AUSTIN — Union leaders in Texas are mounting an offensive at the Legislature this year on a broader array of topics than just raising the minimum wage.

Inspired by Democratic pickups in November and what they describe as voter fatigue over the culture wars, leaders of the Texas AFL-CIO on Thursday unveiled a "Fair Shot" agenda.

It asks state lawmakers to:

Give teachers and state workers raises and help secure their pensions.

Broaden eligibility for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Fully fund "neighborhood public schools."

Oppose private-school vouchers.

Expand access to union apprenticeships that can lead to high-wage jobs.

The labor federation, though, also is sounding some new notes.

Its legislative program urges state leaders to look at workplace trends, such as the growing use of independent contractors.

"The rampant misclassification of workers in the gig economy is cheating workers out of important benefits and workplace protections," says the group's 10-point agenda.

Unions are gearing up to try to beat back a regulation recently proposed by the Texas Workforce Commission. It would allow employers that exclusively use digital networks to conduct business to declare workers are independent contractors rather than employees.

The AFL-CIO's Fair Shot document also urges lawmakers to remove what it calls bottlenecks to the American dream, such as student loan debt, huge fines from the Driver Improvement Program and practices that deny jobs to Texans convicted of minor crimes.

At a news conference, union leaders from education, the building trades and the communications industry explained planks in the Fair Shot platform.

Texas AFL-CIO president Rick Levy said the state labor movement is tired of playing defense and wants to put "working families" at the center of Capitol discussions over the next 130 days.

"People are not looking at partisanship right now," said Levy. "People are not looking at distractive issues. People are looking at what can we do to make government work for the people so that everybody can have a fair shot at getting ahead."

Democrats picked up a dozen GOP-held seats in the Texas House in the midterm elections and knocked off two staunchly conservative Republican senators in North Texas.

Levy, though, said rank-and-file union members demanded the broader agenda.

"The decision to go to this broad agenda really came from our members," he said. "The fact that we can ... have it addressed in the Legislature is in large part due to the political change."

Many GOP members once were in thrall to the party's most conservative activists, he said.

"It used to be that all of the fear in the Legislature came from the right — am I going to get beat in a primary from the Republican Party," he explained. "What the voters said was we want you to focus on funding schools [and] property taxes [and] what we need to get ahead. ... People that ignore that message do so at their own peril."