skills trainings, paid internships, and organizing campaigns created by labor leaders in North Carolina, where unions have historically faced structural challenges. A right-to-work state, North Carolina is estimated to have the lowest union participation rate in the U.S., at 2.4%.
But the state’s unions have been important political forces, Riggs said. The NC AFL-CIO endorsed and mobilized to elect both Stein and Riggs, the most prominent elected leaders at this year’s convention. Riggs said she was inspired by the persistence embodied by labor activists in North Carolina as she fought to uphold her own win in the state courts.
“I want to thank you for your support, and I want to let you know that your example inspired an entire nation, because folks really needed to see what a fight looks like,” Riggs said. “And if they’d been following labor, they would have known labor’s been fighting all along. But in the moments after the November election, people needed to see a fighting spirit and they saw it here in North Carolina.”
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