From the AFL-CIO:
In a major address at the National Press Club, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said working people want an independent union movement. Trumka also highlighted Alex Hanna (bottom, far right), a graduate assistant at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and his participation in demonstrations in Cairo and Madison. AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker (applauding) joined Trumka.
In a major address at the National Press Club today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka charted an aggressive independent approach by working people and their unions to build the power of working people in the workplace and in the political sphere. Trumka told the live audience and thousands of viewers on C-SPAN and other news outlets:
Working people want a labor movement strong enough to help return balance to our economy, fairness to our tax system, security to our families and moral and economic standing to our nation. Our role is not to build the power of a political party or a candidate. It is to improve the lives of working families and strengthen our country.
It doesn’t matter if candidates and parties are controlling the wrecking ball or simply standing aside—the outcome is the same either way. 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.
Read the entire speech here.
An independent voice is crucial, Trumka said, because the ongoing attacks on working people’s rights, new efforts at curtailing voting rights and calls for austerity on the backs of seniors, children and the sick are not just mean-spirited politics. They are the battle lines of a moral challenge for the soul of America, he said.
… these events signal a new and dangerous phase of a concerted effort to change the very nature of America—to turn this into an “I’ve got mine” nation and replace the land of liberty and justice for all with the land of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.
Politicians like Govs. John Kasich (Ohio) and Scott Walker (Wis.) campaigned promising to take action on the nation’s jobs crisis, only to reveal when they took office that their “jobs” agenda was to make them disappear, Trumka said. But their real passion was for eliminating the rights of working people and destroying their unions—who are standing in the way of their agenda.
In response, working people took to the streets. On April 4th, under the banner, “We Are One,” we came together all across America, and then we did so again on May 1st—when we stood together with our immigrant brothers and sisters saying again that we truly are one.
Trumka cited Alex Hanna, a graduate assistant at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a co-president of the Teaching Assistants’ Association/AFT, as exemplifying how the United States is not a nation of isolated individuals, but a land of communities. Hanna, whose family is from Egypt, was in Cairo rallying for the freedom of Egyptian workers when he heard about Scott Walker’s attempts to eliminate collective bargaining for public employees. He returned home to join the mass demonstrations at the Wisconsin state Capitol. Hanna, who was in the Press Club audience, says the Cairo and Madison experiences, though different, show that when people overcome their fears and stand for what they believe in, they can succeed.
Powerful political forces are seeking to silence working people, Trumka said, and their ultimate goal is to “unravel the fabric of our common life in pursuit of greed and power.” In this environment, working people and our unions must do more than just protect our own right to a voice in the life of our nation, he said. “We must raise our voice to win a better future for all working families here in America and around the globe.”
We know that only a dynamic, effective movement of working people working together can reclaim the value of work. Our unions must reach out to every working person in America—to those whose jobs have been outsourced and down-sized, to carwash workers in Los Angeles, to domestic workers who have few legal rights, to freelancers and young people who have “gigs” rather than jobs. And together with the AFL-CIO’s construction and manufacturing workers, pilots and painters, plumbers and public employees, bakers and others, we will be heard.
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1 comments:
Trumka makes some strong populist arguments here and says things that no other AFL-CIO president has been willing to say. That's all for the great good. Still, the AFL-CIO made more of Trumka's remarks on the political independence of unions after his speech than Trumka made during his speech. He's sounding a populist or left-sounding message now because we're all preparing for 2012 and because, in the wake of Wisconsin and Ohio, this tough talk appeals to more union members and other workers. But it comes across as too little too late. Trumka has left himself and other union leaders a convenient and opportunistic out: if the election comes down to jobs---as opposed to, say, a fight for more rights or to opposition to the wars---the populist rhetoric can be used to elect liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats who oppose environmental regulation, support an arms economy and are weak on the "wedge" issues that make conservative Democrats cringe. "Political independence" can be a code for backing centrists and conservatives in a two-party system with a winner-take-all structure to it, as we have in the US. We need this tough talk and the higher level of politicization that it implies, but we really need the deeds, the internationalism and the democratic and militant unionism in place to make that tough talk real.
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