Happy Labor Day.
I had been planning to write a piece for today about what Rich Trumka's imminent ascension to the presidency of the AFL-CIO means for America's labor movement, when I saw that the Washington Post -- my local paper -- had actually written a reasonable story on the same topic. This surprised me, as the Post's national labor reporting usually lacks both column inches and actual insight. But today's profile of Trumka not only gets basic facts right -- for example, explaining that the AFL-CIO is a federation of unions, not a union -- but it also gets at why it matters that the former Mineworker chief is taking over the reins at the AFL next week.
Trumka's ascent represents a true changing of the guard, ushering in a tone of leadership that will be far more muscular than that of the avuncular [John] Sweeney. Even Sweeney says the time has come for a more assertive approach.
"It's true that he's more aggressive than Sweeney was," he said in his gentle Irish-via-New York lilt, referring to himself in the third person, "but I think that there is a time when you have to be aggressive and only can take so much, when you're getting it from people who are not looking for a way to resolve a problem but are looking for a way to kill the labor movement."
John Sweeney's legacy as AFL-CIO president is complicated, but in the final analysis, I suspect that history will view his tenure as a key transitional period between the sclerosis and overseas/anti-communist focus of late-era George Meany and Lane Kirkland on one hand, and a better-focused, more militant, and worker-centered Trumka administration on the other. Sweeney receives a fair amount of criticism for his inability to oversee substantial growth in union membership and density over the past 14 years, and he was unable to keep SEIU -- his own union -- and a handful of other AFL affiliates from leaving the federation in 2005, but it's hard to imagine how difficult his job was when he assumed the presidency in 1995. After all, Sweeney inherited a federation which was decaying at home, yet which had an unhealthy obsession with "assisting" overseas unionists. Changing the culture and priorities of the AFL-CIO was not easy, and was never going to happen overnight, despite Sweeney's continuing emphasis on organizing. Moreover, Sweeney had to deal with a phenomenally anti-labor Bush administration for over half his presidency. Yet in spite of the obstacles, Sweeney's federation did achieve some significant gains:
- Labor's political operation was honed into an extremely effective machine, to the point where, in 2008, union members supported Obama over McCain 67-30, compared to 51-47 among non-union voters;
- The foundation for a revival of unionism among young workers was established with the growth of the Organizing Institute and the establishment of programs like Union Summer;
- Although a number of unions did leave the AFL-CIO in 2005, most seem prepared to rejoin in the near future, and unification talks continue apace;
- And perhaps most importantly, Sweeney's presidency brought America's labor movement back to basics -- a focus on organizing here in the US, and on building worker strength.
But now it's time for a new leader to carry the ball for working Americans. And the fiery Rich Trumka -- who is running unopposed for the AFL-CIO presidency at the fed convention, which begins in Pittsburgh later this week -- has been preparing for a long time to build on the successes of the Sweeney years, and to really start to once again make labor a major force in the daily lives of all Americans.
Trumka laid out the strategy last week in a speech to the Center for American Progress: The federation would do more to reach out to struggling younger workers, and would view its mission more in terms of speaking up for working-class Americans as a whole than merely for its 11 million members.
What got everyone's attention, though, was his threat to Democratic congressmen and others who take labor's support for granted -- including those willing to compromise away key elements of health-care reform for the sake of token bipartisanship.
"More than ever, we need to be a labor movement that stands by our friends, punishes its enemies and challenges those who, well, can't seem to decide which side they're on," he said. "I'm talking about the politicians who always want us to turn out our members to vote for them, but who somehow always seem to forget workers after the votes are counted."
Trumka has support for this last point from a broad swath of the union presidents who make up the AFL-CIO Executive Council. Unionists have laid down a marker on passage of meaningful health and labor law reform, and appear poised to retaliate against Democrats who fail to back worker interests. Trumka, in particular, has explicitly made the presence of a public option the key to labor support for any health bill, and hammers the need for the Employee Free Choice Act in every public appearance. And it's about time that labor starts to exact good legislation from Democrats, rather than blindly supporting anyone with a (D) next to his or her name.
Moreover, Trumka's commitment to youth appears to be genuine -- from his surprising choice of 39 year-old IBEW member Liz Shuler as his running mate, to his embrace of social media and the netroots, to his focus on issues specific to younger workers, like college loan affordability. But what truly makes Trumka notable as the new face of labor's leadership is what the New York Times rightly describes as "a more combative style" -- not just more combative than Sweeney, but also "new labor" leaders like the SEIU's Andy Stern, who has attempted to build bridges to traditional enemies like Wal-Mart. Trumka isn't afraid to be adversarial, and his impassioned rhetoric is drawn from a populist vocabulary that hasn't been widely used by national labor leaders in many years:
It's a style which gained national attention last year, in an impassioned speech confronting the internalized racism among some union members, which prevented them from seeing why Obama was the best choice for working people:
I've always thought that the role of the AFL-CIO president was twofold -- to serve as an effective spokesperson for American workers, and to lead an often fractious collection of unions to build strength for Americans in all economic sectors. We know Rich Trumka can be a terrific public representative for labor -- the big question is whether he can unify the movement. On this Labor Day 2009, I sure hope he can -- because we need a stronger labor movement if we're going to accomplish anything worthwhile for working Americans. But don't take my word for it:
At the banquet table of nature there are no reserved seats. You get what you can take, and you keep what you can hold. If you can't take anything, you won't get anything; and if you can't hold anything, you won't keep anything. And you can't take anything without organization.
-A. Philip Randolph
We remember that the rights and benefits we enjoy today were not simply handed out to America's working men and women. They had to be won.They had to be fought for, by men and women of courage and conviction, from the factory floors of the Industrial Revolution to the shopping aisles of today's superstores. They stood up and spoke out to demand a fair shake; an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. Many risked their lives. Some gave their lives. Some made it a cause of their lives-like Senator Ted Kennedy, who we remember today.
So let us never forget: much of what we take for granted-the 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, health insurance, paid leave, pensions, Social Security, Medicare-they all bear the union label. . . . So even if you're not a union member, every American owes something to America's labor movement.
-President Barack Obama, today