The AFL-CIO Response to Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s anti-worker comments

August 13, 2024

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler issued the following statement on Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s anti-worker comments during a Twitter/X Space conversation Monday night:

Last night, Donald Trump yet again made it crystal clear exactly who he is: a scab who will go to any lengths to crush working people.

Greedy bosses aren’t just laughing at workers in smoke-filled backrooms anymore. They’re broadcasting it for the world to hear. It’s no surprise coming from Trump and Elon Musk—two notorious union-busters who boast a combined record of crossing picket lines, underpaying workers, flouting health and safety laws, and retaliating against workers for demanding the rights and fair pay we deserve, with Musk even suing the National Labor Relations Board rather than being held accountable for charges he illegally fired workers. This special breed of arrogant and weird billionaire CEOs just want an America where they can get even richer at workers’ expense. No matter what script Trump reads, working people know that he doesn’t care about us and he has no intention of fighting for us. Trump only cares about his Project 2025 Agenda that favors his ultra-wealthy buddies like Musk while stomping on the fundamental freedoms of everyone else.

We applaud our union brothers, sisters and siblings at the UAW for filing federal labor charges against Trump and Musk for threatening and intimidating workers with the NLRB. That was illegal union-busting in real time, and they should be held accountable.

Last week, the AFL-CIO released our 2024 Executive Paywatch report, which found that the average S&P 500 CEO received 268 times what their average median worker earned last year. Elon Musk is the world’s richest CEO, and in 2024, Tesla’s shareholders voted to re-approve Musk’s $56 billion pay plan—the largest ever received by a CEO—which a Delaware court had struck down. Musk responded to the court decision on his pay package by reincorporating Tesla from Delaware to Texas.

Contact: Mia Jacobs, 202-637-5018

Project 2025 and Labor -- The Plan to Destroy Worker Power

The introduction to this podcast includes the following:

In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Jody Calemine, director of advocacy at the AFL-CIO, and Karla Walter, director of the American Worker Project at the Center for American Progress, to discuss Project 2025's labor proposals. Watch now to hear about how the proposal would affect American workers, unions, and the labor movement if President Trump is re-elected in 2024. For more information on Project 2025, visit the AFL-CIO's guide to Project 2025 and Unions and the Center for American Progress' article, written by Aurelia Glass, "Project 2025 Would Undo the NLRB's Progress on Protecting Workers Right to Organize."

Labor for Harris Organizing Call and Five Related Video Clips

This is a recording of the August 1 Labor for Harris call that was sponsored by the AFL-CIO. Some of the powerhouses within the mainstream labor movement appear on this video. I believe that the most compelling speakers in this video---Teila Allmond, the rank-and-file member of UNITE HERE! who speaks, Fred Redmond, Claude Cummings, Jr., Clayola Brown, Lee Saunders, and Tryshanda Moton (my favorite of all of the speakers)---are coming to this from a place of of reflecting on their experiences as rank-and-file union members and with their ears to ground so that they are hearing what we are saying and what our concerns are.

It's clear from the video above that there is lots of work to get done quickly and that there is a place for everyone on board. It's also clear that Vice President Harris and her campaign needs to build her resume a little more with labor, remind us of what she has already done for us and with us, and that the pick for her running mate will be important to the union rank-and-file. Please see the videos below for some context. The clip from the Philadelphia Building Trades below signals a strong step forward.  

Vice-President Harris and Marty Walsh from 2021

Vice-President Harris with women labor leaders in 2021

The Phhiladelphia Building Trades announce their endorsement of Harris for President.

BOOK REVIEW---David Van Deusen’s Insurgent Labor: The Vermont AFL-CIO 2017–2023

Insurgent Labor: The Vermont AFL-CIO 2017–2023
By David Van Deusen • Foreword by Kim Kelly • Introduction by Steve Early
Series: PM Press / Working Class History
Published: 07/30/2024
Formats: Paperback and e-book
Pages: 288

David Van Deusen’s Insurgent Labor: The Vermont AFL-CIO 2017–2023 is part labor history, part memoir, and part polemic. It may also serve as a guide for union activists who are seeking to influence their regional labor councils and labor chapters and American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)-affiliated state labor federations. Interest in transforming these bodies has been building and has become especially evident over the past twenty years. Van Deusen’s book takes up the matter of what a state labor federation might look like and argues for a particular model that he believes these bodies should adopt.

Van Deusen came out of an anarchist collective and was a local and statewide leader in a Vermont American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) local union before becoming president of the Vermont AFL-CIO. His journey has involved the usual work of representing workers in grievances and negotiating union contracts and engaging in political action, but Van Deusen has brought a particular set of guiding revolutionary principles to his work and along the way he helped found a radical union caucus that has led the transformation of the Vermont AFL-CIO. This on-going and transformative work has occasionally made national headlines. The book’s foreword and introduction by labor journalists Kim Kelly and Steve Early testify to the depth and import of Van Deusen’s work and help place it in a context that makes the book more readable. Van Deusen isn’t bragging or lying when he mentions in passing some of the key features of the union work that he has done over the years; he’s stating facts, and it’s this kind of work that builds real leader’s hard-won credibility.

We first meet Van Deusen in his book fighting the Republicans, helping to rescue Vermont’s mainstream labor movement from near oblivion, and coming into conflict with some of the leaders of Vermont’s unions and the state’s Democratic Party. There are strikes, debates, conventions, caucus-building, alliances, betrayals, and important strategic and tactical decisions made along the way that ultimately lead to union growth. The labor movement’s losses and steps forward often proceed in print as if our plot lines come from romance novels, and Insurgent Labor is no exception. Van Deusen brings a revolutionary biker’s passion to his work and it shows.

The book’s fifth and sixth chapters take up some of the all-important questions of what may happen when radicals take institutional power in the context of what has been both a top-down and horizontal institution. The AFL-CIO has had two identifying features which it inherited in large part from the American Federation of Labor. One is the Federation’s identity as a decentralized alliance of mainstream labor that has tended towards cautious liberalism and has often run behind the times. The other feature accompanying this, and sometimes contradicting it, are the tendencies in the labor movement towards centralization, inclusion, and assimilation.

The labor movement can rightfully and proudly claim to be the only movement in the United States that brings together working-class people of all identities and opinions and holds this membership in relatively stable and well-funded organizations. On the other hand, the labor movement’s institutional structures often leave much to be desired. The losses in union membership and union power have led to partial ossification. Van Deusen sees his efforts to set things in labor aright and change course as a fight against betrayals and selling out, opportunism, bureaucracy, reactionary ideas and individuals, and labor’s ties with the Democratic Party. The alternative structures and policies that Van Deusen believes must be adopted are contained in a transitional program (“The Little Green Book”), leaflets, speeches, and convention and conference resolutions that appear in the book. Having these documents at hand may give readers a good sense of what is at stake in the internal union battles that the author spends much time discussing, but these documents and the thirty-eight pages of footnotes also give the book a polemical feel. If readers can put aside the astringent lines of argument and tone that Van Deusen often relies on they will find a good argument for some commonsense steps that can be taken to make the AFL-CIO and its subordinate bodies inclusive, democratic, and more representative. Labor would probably gain a great deal of ground and power by taking up the direct election of AFL-CIO leadership and including all workers, union members and non-union workers, in regional decision-making as Van Deusen advocates.

Labor radicals who are working to change their regional labor councils and chapters and state labor federations can find in Insurgent Labor a very good introduction to how labor might break with the Democrats if that’s what they’re thinking about and trying to visualize. The book will also help radicals visualize ways to support a Green New Deal, oppose gun control, and challenge austerity in ways that are not opportunistic and are not dependent upon slogans. There are compelling arguments made in the book for national and international labor solidarity that go far beyond what the AFL-CIO and any of its constituent unions and other bodies have taken up. The author is forthright and appropriately humble when discussing Black liberation and struggles for civil rights and suggesting ways forward in these areas for labor.

The Vermont AFL-CIO made headlines in 2020 and 2021 when their state convention adopted both a revolutionary preamble and a resolution urging that a general strike be called “in the event that Donald Trump refuses to concede the office of President of the United States.” That resolution deepened and widened the chasm separating the Vermont AFL-CIO and the national AFL-CIO and led to a prolonged struggle that never quite made it to center stage in the labor movement but that nonetheless influenced labor’s national political options at the time. The effects of that resolution and the controversies that it brought to the surface are today influencing how labor supports a ceasefire in the fighting in Gaza and how United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain’s call for a national general strike in 2028 is being seen. Van Deusen spends a great deal of time explaining and defending the preamble and the resolution in the book and the fallout that they caused. Along the way he repeatedly denounces then-AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka and the Democrats and lays out some of the tactics and the strategy needed to build a defensive and politicized general strike. I imagine that many people will buy and study Insurgent Labor to read and consider what the author has to say here. I found it notable while reading the book that Van Deusen does not give in to the typical anarchistic faith in spontaneity when discussing the strategy and tactics needed to build a general strike and see it through.

The preamble and the resolution gave the national AFL-CIO reason to investigate the decision-making processes and politics at work in the Vermont AFL-CIO under the collective leadership that Van Deusen and his caucus and electoral slate had helped build. I think that even had the state organization not adopted the revolutionary preamble and resolution there would have been a collision between the state and national bodies. Less clear is why and how national and international unions did not bring greater pressure to bear on their Vermont affiliates. In the end the Vermont AFL-CIO was more or less vindicated and left to go its own way. Van Deusen gives readers some details on how the state organization has centered organizing and decentered participation in electoral politics in the aftermath of the 2020-2021 fight with the national body. This emphasis on organizing has brought needed growth.

A recent Valley Labor Report on the Vermont AFL-CIO

Readers with backgrounds in labor and the left will get the most out of Insurgent Labor because the book is very much framed in the contexts of leftism and internal union politics. We see Van Deusen acting much as any other labor leader might act under certain circumstances in the book, justifying some of his difficult and controversial actions with pragmatic logic and sometimes taking what reads like a traditional leftist-vanguardist approach while hardly missing a beat. As almost any good anarchist will have it, he carries with him the legacy of the lost Spanish Revolution of 1936-1938 and updates that with support for Rojava’s revolution. He criticizes AFL-CIO President Trumka and the Democrats, but when it looked like push was coming to shove in the fight between the Vermont AFL-CIO and the national AFL-CIO he sought support from labor leaders who were no more or less militant and democratic than Trumka was, and for some unexplained reason he considered support from Australian and European Trotskyites (see here and here) more important than winning support from Democrats and center forces in the United States. Trumka's role as a union reformer and agent of change within the AFL-CIO is either forgotten or downplayed in the book. It says much to me that allies and potential allies from within the labor movement did not come forward when needed to stand with the Vermont AFL-CIO. 

At one point in Insurgent Labor Van Deusen comments that had Trump refused to cede power and had a general strike occurred his caucus would have urged temporary unity with the Democrats and would have been prepared to pivot quickly and break that unity had the general strike gone forward. This may be something that came to Van Deusen through his readings about the Spanish Revolution, but it does not build trust between organizations and it could well lead to a disaster. Van Deusen rightfully decries outside interference in the affairs of the Vermont AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions but his movement outreaches to activists in those affiliates, in unaffiliated unions, and in labor bodies outside of Vermont. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) gets some well-deserved attention in Insurgent Labor, but there is no examination of how DSA's work and programs intersect with or run parallel to those of Van Deusen's caucus and slate.

It occured to me as I read the book that an opportunity to build solidarity may have been lost when Vermont's labor radicals opted to pursue third-party politics and not run coordinated campaigns through the Democrats and the state's two independent left political parties. For that matter, Van Deusen and many of those in his circles know how to work in hierarchical organizations and have the long-term perspective needed to do that effectively and so the questions of why they didn't dig into the Democratic Party or the state's left parties as they did into the AFL-CIO and what might have happened had they done so arises. The argument made for not working with the Democrats in Insurgent Labor is less about sharply-pointed polemics and more about real structural and institutional failures. But would Van Deusen still be so critical of the Democrats had these failures not occured or if they had been addressed? Van Deusen writes and works with two identities, outsider and insider, and it seems questionable which identity he prefers and which identity he is best at working with.

It is not my intent to argue that Van Deusen is a hypocrite---he isn’t---but it is to say that there are contradictions in the legacy of anarchism and in Van Deusen’s thinking that leave so-called “libertarian socialism” in a state of negation. Where others might see a push and pull and forward and backwards or sideways movement in a situation Van Deusen might characterize that situation as one of struggle between what is pure and what is reactionary. Instead of seeking to hold a particular united front line and move people in the center leftward from that position it seems that Van Deusen sees a need to move others ever to the left, using only temporary alliances and only rarely recognizing that change occurs in stages. He does not seem to be about building on the heritage of the progressive unions that were once at the helm of the U.S. labor movement so much as he is interested in going in another (uncharted) direction.

Vermont has a unique political landscape. The state's labor movement is relatively small, as Van Deusen points out. His reminder that union growth in the state in recent years and the revitalization of the labor movement under radical leadership in this period intersected with Vermont's exceptional political framework during the worst days of COVID and led to comparatively high union density while unions took steps backwards elsewhere should give us pause. Union leadership cannot argue that density matters and then dismiss Van Deusen when he makes his case based on union membership numbers. At some point we are entitled to ask if some in union leadership would rather rather risk further declines in union density rather than make some of the democratic and structural changes Van Deusen and his cohort are arguing for. On the other hand, their reliance upon building an alternative unionism within the mainstream of the labor movement and an alternative politics that doesn't unite the many against the few behind a common electoral program, and perhaps behind a labor party of some type, cedes space to our misleaders.      

I noted at the beginning of this review that there is much in Insurgent Labor that will be of interest to activists seeking to create fundamental change in our labor movement. Van Deusen is not the only voice for such change, but Insurgent Labor is well-written and interesting and compelling enough that it may propel Van Deusen forward as a leading national voice for change. It is fascinating to me that anarchism can attract a following within or at the margins of the labor movement. That following doesn’t have to accept the dogma of anarchism in order to be effective or gain ground for a time. But does Van Deusen’s book forecast a moment when the many different programs for change present in our labor movement might find common ground or, on the other hand, come into greater conflict with one another? At what point does Van Deusen's constructive anarchism become something else?

See here for more information on David Van Deusen

Note: A review of Insurgent Labor by Gordon Simmons can be found here, an article about David Van Deusen and the Vermont AFL-CIO by Vermont union leader Katie Maurice that appeared in Jacobin can be found here, Steve Early also wrote an article for Jacobin on how Van Deusen and his caucus and slate took over the Vermont AFL-CIO and that can piece can be found here,  and The Valley Labor Report has recently produced this important report:

Labor Video recently posted the following report arguing that conflicts betweeen the Vermont AFL-CIO and the national AFL-CIO are continuing:

  

AFL-CIO endorses Kamala Harris for president

The following post is a summary issued by the Metro Washington Council, AFL-CIO:

Following a vote of its Executive Council, the AFL-CIO on Tuesday unanimously endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president in the 2024 election.

“From day one, Vice President Kamala Harris has been a true partner in leading the most pro-labor administration in history,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in a statement. “At every step in her distinguished career in public office, she’s proven herself a principled and tenacious fighter for working people and a visionary leader we can count on."

In addition, many of the international unions of Metropolitan Washington Council's Affiliates have also endorsed Harris, including AFGE, AFSCME, AFT, APWU, ATU, CWA, IATSE, IBEW, IFPTE, IUPAT, NNU, and SEIU.

The AFL-CIO press release reads as follows:

July 22, 2024

WASHINGTON—Following a vote of its Executive Council, which represents 60 unions and 12.5 million workers, today the AFL-CIO unanimously endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president in the 2024 election.

“From day one, Vice President Kamala Harris has been a true partner in leading the most pro-labor administration in history,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “At every step in her distinguished career in public office, she’s proven herself a principled and tenacious fighter for working people and a visionary leader we can count on. From taking on Wall Street and corporate greed to leading efforts to expand affordable child care and support vulnerable workers, she’s shown time and again that she’s on our side. With Kamala Harris in the White House, together we’ll continue to build on the powerful legacy of the Biden-Harris administration to create good union jobs, grow the labor movement and make our economy work for all of us.”

As vice president, Harris: Played a critical role in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, investing in good-paying union jobs, bringing manufacturing back to America, lowering prescription drug costs and raising wages

Saved the pensions of more than 1 million union workers and retirees

Led the administration’s efforts to increase access to affordable child care and expand the child tax credit

Championed worker organizing and chaired the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, where she championed for new worker organizing and training to create pathways to good union jobs

Stood with striking writers

Other highlights of Harris’ record in support of workers include the following:As a U.S. senator, she fought to expand labor protections and fair wages for agricultural and domestic workers and walked the picket line with International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) workers. She was a vigorous advocate for workers’ freedom to form or join a union, including strongly supporting the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act to reform broken labor legislation that stacks the deck against workers.

As attorney general of California, she cracked down on corporate greed, took on the big banks after the 2008 financial crisis to deliver relief for struggling homeowners and protected the most vulnerable workers by tackling wage theft and other corporate crimes.

“The AFL-CIO is proud of our early and steadfast support for the Biden-Harris administration, and now we’ll ratchet up our mass mobilization of union workers to elect Vice President Harris as president,” Shuler continued. “Like Harris, the labor movement doesn’t back down—and we’ll never shy away from a tough fight when the future of workers and unions is on the line. Together, we will defeat Donald Trump, J.D. Vance and their devastating anti-worker Project 2025 agenda in November.”

Contact: Steve Smith, 202-637-5018

AFL-CIO: Project 2025 and Unions

 

AFL-CIO on Violence at Trump Rally in Pennsylvania

July 13, 2024

Statement by AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond:

A foundation of American democracy—and of the labor movement—is peaceful disagreement and debate. While we await all the details on today’s troubling incident at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania, all Americans must be absolutely clear: violence has no place in our political process. Ever. This is a moment where people of all backgrounds and ideologies must stand together to once again condemn violence of any kind in our politics.

We wish Donald Trump a speedy recovery from any injuries he suffered, send our thoughts and deepest condolences to other victims, and join all working people in calling for a swift, thorough investigation into what happened today. We must also caution that in the days and weeks ahead, those who don’t respect our democracy may take the opportunity to use this disturbing event to divide Americans. Now is a time we should all come together to condemn violence and reaffirm our commitment to the peaceful debate and exchange of ideas that are a cornerstone of American democracy.

Contact: Steve Smith, 202-637-5018

President Biden's Visit To The AFL-CIO

 President Biden's visit to the AFL-CIO: 

Review: How Reformers Doubled Vermont AFL-CIO Membership---A post from Labor Notes

The following review by Gordon Simmons of West Virginia recently appeared on the Labor Notes website. I have not read Van Deusen's book yet, but it sounds like a book that all of us who are involved in AFL-CIO labor chapters or councls should read. Are labor councils still viable? Can they be transformed in meaningful ways that build working-class power? Does the leadership of the AFL-CIO want chapters and councils to continue to exist? These are important questions to raise and study, and it sounds as if Van Deusen's book will help us take these questions on. 

Insurgent Labor: The Vermont AFL-CIO 2017-2023 , by David Van Deusen

 (PM Press, 2024) Photo: Vermont AFL-CIO

Transforming an existing union into a more democratic and member-run organization has often proven to be a daunting—though possible—task. The pressing need to revitalize organized labor in the U.S., however, depends on such movements.

Beginning in 2017, a slate of reform-minded union activists won leadership offices in the Vermont state federation of labor, reinvigorating that organization. Within just a few years, the federation’s membership doubled.

Insurgent Labor: The Vermont AFL-CIO, 2017-2023 is two-term president David Van Deusen’s participant-retelling of the emergence of the UNITED reform group. As a model for revitalizing labor, this story contains quite a lot of inspirational and thought-provoking material that working-class activists will find beneficial.

In his introduction, longtime labor journalist Steve Early makes a persuasive argument that this story follows in the tradition of rank-and-file insurgencies like Miners for Democracy and Teamsters for a Democratic Union.

REFRESHINGLY FRANK

One of the reasons this account is both fascinating and potentially useful is that Van Deusen is not only uncompromisingly radical in his commitment, but also refreshingly frank.

He appraises the obstacles and mistakes that he and his fellow insurgents encountered as they set out to transform an entire state-level AFL-CIO organization, putting it on a road to playing a role in both workplace and community struggles as well as boosting member involvement and numbers.

These obstacles included not only an entrenched old guard at the local level, but also pushback from the national AFL-CIO when the insurgents undertook plans for a general strike if an anticipated coup had occurred in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.

A threatened imposition of receivership—like the coup and strike—never materialized, thanks in part to the mobilization of an extensive network of allies.

CLOSE TO THE SHOP FLOOR

Key to the success of the UNITED reformers was their continual communication with workers at the shop floor, a time-consuming procedure given the mix of unions affiliated with the state federation. His account of working with the grassroots membership to build and maintain a reform caucus more closely resembles the duties of skilled shop stewards than the maneuvers of power brokers.

One of the most important innovations the reformers brought was a willingness to commit effort and resources to the organizing efforts of various unions—whether or not they were affiliated with the federation—and even to community groups. This expansive outreach and sense of solidarity forged valuable alliances and increased the number and size of unions that chose to affiliate.

Within the federation, as in any democracy, debates over tactics and positions are inevitable. Van Deusen is forthright about the times when he was outvoted by his fellow insurgents—or committed himself to a course of action that turned out to be a tactical error.

Though he’s a committed leftist, he’s also refreshingly untainted by the sort of factional groupthink into which so much of the New Left degenerated in the aftermath of the 1960s.

AN ANTIDOTE TO CYNICISM

Activists who know about labor’s early roots in organizations like the Industrial Workers of the World have long been somewhat dismissive of conventional unions as vehicles for genuine social transformation—viewing the mainstream movement as an “American fragmentation of labor” rather than a means of empowering workers.

Van Deusen doesn’t gloss over the shortcomings of organized labor since the ascendancy of business unionism from the middle of the last century. This book, nevertheless, is a welcome antidote to such entrenched cynicism. It’s a good reminder of the need to combine, in the words of the great Marxist intellectual Antonio Gramsci, pessimism of the mind with optimism of the will.

His firsthand account of the resurrection of the Vermont state federation from bureaucratic slumber and irrelevance may not be easily replicated across the labor movement. Vermont is a very small state with a uniquely progressive history that also gave us Bernie Sanders.

But it meshes well with any number of recent developments, like the grassroots movement of West Virginia school strikes in 2018 and the newfound militancy among auto workers today. It may be time to notice which way the wind is blowing.

Gordon Simmons is chief steward of the West Virginia Public Workers Union and a member of the West Virginia Labor History Association.

AFL-CIO Pride Month Profiles: Temika M. Cook

For Pride Month this year, the AFL-CIO is spotlighting various LGBTQ+ workers who have worked and continue to work at the intersection of civil and labor rights in the United States. Today's profile is Temika M. Cook of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council.

Temika M. Cook has been a dynamic force in the San Diego labor movement for over 15 years, championing workers’ rights and social justice within her community. As a dedicated member of California School Employees Association Chapter 724 and Teamsters Local 388M, Cook consistently challenges the status quo, advocating tirelessly alongside her union siblings. In her role as a senior cook for the San Diego Unified School District, she not only nourishes the minds of students, but serves as a beacon of inspiration and resilience, demonstrating that the fight for workers’ rights and community well-being go hand in hand. Cook’s unwavering commitment and leadership continue to pave the way for a more just and equitable future.

Your Solidarity Needed: 100 pensions at risk of elimination

From the AFL-CIO:

More than 3,500 people sent a letter to support striking Gemtron workers whose hard-earned pensions are at risk of unilateral elimination, and it helped move negotiations forward. But now management is dragging its feet.

Can you help support the workers? Call 262-235-7524 to ask management at Trive Capital, the venture capital firm that owns Gemtron and its direct parent company, SSW Advanced Technologies, to do the right thing and stop using pension funds to attack Gemtron workers’ hard-earned retirement.

Gemtron workers are holding an unfair labor practice strike to protest management’s attempt to eliminate their pensions. For years, they accepted concessionary contracts to protect their hard-earned retirements.

Private equity firms like Trive routinely beg for union pension dollars to fund their ventures, but then turn around and spend those same dollars to attack the very unions and pensions that are funding them in the first place.

It’s ironic and disturbing, and it is hurting middle-class working people. That’s why we need your help. Thank you for making a call to help these workers.

In Solidarity,

Team AFL-CIO

Some important news from the labor movement!

 

Marin workers hold first strike since 2019: More than 100 medical technicians

at MarinHealth Medical Center struck for one day as they fight to protect their

 health benefits and win strong raises. Read more here.

Dolores Huerta statnds in solidarity when Sutter workers strike again in 

Sacramento: NUHW members at Sutter Health’s Sacramento psychiatric hospital 

held a three-day strike as they continue to fight for a first contract with fair wages 

and no healthcare takeaways. Read more here.

The National Council for Occupational Safety & Health is celebrating 20

 years of activism and leadership and everyone is invited. Read more here.

Labor leaders honor Key Bridge victims on Workers Memorial Day. An article in The Baltimore Sun under the date of April 28 has the photo above and says the following:

Father Ty Hullinger echoed the words of labor activist Mary Harris “Mother” Jones during a Sunday ceremony honoring the lives of workers killed on the job: “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”

The pastor of Transfiguration Catholic Community in Pigtown proceeded to offer a prayer for the six workers killed just over a month ago after the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed below them. Joined by labor leaders and local officials at a solemn ceremony at Baltimore’s Middle Branch Park, Hullinger went on to call for the protection of all laborers facing unsafe working conditions.

Sunday was Workers Memorial Day, an annual day of remembrance for laborers killed or hurt on the job, started in 1989 by the AFL-CIO. Thousands of workers nationwide are estimated by the organization of labor unions to be injured or killed on the job each day, and the issue became front and center in Baltimore on March 26 after the six men, all employees of Brawner Builders, died while working an overnight shift filling potholes on the bridge that was struck by a cargo ship early that morning. Read more here.

Alabama AFL-CIO President Says Out-of-Touch Lawmakers Are the ‘Real Leeches.’ The AFL-CIO has provided the following copy on an op-ed piece written by Alabama AFL-CIO President Bren Riley in response to some southern governors recently publicly opposing the United Auto Workers' successful organizing campaign in Tennessee.

Top Cut:
Alabama AFL-CIO President Bren Riley gave a powerful response to recent aggressive attacks on the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) and the larger labor movement in the South made in the media by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and Alabama Speaker of the House Nathaniel Ledbetter.

Why It Matters:
Last week, both state politicians called the UAW a “dangerous leech,” just days after Ivey released a joint statement with five other Southern governors claiming unions are special interest groups that threaten jobs and regional values. President Riley, a third-generation union member born and raised in the state, pushed back against these outright lies and pointed out that lawmakers on taxpayer-funded salaries that do nothing for their constituents were the real leeches on the South. He also wrote about his family’s connection to the labor movement, what union membership provides to both workers and our communities, and how union values of good wages, quality benefits and job security are Alabama values.

“Corporations and the politicians they bankroll want to keep workers divided and afraid of demanding the rights and freedoms we deserve. They’re working overtime right now to spread fear and lies so bosses can keep paying poverty wages while they rake in record profits,” Riley said in the op-ed. “But the Alabama AFL-CIO sees right through this charade, and I know the honest, hardworking people of Alabama can see through it, too. When workers stand together in unions to bargain for good wages, quality benefits and their fair share of corporate profits, we have the power not just to change our own lives, but the lives of our neighbors and communities, too.”

Read all about it here.

  

Climate justice is worker justice

AFSCME Local 1072 member Rhonda Leneski speaks at AFL-CIO's "Climate, Equity & Jobs" convening in honor of Earth Day 2024 Heat is the leading cause of death among workers. Millions of U.S. workers are exposed to heat in their workplaces, both outdoors and indoors, and Black and Brown workers can be the ones hardest hit. The connection between labor, racial justice, and environmental justice was the theme of today's Climate, Equity & Jobs Convening hosted by AFL-CIO. The event discussed the challenges climate change has created for workers and the need for increasing federal funding to build a worker-friendly and sustainable green economy. “I have worked for 27 years to keep the dorms clean for the students," Rhonda Leneski, a member of AFSCME Local 1072 and housekeeper at the University of Maryland, said at the event. "Climate change has presented a new challenge to AFSCME members and the community. In my work, climate change has created worsening working conditions for myself and my coworkers caused by stress and heat.” Watch the recorded event » Taken from the Metro Washingto Council AFL-CIO

Another union victory: We have a new Silica Dust Exposure Rule!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

APRIL 16, 2024

United Mine Workers of America Hosts Department of Labor Silica Rule Kickoff Event

[TRIANGLE, VA] – The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) hosted a Department of Labor Silica Rule Kickoff Event to celebrate the finalization of the new Silica Dust Exposure Rule. The event aimed to raise awareness about the importance of the rule in protecting the health and safety of miners across the nation.

Speaking at the event were UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts, Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su, Assistant Secretary of the Mine Health and Safety Administration Chris Williamson, NIOSH Director of Respiratory Health Division David Weissman, President of the Black Lung Association Gary Harrison, as well as members of the United Mine Workers of America and United Steelworkers.

The new silica rule significantly reduces respirable crystalline silica exposures and improves the early detection of related diseases. It also includes updates to the respiratory protection standard, ensuring that miners are adequately protected from the harmful effects of silica dust.

“The UMWA has been advocating for this rule for many years, so we are glad that the Agency has created a rule to address the rise in silica-related lung diseases in our nation’s miners (both coal and metal non-metal),” said Roberts. “Young miners in their 30s and 40s are getting lung diseases that are being exacerbated by silica dust. What was thought to be a disease of the past is coming back with a vengeance because miners are cutting more rock than ever before.

“This is a critical step to keeping miners safe and healthy not just day to day, but for their full lifetime,” Roberts said. “Now, our focus shifts to holding mining companies accountable. Together with our labor partners, UMWA remains steadfast in our efforts to ensure strict adherence to the new legislation within the industry.”

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler Applauds Critical Protections for Mine Workers from Deadly Silica Exposure

“In a definitive step toward safeguarding the health and well-being of our nation’s miners, we applaud President Biden for issuing a final rule to protect coal and metal and non-metal miners….Today’s final rule is another victory in the century-long battle against silica in the workplace, which affects working people across industries….

“We extend our deepest appreciation to acting Labor Secretary Julie Su for her resolute leadership, recognizing the urgent need to provide mine workers with lifesaving protections.”

Read the full statement from AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler here.

Senate Committee Passes Bill to Fully Fund Wildland Firefighter Pay

 

From the AFL-CIO:

Top Cut:
The National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), affiliated with the Machinists (IAM), is celebrating a major win as the Senate Committee on Appropriations passed the fiscal year 2024 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, which protects current funding for federal wildland firefighter pay.

Why It Matters:
The bill helps support the critical wildland firefighting workforce by funding wildfire preparedness and suppression efforts, protecting agency staffing levels so they can be prepared for the upcoming wildfire season, maintaining pay increases for federal firefighters and investing in the U.S. Forest Service.

“This is a significant development for NFFE members and all federal wildland firefighters,” said NFFE National President Randy Erwin. “For months, these selfless men and women have had to live with the possibility of their pay being cut in half overnight. Many NFFE members have traveled to Washington, DC, contacted their representatives, and done everything they can to advocate for the compensation they deserve by protecting the country on the front lines of the wildfire crisis. Today, their efforts have been recognized and Congress has delivered on their obligations for this year’s fire season.”

"Right-To-Work" is taking some hard hits. What does that mean?

 The AFL-CIO reported yesterday that

Top Cut:
The New Hampshire House of Representatives on Thursday voted down H.B. 1377—this legislative session’s attempt to pass “right to work”—by a margin of 212–168.

Why It Matters:
In a clear display of how New Hampshire residents feel about these legislative attacks on workers’ rights, more than 1,400 members of the public testified or signed on to register their position on the bill over two days of testimony, and only about 50 were in support of the right to work. The House postponed the entire topic for the rest of 2024.

New Hampshire AFL-CIO President Glenn Brackett said in a statement, “While out-of-state billionaires and D.C. lobbyists continue to enlist legislators to introduce identical bills, year in and year out, our elected representatives of both political parties have voted to defeat them. That is what happened today. It happened because the people of New Hampshire, and the members of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, know what we know, that ‘Right-to-Work’ is STILL wrong for New Hampshire.”

The same AFL-CIO report mentioned the following:

Top Cut:
Georgia union members and leaders spent Thursday morning lobbying state House of Representatives members against S.B. 362, a bill that would prohibit employers receiving state economic development incentives from voluntarily recognizing employee unions.

Why It Matters:
The bill, which is championed by Gov. Brian Kemp, is similar to a law passed in Tennessee last May and a cookie-cutter piece of legislation drafted by corporate lobbying group American Legislative Exchange Council. Alabama and South Carolina also have passed related laws. But, despite these coordinated special interest attacks on workers across the South, Georgia teachers, electricians, painters, glaziers, film crew members, public college employees and other workers across industries showed up in full force to push back and urge lawmakers to do the right thing in the state.

This followed a February 14 report by the AFL-CIO that said the following:

Top Cut:Michigan officially got rid of “right to work” on Tuesday, making it the first state in nearly 60 years to repeal the law.

Why It Matters:
Originally enacted in 2012 by then-Gov. Rick Snyder, after the bill was passed during a lame-duck session of the Legislature, the repeal of right to work is a huge step to expand and protect workers’ rights in Michigan. Tuesday also saw multiple other pro-worker pieces of legislation signed into law, thanks to the democratic trifecta in Lansing, including restorations of prevailing wage and organizing rights for graduate student research assistants.

There was some worthy press coverage of the real of "right-to-work" in Michigan. PBS did a good story. That story says in part that

Michigan had the nation’s seventh-highest percentage of unionized workers when the “right-to-work” law was enacted in 2012, but that dropped to 11th in 2022. Over the past decade, union membership in Michigan has fallen by 2.6 percentage points as overall U.S. union membership has been falling steadily for decades, reaching an all-time low last year of 10.1%.

Michigan becomes the first state in 58 years to repeal a “right-to-work” law, with Indiana repealing its in 1965 before Republicans there restored it in 2012. In 2017, Missouri’s Republican Legislature approved a “right-to-work” law, but it was blocked from going into effect before voter’s overwhelmingly rejected it the next year.

In total, 26 states now have “right-to-work” laws in place. There were massive protests in Indiana and Wisconsin in recent years after those legislatures voted to curb union rights.

“If we want to make Michigan a place where people want to come and raise a family and build their careers for the long haul, it is critical that we have got these strong workplace protections,“ Ron Bieber, president of the Michigan State AFL-CIO, said. “By standing up and taking their power back, at the ballot box and in the workplace, workers have made it clear Michigan is and always will be the beating heart of the modern American labor movement.”

Truthout and the Economic Policy Institute also carried good coverage. The New Republic carried a strong analysis of what's wrong with "right-to-work" in the first place. 

Many of us will read the headlines and think that we are being told what we already know or will feel justified in our long-standing opposition to "right-to-work" and leave it at that. Perhaps this is why there is so little coverage of what happened in Michigan and New Hampshire and what is happening in states like Georgia and Tennessee even in the progressive press. But I think that there is a deeper story here.

The strikes and near-strikes of 2023 have to find an expression in politics, and I think that that is what we are seeing taking place in muted form in some states and nationally right now. We have young and progressive pro-labor candidates stepping up and pro-worker legislation being moved from the grassroots in many places. These trends ae one key part of defeating the Republican agenda in November and each victory along the way helps build momentum for other new wins. It's true that workers and union members are more driven by issues than we are inspired by either political party, but it's also true that it's Democrats---and particularly young, progressive and women of color Democrats----who are leading on our issues right now. The Squad looks more like The Troop this week, and might look like The Battalion soon if if this trend continues.

Significant numbers of union members understand what is going on. The United Electrical Workers' (UE) report on their union's recent General Excutive Board meeting contains the following:

In his Political Action Report, President Rosen noted that close UE ally Congresswoman Summer Lee (D-PA), along with many other of the most pro-worker members of Congress, are under attack by deep-pocketed right-wing forces and will be facing well-funded opponents in their primaries this spring. Congressman Chuy Garcia (D-IL), another close UE ally, may also be facing a similar primary challenge. UE will be issuing a leaflet to make sure members know about Lee’s record of standing up for workers.

GEB members also discussed the dilemma that will face workers in the fall, as they will be forced to choose between the disappointing incumbent, Joe Biden, or Donald Trump, who has vowed to use the government to punish his perceived enemies if he is returned to office.

 

Photo from UE.

Many union members understand the complex moment we're in but some don't. One of my fears is that our closest political friends won't receive the support from us that they deserve in the names of what seems expedient or practical. Another is that the counter-attack from the right will hit hard and turn our world upside down. And there is the pernicious racism and sexism that has historically divided us at key moments in the past and still threatens our unity. Every nay-sayer and defeatist seemsto be gettig the press coverage and seems to picking up the mic these days, and they're doing lots of damage. 

Where are you standing in relation to this? Are you keeping your hands on the plow and your eyes on the prize or are you somewhere else? Here's a reminder about we're headed if we have everyone on our side keeping focused on our goals.

Photo from The New Republic

The opinions expressed above belong solely to the author and are not those of the Marion-Polk-Yamhill Central Labor Chapter or the Oregon AFL-CIO.

Labor journalist Hamilton Nolan and union leader Sara Nelson spoke in Corvallis yesterday. Here's what I heard them say.

Labor journalist Hamilton Nolan  and Sara Nelson, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO since 2014 spoke in Corvallis yesterday as part of a book tour publicizing Nolan's book "The Hammer." The book is described as "A timely, in-depth, and vital exploration of the American labor movement and its critical place in our society and politics today, from acclaimed labor reporter Hamilton Nolan." I attended the talks, but I have not read the book. The following notes contain some of my take-away thoughts. I want to encourage others with differing points of view to send in their comments or do some posting here or elsewhere with their take-aways.

I have often disagreed with Nolan and In These Times, the publication where I most often read what he is thinking. It's more difficult to disagree with Nelson because she gives inspirational speeches and she can draw on her considerable experience in union leadership. The Association of Flight Attendants is making great progress with her leadership, and just last week the AFA made headlines with once more leading a militant movement of flight attendants and other airline industry workers in protests in advance of union contract negotiations and increasing union organizing. In fact, both Nelson and Nolan have union organizing experience and this made their presentations especially important. At least half of the audience in Corvallis were union members. I imagine that more union members will attend their talks that are being given in Portland today.

Nolan and Nelson are syndicalists, but of a non-revolutionary sort. Syndicalism is a long-standng and difficult-to-define way of thinking about workers, unions and social change. I have intentionally provided a link to a liberal definition of the term because syndicalism is usually (and mistakenly) associated with anarchism in the United States. We have the conservative syndicalism of the building trades unions that uses forms of capitalist market-based mechanisms to build union stability and power, the traditional liberal syndicalism of the American Federation of Labor that has been focused on working-class mutual aid and integration, the industrial unionism of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and the anarchist-revolutionary syndicalism of the Industrial Workers of the World that is focused on overthrowing capitalism and establishing a kind of decentralized socialism. Syndicalism decenters politics in favor of formsof "workers' control," strong unions, working-class solidarity of different kinds, and forms of direct action in order to achieve goals that fall within and outside of mainstream union contract bargaining. I doubt that Nelson and Nolan think of themselves as syndicalists, but it seems to me that they land somewhere in that tradition.

Nolan was an early leader in the relatiely successful movement to unioinize workers employed in digital media. He learned some hard truths in that effort: unions are not always prepared to organize, there isn't one plan in place within organized labor to reverse union declines, and there is not always a desire among union members and leaders to organize non-union workers. He sees two choices available to unions as we think through how to reverse the years of decline and take on the widespread economic inequality that the decline of union membership has brought on. Either we work on reforming government and social policies or we rely on workers leading mass organizing campaigns. Nolan did not say this---and this may be covered in his book---but it seems that he's thinking of this as an either/or proposition while others, myself included, think that this is an "and" proposition. He' right when he says that "Unions have a great opportunity---we just need to seize it," but he's less clear when he talks about "giving workers their power back."

"The Hammer" apparently features Sara Nelson, although it sounds as if the book is also built around case studies of union organizing campaigns and activism. We cycle through prescriptions on how to rebuild unions every few years. Awhile back it was Andy Stern, a few years ago it was Jane McAlevey, and it's also been Joe Burns and a few others. Kim Kelly is an emerging voice. But some of the best voices have either been marginalized or have to fight for the mcrophone in order to be heard. I'm thinking of Frank Emspak and Bill Fletcher, Jr. here. In any case, the talks in Corvalis became a kind of Nolan-Nelson conversation or interview.

Photo from Getty Images and AFA-CWA.

Nelson knows how to move a room. She trained as an educator and she has been a guest lecturer in many universities and she never turns down an interview. She understands how workers think and what moves workers to act. I have never heard her speak without her going to her own and other's emotions. Corvallis is her home town and she had a friendly audience to work with.

Nelson has a story that most of us can identify with even if we did not experience what she did during 9/11 and in the period immediately following the terrorist attacks. She lost friends and union siblings when the towers in New York were hit, and airline industry greed and a helpful intervention by Senator Ted Kennedy helped push her to taking a more active role in her union. Nelson could build on growing up in a working-class family in Corvallis and having already achieved some level of social success as she constructed both her union leadership and her political consciousness. She pointed out that "There is not incredible inequality in Oregon as there is in other places," and she could rightly highlight the democratic advances that we have won here, as a way of talking about rising inequality and the need for union organizing.

Nelson referred to leadership in the airline industry as "crisis capitalists" and talked about how 9/11 was used by these industry leaders to redefine work in the airline industry. This was her "real schooling," she said, and she used that to point out the barbarity of capitalism and point to how high union density in the airline industry has forced the companies to appear as progressive entities and how this, in turn,  brought them into conflict with the Trump administration. Effective union leadership at any level needs to be able to tell such a story and give real-life examples. Where Nelson stumbles, I think, is when she says "The idea that we're a divided nation is utter baloney" after telling her story. It's precisely the barbarity of capitalism that she describes that divides us. 

From that Nelson argues that union leadership must be results-oriented. She goes on to say that union members want more money and better union contracts, but that we also want a voice at the table. It is at this point where some of the other limitations in her thinking become apparent, I think. She's correct in pointing out that the decline in union power and presence has meant a decline in participation by working-class people in politics, but she is so issue-oriented that she believes that greater union power will somehow "balance out" what happens in politics. Union organizing then becomes the means to check what she acknowledges is a barbaric system and not replace it with something else. 

For his part, Nolan claims tht ninety percent of people can't or won't talk union because what we're doing is not relevant to them. He wants to reframe what politics means, and he seems to want polititicized strikes that are not tied to political parties and yet somehow produce working-class political power. I see a contradiction in how Nolan thinks of strikes and possible strike outcomes, but I am more interested in how Nolan sees us moving from a situation in which masses of workers reject us to a situation in which those workers are willing to join strikes that become politicized in positive ways. He cites the Las Vegas culinary workers  as a model, but I'm not sure that this is a good example for him to use in making his case.

Image from In These Times.

   

Nelson and Nolan take on some other tough issues. They're opposed to unions endorsing Republicans, even those who claim to support union programs, and Nelson made at least one comment indicating that she supports President Biden and said that she thinks Representative Katie Porter is what a candidate should look like and be. They're taking on union leaders and members who can't visualize us organizing ten million new members and they're holding out for the kinds of sizeable investments that are needed to make this organizing possible. They reject American Compass and that attempt by the right-wing to pose as being pro-labor. Nelson well understands how the current popularity that unions have has to be joined to action, but not everyone on our side will agree on what "action" means or is willing to do what that entails. They support the call for a ceasefire in Palestine/Israel and see this as a labor issue. On the other hand, they're not really rooted in the traditional left-wing of the labor movement. They reject forming a labor party on the grounds that that is divisive and they're cautious about general strikes.

But where are Nolan and Nelson going here? They understand that a working-class movement can be built from common working-class interests and through action aimed at winning positive results. They get that using union power builds union power. Nelson gets the importance of building rank-and-file leadership and moving every valid working-class issue into the mainstream of the labor movement. She and Nolan do not seem to think that the AFL-CIO can build such a movement. They take the historic labor concept of "an injury to one is an injury to all" to its logical and broad conclusions. The AFA lives this out by actualizing women's union leadership, by requiring leadership to put in blocks of time working with others not in the AFA, and by engaging in organizing that may double the union's ranks if it is successful. Nelson accepts that new members mean changes in unions.   

Nelson and Nolan both highighted a need for non-profits to take the lead in organizing workers, and Nelson is engaged with Unioin Now. She spoke of this as a coalition of non-profits supporting one another in organizing, but it was not made clear where the large amounts of money needed for mass organizing will come from or what interests have to be negotiated in order to get and use that money. Nolan mentioned using college students and leveraging government funding in order to carry on organizing. All of that is intriguing, but it means that unions as we know them will disappear, it raises many questions about class interests (will wealthy people and government really pay for union organizing?), and it leaves alone the questions of how we convince our union siblings that new union organizing benefits all of us and how anyone---unions, non-profits or something else---can organize in industries or markets that they don't know. It's a fact, I think, that it takes unions about a decade to learn the dynamics of every new industry they seek to organize, so why would non-profits have an easier time of it? Missing from the talks were points about the special role of Black labor in organizing and leadership, a troubling omission. And what happens if Nolan and Nelson lead critical numbers towards non-profits and another kind of labor movement and we have a repeat of the Change to Win disaster?

I still disagree with Nolan on many things, and I found reason to disagree with some of what Nelson had to say, but I found it more difficult to articulate my disagreements as I listened to them. They're raising real issues.

Does anyone want to read "The Hammer" as part of a group?

Harlan County, Kentucky miners organizing in 1939.

   

The opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of the Marion-Polk-Yamhill Central Labor Chapter or the Oregon AFL-CIO.