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Los Angeles is one of the top canes in America for working families to live and work, according to today's unions and will be awarded official "Union city" status by the AFL CIO at the labor federation's 24th biennial convention in Las Vegas.

Representatives of 13 other cities will also receive Union City designation. The winners were selected from a pool of 170 cities.

Los Angeles was chosen because union members there in coalition with the local community, religious organizations and elected leaders have made except in making working people's voices heard in the political arena and in community issues and in helping local workers form unions to improve their lives.

"Los Angeles is one of the best places in the nation to be if you're a working man or woman," said AFL CIO President John Sweeney. "Los Angeles is a model for the labor movement around the country. It shows how working families, working together, can make our hometowns better places to live and work."

When Sweeney was elected President of the AFL-CIO in 1995, one of the plans of his platform was revitalizing the union movement at the grassroots level. The resulting Union Cities program urges local labor movements to reach out and organize workers W form unions, build alliances with religious and community organizations, and to energize working men and women to register, get educated, and go to the polls to make sure their voice is heard in politics.