Tefere Gebre, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, will discuss “Changing the Rules to Create Shared Prosperity” on Thursday, March 10 at 3 p.m. at Chicago-Kent College of Law’s 11th Distinguished Labor Leader Lecture. The program is free and open to the public, but attendees are asked to register here by Monday, March 7. The lecture will be held in Chicago-Kent’s Richard B. Ogilvie Auditorium, 565 West Adams St. (between Clinton and Jefferson streets) in Chicago.

At the AFL-CIO, Gebre focuses his attention on building partnerships between labor and community groups, immigrant rights advocates and civil rights organizations. Born in Ethiopia, he came to the United States as a teenager seeking political asylum. He worked his first union job as a night shift loader at UPS (and member of Teamsters Local 396) while attending college in California. Before joining the labor movement, he worked as a legislative aide for then-Speaker of the California State Assembly Willie L. Brown Jr.

The Distinguished Labor Leader Lecture Series was inaugurated in 1998 by Chicago-Kent’s Institute for Law and the Workplace and the Chicago Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, as a public service to offer forums on critical workplace issues.