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AFL-CIO's Trumka Calls for Labor Movement Separate from Parties: 'I've Had a Snootful of This Shit!'
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka sent his strongest signal yet about the labor movement’s frustration with the dysfunctional politics of the moment—where Republicans go to extremes on behalf of big banks and multinational corporations, Democrats compromise and working families are left out of the equation.
Speaking this week at the National Nurses United conference AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told those gathered, "Together, we’re going to build up our working families, and return America to prosperity the only way it’s ever been done -- by working people standing shoulder-to-shoulder and fighting for what’s right -- and we won’t be quiet until we win!" Speaking Tuesday to the National Nurses United conference in Washington, where more than one thousand nurses from across the country rallied to begin the push to replace the politics of setting for less with a unapologetic demands for a new economic agenda, Trumka found a plenty of takers for his agressively progressive message.
“We want an independent labor movement strong enough to return balance to our economy, fairness to our tax system, security to our families and moral and economic standing to our nation,” declared Trumka, who in recent months has been repositioning the AFL-CIO as a force that will hold Republicans and Democrats to what he describes as “a simple standard: “Are they helping or hurting working families?”
“We can’t simply build the power of any political party or any candidate. For too long we’ve been left after the election holding a canceled check and asking someone to pay attention to us. No more! No more!” the federation president, a former United Mineworkers union chief, shouted above the cheers of the nurses.
Then he described a scenario all too familiar to union activists: that of trying to get officials who are supposed to be allies of the working Americans to act on their behalf with the same energy that Republicans bring to aiding corporations.
“For too long, we’ve been left after Election Day holding a canceled check, waving it about—‘Remember us? Remember us? Remember us?’—asking someone to pay a little attention to us,” recalled Trumka, who like many union leaders was frustrated with the failure of the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act and other needed labor law reforms. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a snootful of that shit!”
There was no way to misread Trumka’s message for Democrats who have strayed on issues ranging from EFCA to trade policy to mounting an absolute defense of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
“When it comes to politics, we’re looking for real champions of working women and men. And I have a message for some of our “friends.” It doesn’t matter if candidates and parties are controlling the wrecking ball or simply standing aside—the outcome is the same either way,” he explained. “If leaders aren’t blocking the wrecking ball and advancing working families’ interests, working people will not support them. This is where our focus will be—now, in 2012 and beyond.”
Trumka chose exactly the right setting in which to deliver that message. The NNU (which also welcomed this writer as a speaker at its gathering) has long advocated for a more miltant stance when it comes to politics, as evidenced this week by the union’s mass protest outside the headquarters of the US Chamber of Commerce. As the nurses blocked traffic, NNU executive director Rose Ann DeMoro led the crowd in chanting “Our street!” and then pointing at the Chamber building and shouting “Wall Street!”
That determination to take the fight to Wall Street is at the heart of the NNU’s new “Main Street Contract for the American People” that, among other things, demands that elected officials take a “Which Side Are You On?” pledge.
The pledge contrasts Wall Street’s push for “tax cuts for the rich and powerful” and “replacing Medicare with vouchers” with a Main Street Contract that seeks:
1. Jobs at living wages to reinvest in America.
2. Equal access to quality, public education.
3. Guaranteed healthcare with a single standard of care.
4. A secure retirement with the ability to retire in dignity.
5. Good housing, and protection from hunger.
6. A safe and healthy environment.
7. The right to collectively organize and bargain.
8. A just taxation system where corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share.
9. Restoring the promise—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all.
As Trumka speaks about that “simple standard” to demand of elected officials, politicians and their parties, he and the rest of the labor movement could find few better places of beginning than that pledge to support the NNU’s “Main Street Contract for the American People.”
135 Comments so far
Show AllIt sounds good, but how is Trumpka going to enforce it? If he refuses to give money to a Democrat who did not fight for labor in the past, who is he going to support? As he said in the speech, politcians talk a good game until you hand them the check. Then they don't know you.
The real strengxth labor unions used to have was to be able to provide people on the street who knocked on doors, promoting a candidate. They can't do that anymore, because they have far fewer members than in the past. The Reagan Democrats whittled away the labor movement's strengths.
The first labor union organized in the US was made up of women textile workers. Women continue to lead the way. If only Rose Ann DeMoro was leading the AFL, working people would have a strong advocate.
Hopefully the overly comfortable and easily misled Trumpka will garner the courage to follow the nurses union lead.
"The real strength labor unions used to have was to be able to provide people on the street who knocked on doors, promoting a candidate."
I agree that electroal organizing was very important in keeping pro-worker members in congress. Kucinich keeps getting re-elected in the western side of Cleveland in spite of some very conservative neighborhoods, due to the electoral organizing of the Laborers International.
But with rare exceptions like Kucinich, anymore, what pro-worker candidates are there to support? This speech sounds good, but it is now too little, too late. At this point, the only power left would be to influnce politicians by refusing to give a politician the working-class vote until they support the right policies. But, even in the Trumkas former UMWA, the Appalacian coal mines, once union strongholds, are probably just 10 percent unionized.
So, what credible threat can they present? With few exceptions the AFL-CIO needs to declare a moratorium on involvement in electoral politics, and focus its remaining meager resources on organizing, organizing, organizing - Wal Mart, the non-union mines down to every little stone quarry, the meatpackers, the non union manufacturing (yes, east-and west coasters, there is still manufacturing going down below in those "flyover states"), especially Toyota, Nissan, BMW, IKEA, and their suppliers and all the other foreigners how come over here for the cheap scab labor. It's the late 19th century all over again. And yes, if history is any guidance, there will be blood.
?Kucinich? christ wept! if the ONLY possibility was Kucinich I'd leave the country, Like Kucinich (That TURNCOAT SOB) America holds little of value anymore! >^^<
Both parties are using VISAs and undocumented workers to lower our wages and standard of living.
I agree that the national elections are pretty much sewn up by the corporate filtration and funding process, and the control of the press. But there are many local opportunities. They cannot be everywhere, and we are many.
"The real strength labor unions used to have was to be able to provide people on the street who knocked on doors, promoting a candidate."
____________________
I'm not so sure about that. During the 1930s, organized labor achieved significant gains by relying on the "real strength" of assertive confrontation in the form of direct action: strikes, work stoppages, boycotts, etc.
This repeated demonstration of determined bottom-up power may not have put the power elite on the run, but it put them on the defensive, getting attention and reluctant respect.
But during the New Deal, key union leaders shifted to a strategy of political partnership, accommodation, and compromise. They effectively agreed to put a leash and muzzle on radical direct action in favor of the more moderate approach of cultivating political alliances and partnerships to achieve desired objectives.
The general idea was that labor leaders would retreat from disruptive mass action, and instead develop a cooperative quid pro quo in which labor organizations would support and assist friendly politicians, who in turn would work to promote labor's interest by offering and supporting labor-friendly legislation.
This profound shift in strategy had the pernicious effect of shifting the balance of power within labor organizations from bottom-up to top-down; instead of a broad "democratic" process in which union leaders were primarily influenced by the will of the rank-and-file, the politicized union leaders became top-down authorities who set the agenda and dictated policy in accordance with their status and power as political insiders.
Even before the ravages of World War II and the Cold War purges of Communist and socialist influences on Amerikan labor, it was obvious that the non-confrontational approach had significantly backfired. Despite the bone of a National Labor Relations Board, a viable pro-labor bloc in Congress never materialized.
For a while, Democratic politicians-- including Harry Truman-- paid lip service to repealing the onerous anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act, but somehow the repeal never happened.
And after organized labor was beaten like a gong for over a decade, its leaders were too cowed or co-opted to abandon their dubious "work within the system" philosophy.
All of this led to the status quo you describe-- union membership gradually became annexed to party machines. The union bosses told rank and file workers which politicians the unions supported, and the latter "volunteered" or were drafted as campaign workers.
I don't dispute that this approach was, and can be, effective in giving labor some degree of political power, but it really does amount to a form of political "sharecropping" or benevolent servitude at best.
The "real strength" of organized labor lay in its original radical, direct, bottom-up strategy and methods.
Like many other commenters, I find Trumka's latest noises mildly encouraging. But I fear that union leaders will still revert to playing footsie with politicians, and talking tough in a rhetorical attempt to alarm and frighten politicians and parties into renewed support.
A Great Divorce is what is really needed.
PS: Pardon me if this sounds snotty, but why is it so hard for so many to spell "Trumka" correctly? It's right there in the headline, for God's sake!
This is a good summary of what has happened. I would add that today there is a well organized right wing campaign specifically designed to disparage and break unions. Some of it exploits workers' well-founded disappointment and anger at union leadership. Some of it attempts to get unions to "voluntarily" give up on important issues based on a script of lack of money, with threats of closing schools and such. That would be most Democratic office holders. Some, like the Reagan with the air traffic controllers or Scott Walker today, use downright fascist edicts and methods to dismantle unions.
Always valuable insights from O.S. and jclientelle. Thanks.
Bill in Dubuque
An excellent analysis. One weapon Labor also has now is one created by the right wing itself: their own ignorance. They have spent considerable time and effort attempting to expunge Labor history from US history, to the point that they are seriously underestimating what organized Labor has done in the past and is yet capable of accomplishing. So what if union membership is low? Affiliations mean nothing when sentiments run high and we are all angry about the same things. If Wisconsin has not made that clear enough for you, then you haven't been paying attention.
"Institutions have a life of their own, and inevitably become part of the problem ( further removed from populist issues ) -- because they must defend themselves and ensure their survival -- so they naturally seek support from other institutions and power bases."
It's always interesting to me to see institutions spoken of anthropomorphically.
Institutions are ultimately nothing more than interpersonal relationships performing in the context of a shared reality. Abstractions ike "America" and "democrats" and "Raytheon" are all shared realities. And the right wing "perception masters" have the science of manipulating that shared reality down to a science.
An institution has a crises when someone comes along in an interpersonal chain of command and says "No -- I won't do that." America did not bomb Hiroshima, a chain of people in a command structure did.
I know this is all obvious and common sense, which is precisely why no one sees it for what it is.
If we change the context of our interpersonal relationships, we change our institutions. Ultimately we define them.
Ironically we serve institutions that exist only as consensual realities. The very real lives we lead are based upon shared illusions. It's all too easy to forget that the institutions we reify are ultimately nothing more than phantasms we agree are real. It's our consensus reality that, literally, personifies these institutions and vests them as entities with seeming palpable facticity, entities (rather than people) that appear to affect our environment, entities that can be experienced as distinct and powerful personalities in our midst treating us as their pawns, entities that seem to control the course of events like gods, gods with names like General Electric and Chase Manhattan and Raytheon instead of Zeus and Hera and Athena.
The Law (another reification, BTW) magically conjures corporations as persons with all the constitutional protections of actual, corporeal, flesh-and-blood mortals. But there's one crucial difference, one that transmutes these legally invoked fictitious entities from personhood to deity: once articles of incorporation are granted these fictitious persons are born as immortals, thus, by definition, making them gods.
But not just any kind of gods, gods of greed summoned to increase the wealth of those who invoked them, insatiable gods that happen to seek to rule the world by economically enslaving us mortals. These gods demand sacrifices: of our time, our resources, our lives lived under their yoke. Our consensual reality has created economic deities that materially oppress us.
As the church of the subgenius says, we need to pull the wool over our own eyes. We need to create our own realities, we need to perception manage ourselves, and create those new institutions we want to see -- because if we leave it up to others we are living in their illusions, and they're not working so well right now -- indeed our shared illusions are destroying the planet, which says a lot about our species, doesn't it?
Pretty much perfectly said and you have made a great case for the need of decentralized labor and social struggles so they cannot be co-opted (not unlike the early anti-WTO movement of the 90s that morphed into the anti-war movement then was co-opted by the established left and Democrats- I remember Obama's famous "anti-war" speech @ a one Chicago protest
Jclientelle-
I might add, that there was a pretty well organized anti-union movement for most of its history, including early attempts to stop then later attempts to discredit and dismantle unions that had formed in the previous decades. Reagan was just more successful that everyone else.
With the rise of the internet and social websites, and the labor atrocities occuring in Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey, Maine, and Michigan, the level of anger has risen to a point not seen in many years. The waves may not be ready to break yet, but the storm is gathering. The AFL-CIO, SEIU, and other labor backed groups with websites are building a new movement by channeling the anger felt by middle class Americans who have lost their jobs, homes, pensions, health care, etc. due to destructive right wing policies. If the Democrats don't want to go along, somebody else will, Even if it requires the formation of a new political power.
Despite their weakening in numbers and policy over the years, unions remain organizations with great potential for challenging the anti-working-class policies that are now rampant. Scott Walker knows this, as did Ronald Reagan.
Just a year ago, Trumka was begging "Wall Street, fix this mess". I hope that Trumka's newly stated consciousness and agenda translates into policies of vigorous organizing of their members and beyond, and to running candidates who represent labor's needs. The nurses lead and I hope that other unions will decide which side they are on. It is a "do or die" moment for labor.
I'll believe Trumka when he walks the walk.
I was thinking the same. (Well, almost the same: "I'll believe it when I see it.")
One can hope he means it. But union leadership has as much credibility as a democrat's promise. Kudos for saying it out loud, but let's see if they would really have the guts to support, say, a Green or Peace and Justice candidate over a democrat using the lesser evil argument. I'm not going to hold my breath.
"...and to running candidates who represent labor's needs."
This is exactly what should not happen. Unions will never control the system and by working within it they become beholden to it no matter who is "representing" them.
It's this kind of revisionist thinking that has thinned the power of unions to its present state. What once represented people now represents its own interests. Unions, as long as they work within this imperial capitalist system are doomed to fail. Only by becoming a force from outside of the system, representing a collective through direct revolutionary action can they be effective in securing the common sense rights of workers.
Nichols himself lays the blame on Republicans and disguises the deceit and malfeasance of the Democrats as forced capitulation to a corporate agenda while, largely, ignoring the democrats own obsequiousness to the empire. It is because of this kind of circular thinking, where the same mistakes are repeated over and over again under the same undying, illogical mantras that change is continuously repressed in favor of giving the capitalists yet another chance.
excellent observations
What is " revisionist thinking"? What is being revised?
"Unions, as long as they work within this imperial capitalist system are doomed to fail. " What does this statement mean? We in the US are all living inside the imperial capitalist system, so where else would we work? Another country or planet? However in the sense that workers are already outside, excluded from the power and perks of this system, anything we do for our own benefit is by definition "outside the system".
In my opinion, unions have been and can be part of the solution. Just ask anyone who has worked in a non-union situation. Unions have had victories in areas like hours, wages, safety and benefits. They have set standards that have been adopted in non-union places. In fact I would say they are the only organizations that directly deals with these problems of daily life. These stsndards have been terribly eroded in the last decades, but abandoning the idea of unions seems like a retreat to me.
If your main point is that too often elections sap the strength of unions and local groups without returning commensurate benefits, then we agree. I do not believe that activity should be limited to elections, especially supporting those who would betray their supporters once elected. However, it can sometimes mean a lot to have an independent representative on a City Council or State body to break the corporate logjam and report back to the people.
The process of becoming active is both educational and positive. The whole system will not somehow magically collapse without some grounded activity, probably for quite a while. Work is required. Otherwise it is dreams without a plan.
Well said. Thank you.
JClinetelle,
1)Apologies. Reformist. Not revisionist.
2)You answered your second question yourself in the last sentence of the same same paragraph.
After re-reading my hasty post I felt it a little too antagonistic. I honestly didn't mean for it to come across that way. I think you and I agree on the necessary outcome for working families, but differ greatly on the process it will take to get us there.
In my opinion, Unions have been dusted off and placed on the sidelines since well before the 1955 merger of the AFL and the CIO. One may argue that it happened, with the coming of the New Deal, when the Unions jumped into the political bedlam to try and reform the system from within as OS pointed out in a previous post. One could go further back to the 1860's when hodge-podge American unions banded together to lobby congress to cut the workday down from 10 to 8 hours.
That was in 1866, the same year the AFL was officially formed. Since then they were influential in developing the Department of Labor and the Clayton act, too. This began nearly 150 years ago and where are we now? All of these steps, all of this progress has been definitively accomplished from within the top-down capitalist system and it has failed. Miserably. Workers aren't better off now. People aren't better off now. Continuing to sustain this same illogical behavior of acting within the system is, as you stated, "dreams without a plan."
My main point is not that "too often elections sap the strength of unions." It is as I said: That unions, if they want to become effective, need to revolutionize themselves. They need to perform (as they were meant to) as a collective through direct revolutionary action toward our criminal oligarchs.
The most important post on this page is by thepuffin who sums this all up. He writes simply, ""[T]he right to collectively bargain" simply assumes the owner/worker/corporate paradigm can or should persist.
Nope. "
10. A prohibition on corporate ownership of media.
11. A prohibition on corporate ownership of Congress.
Why abolish corporate ownership of Congress or the media? Just abolish corporations!
yes, that's it! and we can, no matter what your (bought and paid for) elected reps tell you. See http://www.thecorporation.com/index.cfm?page_id=46 for how to get started.
We also need to get past the Cold War mentality of being afraid of being called communists.
12. A prohibition on Rethuglicans until they spend some time in jail. What a bunch of disrespectful asshat perps.
"[T]he right to collectively bargain" simply assumes the owner/worker/corporate paradigm can or should persist.
Nope.
puff....you are correct sir. they see their game plan as perpetual "sucking up." until they can think outside THAT box they will not inspire anyone. MONDRAGON!
The Supreme Court effectively put the lid on collective bargaining.
This is the most important post on this page. Thank you.
Give us a call when the owner/worker/corporate paradigm has ended. Until then, we need our safety regulations, vacations, pay and sick time, which are not included in the boss's paradigm at all. Without unions and collective bargaining, it is all boss all the time.
Collective bargaining, preferably backed by a believable threat of strike, is an essential tool in the workers' arsenal. It is up against all the ownership prerogatives and their unlimited money to buy laws favorable to themselves.
Why would anyone want to throw away one of the few weapons workers have?
I'll believe it when I see it. Like politicians, it's easy for union "leaders" to tell their audience what they want to hear, but when election time comes around, beg them to vote for the Democrat because the other option is even worse.
The problem is unions should not be relying on elections and parties for their strength in the first place. Their strategy should not factor in politics, but rather what they can do around politics to help more workers, and make the unions more democratic.
The AFL-CIO was left in place by the US government when thy were crushing other unions because they knew it perpetuated the status quo and was aligned with party politics. While other unions were seeking to get rid of the bosses and transform the organizational structure of companies to one that was democratic and not a tyrannical pyramid, the AFL-CIO was busy negotiating with company executives for crumbs for their workers.
For awhile, when the political parties weren't as badly corrupted, this worked well enough in the industries unionized as the workers had increased pay and benefits, but that's no longer the case. The leadership of neither party cares about unions and are fighting over money from the most wealthy who want to see unions destroyed.
If there wasn't still strength in the Unions, there wouldn't still be such a strong determination on the right to dismantle what remains of them. Trumpka has the strong voice, and is straight to the point on what needs to happen. If all of the Unions rally behind him, and working, or out of work people seeing what's ahead unless something is done to stop the train wreck, also get behind him, we just might end up getting somewhere. We've been waiting for someone to lead us out of this slaughterhouse. Why not him?
Of course we can all just continue to sit back pointing out all the negative reasons it probably wouldn't work, and when it doesn't work because there wasn't enough power of the people behind him to make a difference, say "I told you so,"
"A strong voice would call for the bigest tool in the unions toolbox to be brought out dusted off and applied."
That's exactly what Trumka is talking about. Pay attention next time.
Reduced in numbers the unions may be but as a voting block and volunteer group they are a force that can turn an election. Look at how the relativly small right wing evangelicals have taken over the GOP. They control the agenda and get the GOP to support very unpopular issues.
If labor can get Democratic pols to support their popular issues the Dems will learn that the beltway pundits don't know what they are talking about and that the American people are clamoring for progressive policys.
Good speech by Trumpka... Though if he's given a few crumbs, he may crumble...
I put my faith in the Nurses Union and the rest of us to come up with innovative, effective ways to Be the Change we are yearning for. If we really want it, we can make it happen...
I'm with you about the Nurses Union. They're the ones that are on the frontline because the union struggle is literally a life and death struggle. Locally, it was a nurse, Mrs. Roberts, that saved our county's ass during the Lesser Depression. She would not take "GO AWAY" as an answer for 3 years and they finally in a desperate, last-ditch effort, held their noses and asked for the help she'd been offering all along. She turned it around with $35,000, four months and the beginnings of FDR's alphabet soup in a county of 30,000 people.
True, but my understanding is that he has not even gotten crumbs form the Obama Admisistration. According to Ralph Nader in a commentary a while back, Trumkas letters to the WH go unanswered, he hasn't spoken with or corresponded with the president since the election.
If this is true, it is probably a positive development. I think the "worse, the better" dynamic applies here. Organized labor needs to get spurned so they will get pissed-off and get of their asses.
Look at what Obama did to UAW when he bailed the GM execs. They "had to" jilt labor over contractual obligations in order to receive federal funds.
The Dems have decided they do not need labor. Let's hope Trumka's serious.
The only union leader Obummer listened to, was Stern, and he turncoated fast to take a seat on the CatFood Commission! I wonder who Trumka thinks we should support, Obomber, I think my heads gonna explode!
>^^<
Trumka is probably the person best positioned to lead a break with the duopoly and rally progressives around a single 3rd party (Green? Working Families?) with himself as presidential candidate.
Though I see no hint of this in the article (trying to work with the Democrats is a guaranteed loser), it is possible an interest in a 3rd party revolt against the oligarchy might appeal to him.
He sounds as if he's 'mad as hell and is not going to take it anymore'. Let's hope so, and that he will translate his words into action.
Naw if everybody in the AFL-CIO voted for him, the single partier R or D would still win. There just arn't enough union folks left, SEIU would stick with the DIM's I know, they've shown no signs of coming out of their Washington lead Purple Coma, Sad
>^^<
Trumpka is on the verge of making the leap, as are many other people in this country, to recognizing the one-party rule that governs on behalf of the power base. Isn't this scenario repeated over and over again in history, but under different economic and political systems?
The republican-democrat conglomerate, in aggregate, acts on behalf of those who first pay to elect them, and then pay 24/7/365 to lobby them. For example, the recent "Harvard vs. Yale" game-fight between the merchants and the bankers was this quibble over who gets to keep the swipe fees, and the common people were not only left out of it, they were the asset to be fought over: Wal-Mart and others will not drop their retail prices upon winning the cap on swipe fee increases. And, it is funny to see the two corporate siblings fight in OUR house of representatives and in OUR senate: both parents were exposed to full-time lobbying for six months or more prior to their vote. Usually, the corporations are using their elected politicians to directly write legislation that concentrates wealth from the bottom, up, however, this time the fight was where at the top the money would go.
Too many people simply don't care and are watching tv and consuming way too much junk.
Yap. Yap. Yap. Where's he been since Obama took office? He's just now fighting for EFCA? Why wasn't he out there every day in Wisconsin, too, calling for a general strike? Oh, yeah. That's right: he was on Obama's worthless Jobs Commission. Where is he regarding the South Korean Trade Agreement (NAFTA on steroids)? He says he is "concerned." Oh, my. Really earning your salary there, Richard.
Sounds like Trumka's hearing from the rank-and-file that they're sick of him negotiating away their benefits while hobnobbing with Obama and the Democratic elite in Washington. It sounds like they're sick of him drawing $264,827.00 yearly in gross compensation and $18,513.00 in benfits while their own wages and benefits are shrinking due to his ass-kissing.
Just like Obama, Trumka gets up and gives a fiery speech and then does nothing that actually translates into improved conditions for workers and the expanded membership in the unions.
The NNU is showing the way.
Right On! While we were freezing our butts off in a blizzard, trying to get into OUR house, to preserve everyone's rights,where was Trumka? His rank and file were there in Madison supporting us, asking for him and the Obomination to show up but like Cheney, he "had other priorities".
It's good to see that people other Common Dreamers are beginning to expose and reject Amerikkka's one party-system with two right wings. High time!
Please give credit to Gore Vidal for the quote.
A voice I sorely miss. Haven't heard from him lately; he's probably too ill and/or feeble to write or speak in public much anymore.
If I'm wrong, someone please correct me!
Mr. Trumka, why don't we have a LABOR PARTY? I am tired of being ignored by the Democrats and I will not become a Republican. Labor is the only thing that all people can understand in this country.