Trumka: From union militant to liberal democrat

I appreciated the tribute to former United Mine Workers of America president, Richard Trumka, whom I had an opportunity to work with during the 1989 Pittston Coal strike. The International Association of Machinists lockout and strike at Eastern Airlines strike was happening at the same time, and in one of the greatest demonstrations of mutual solidarity, we organized a 100-car caravan from “Motown to Coaltown,” to West Virginia Camp Solidarity organized by the UMWA.

Trumka had previously been part of the movement called Miners for Democracy, which was a rank and file movement successfully winning union democracy and throwing out the boss-loving Tony Boyle. This battle made the UMWA the most democratic union in the country, going back to the traditions of the labor movement in the 1930’s and not the current usually bureaucratically run unions of today.

Riding that movement, he became UMWA president and with that militant past was elected AFL-CIO president until his recent death. But during his tenure, the labor movement continued to get weaker and smaller with concessionary contracts, widespread officialdom corruption, inability to win organizing drives, and total subservience to the Democratic party. Little was done nationally to support embattled unionists. The result is that virtually every strike has been lost in the past decade and the AFL-CIO has failed to take progressive positions in defense of immigrants’ rights, a women’s right to choose, or tackling climate change and mobilizing workers in action in acts of solidarity to win.

Recently he campaigned to keep police unions in AFL-CIO despite calls by more progressive unions to kick them out in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and national protests. And led by Gabriel Prawl, President, ILWU Clerks Local 52, in Seattle the ILWU organized a West Coast port strike with a march and rally demanding the utmost prosecution of Floyd’s killers and jailing of all killer cops.

In Seattle the ILWU led the battle against cop unions being workers organizations…challenging local and national AFL-CIO positions. In voting to expel the police union from the Kings County Labor council (representing 100,000 workers), Jane Hopkins, executive vice president of SEIU Healthcare 1199NW said “We can’t both stand with a police system that’s set up to hurt our Black community and stand up for our people of color who are oppressed by police.”   Sara Nelson, national Flight Attendants union president agrees.

“There are a lot of unions that are very concerned about police brutality,” said Lowell Peterson, executive director of Writers Guild of America-East, which adopted a resolution calling on the AFL-CIO to disassociate itself from the International Union of Police Associations, the federation’s police union affiliate.

And reported in Politico, “Local unions are defying leaders of the AFL-CIO, who have rejected calls to cut ties with the labor federation’s law enforcement arm and stressed the importance of collective bargaining instead to counter the use of excessive force.

The second-largest local teachers’ union in the nation, United Teachers Los Angeles, voted to eliminate police in Los Angeles public schools and “redirect funding to mental health and counseling” for students.”

Trumka’s response, reported on in New Republic, was to continue to defend the police as “community friendly.”

My experience as a 4-decade veteran of the International Association of Machinists and the CA Federation of Teachers has taught me this:

The fight for union democracy, labor independent political action (not supporting either of the bosses’ Democratic or Republican parties), and mobilizing our members is the road to a rebirth of organized labor, winning union organizing drives and strikes, and challenging Washington’s reactionary foreign policies…including ending the embargo of Cuba which the ILWU has called for.