Politicians Have Given Up On Country, Workers, Jobs

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

Many politicians in both major parties have given up on the country, workers and creating jobs, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka (at right) says – but the labor movement hasn’t. In a wide-ranging speech at the National Press Club on Wednesday, the federation leader challenged those elected officials to work for jobs rather than for other narrow causes.  He said that’s what workers and voters want. And if the politicians won’t go out and create jobs, he added, the labor movement may well try to do so itself, as it now does with an experimental partnership with business and government in Los Angeles, he added. Trumka’s speech came as the 112th Congress – with a GOP-run House and a larger Republican contingent in the Senate – got down to business, and signaled that rather than tackling jobs, it wants to repeal last year’s health insurance overhaul. Trumka also blasted politicians who denigrate public workers.  Responding to questions afterwards, he said “I’m frustrated every time someone tries to demonize a teacher, a Fire Fighter, a police officer.  I’m frustrated to see a Congress trying to repeal health care.  I’m frustrated that 15 million Americans want to work…and they can’t.” Politicians who fail to heed the call for job creation will suffer at the polls next year, just as they did last year, Trumka warned. “The debate about our future begins and ends fundamentally with jobs.  Last year’s election was about jobs and I believe the 2012 election will be fundamentally about jobs.  America wants to work.  Fifteen million unemployed workers want to work.”
- by Mark Gruenberg, Press Associates, Inc. (PAI)