Trumka Strongly Defends Including Outside Groups In Labor Movement
Sunday, September 8, 2013(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is strongly defending his plans to include
outside groups – environmentalists, civil rights groups, women’s rights
advocates, immigrants’ groups and more – in the labor movement, despite
criticism from many unions. A group of unions, led by the Building Trades, is
extremely upset by Trumka’s plans to bring other progressive groups into the
labor movement, even in as yet-to-be-defined roles. Other opposition may
be from unions that work closely with both political parties. Broadening the
labor movement is a main topic at the AFL-CIO
Convention.
Tefare Gebre, a California union
leader who will succeed Arlene Holt Baker as the fed’s executive vice
president, described the broadening even more bluntly, later. “We’re
on the verge of creating a labor movement that speaks for all workers,” he
declared. “It doesn’t matter if you have a (union) card in your pocket
or not.”
Trumka said the AFL-CIO’s leaders “know
we’re in a crisis right now,” adding “none of us are strong enough” or
organized enough to change the U.S. anti-worker, pro-corporate political
climate, or to make the economy work for the 99%, not the 1%. “None of us are
big enough” to create those changes, he told a pre-convention press conference
on Sept. 8, speaking of unions, environmentalists, immigrant groups, community
groups, civil rights groups, women’s groups, gay-lesbian-bisexual-trans-gender
groups. All participated in six months of listening sessions before the
conclave. “We want to change our relationship” with the other groups “from
transactional to transformational,” Trumka explained. “What we used to do is
to get a plan and go to our allies and say ‘Here’s a plan, sign on.’
Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn’t. Now we’ll say,
‘Here’s a problem. Let’s create a
strategy.’”
But even while creating that new strategy and structure is still a work in progress, several unions are very upset about it. Led by the Building Trades, those unions – and other unions whose membership is more evenly split politically – object to giving the non-union groups a huge voice in labor’s decision-making.
The building trades, specifically, charge that environmental groups in particular oppose construction projects that would create jobs. One of every 11 construction workers is officially unemployed, latest federal data show. Construction union leaders say that understates joblessness in their sector.
“We will have conflicts” with the other groups, Trumka admitted. “We’ll work them out. And we’ve worked out the details and provided safeguards” for the dissenters’ concerns, he added, without elaborating. “But the solution is not going into a room, and putting your hands over your ears and saying ‘Aaaa…’” Trumka said. “We’re not going to have a labor movement.”
Other unions that know they must work with both political parties say the alliances with other progressive groups risk tying labor too closely to the Democrats – a position Trumka implicitly rejected at the press conference. “There are many representatives in the Democratic Party who are friends of labor, and some who are acquaintances and some who are less than friends,” he said. “We’ll work with people and candidates that support us. When they are right, we’ll support them, and when they’re not we’ll oppose them.”
On other issues, Trumka:
• Said the convention would take no action regarding the
Obama administration’s plans for a military strike on Syria, to let its
leader, Hafez al-Assad, know the world would not put up with his gassing of
civilians, including children. “We know 100,000 people have been killed.
We know 2 million have been forced out of their homes and we want to make
sure they’ll get help. But we don’t have enough facts for a
comprehensive resolution, so no, I don’t think so,” if there would be a
convention stand. A representative from US Labor Against War, which had a table
in the exposition hall, was disappointed but not surprised. “We don’t
have any standing here,” he said.
• Admitted the Employee Free Choice Act, to help level the
playing field between workers and bosses in organizing and bargaining, faces a
tough road. Democratic President Barack Obama has repeatedly said he would
sign it, but has not lobbied for it, and a planned Senate GOP filibuster stalled
it in the Labor Committee three years ago. “We have a group of anti-worker
people in both the House and Senate who have not only assaulted unions, but who
are anti-worker, and anti-democracy,” Trumka said.
• Said labor will launch a major
campaign to reform bankruptcy laws, which are greatly tilted against workers and
for bondholders and investors.
- Mark Gruenberg, PAI Staff
Writer