If elected, he would succeed 14-year incumbent John J. Sweeney, who is retiring and who endorsed him.
And if the crowd of unions represented by officials sitting on the sun-splashed stage at the outdoor rally July 9 at the University of the District of Columbia was any indication, Trumka and his ticket-mates -- incumbent Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker, who seeks re-election, and IBEW official Liz Shuler, who seeks Trumka’s job -- should coast to victory at the federation convention in Pittsburgh, Sept. 14-17.
As of now, only Shuler, 39, executive assistant to IBEW President Ed Hill and a member of Portland, Ore., Local 125, faces competition, from IFPTE President Gregory Junemann. Voting will be weighted, according to a member union’s size.
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| Arlene Holt Baker, candidate for re-election as AFL-CIO vice president, and Richard Trumka, candidate for AFL-CIO president, at a recent rally announcing their campaign. | Liz Schuler, assistant to the president of the IBEW, is seeking the office of AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer. Photos by Press Associates New Service |
Trumka, who will turn 60 on July 24, is a former miner, son and grandson of coal miners and a former Mine Workers President. He hit several themes in his sometimes-fiery address, opening his formal campaign to head the 10-million-member group:
• An increased emphasis on organizing. Preparing for congressional enactment of the Employee Free Choice Act -- labor’s top legislative priority and still up in the air -- “The AFL-CIO I plan to lead is going to have a strike force of 1,000 union organizers that we’ll collectively unleash any time any union has a strategic organizing drive as well as any time any union is being raided.”
• More listening to the grass-roots. In an interview afterwards, Trumka elaborated on that theme he raised in his speech. He said the labor movement needs to reach out to younger workers -- a task Shuler says she’ll take on if elected -- and that he’ll travel the country in the election campaign before the Pittsburgh convention and afterwards, holding sessions and town hall meetings to hear what’s on workers’ minds. “You told me you want an AFL-CIO that’s more transparent and more responsive to your needs. Well, that’s the type of AFL-CIO you’re going to have,” he stated.
• Restoring the middle class. Trumka said election of Democratic President Barack Obama and a more pro-worker Congress presented labor with “the moment…to build the movement to create the America we want -- and that every worker deserves.” That’s “an America where every job is a portal into the middle class, where the kind of health insurance you have doesn’t dictate the quality of health care you receive, where no man and no woman ever retires into poverty, where students can try to get into colleges like this without being buried under a mountain of debt, and an America where workers are the masters of the economy, not the victims.”
“A union contract is the best way to transform dead-end work into good-paying careers,” he added. “Even though it wasn’t organized labor that created the God-awful mess the country’s in, we are the people who can lead America out of it.”
If elected to the federation’s No. 2 job, Shuler envisions herself as a bridge to a new generation of workers. A legislative rep and grass-roots organizer for IBEW Local 125 in Portland, Ore., Shuler urged unionists to get with new media, such as Facebook and Twitter. “We will encourage members to build a ‘virtual’ union hall,” Shuler said.
After her speech, Shuler said she had no set ideas yet on how to close the AFL-CIO’s multi-million-dollar budget deficit. She managed large pieces of IBEW’s $100 million budget. “We have a challenge before us. We want to bring together all the affiliates and put together a plan” to solve the fed’s red ink problem, she added.
Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.
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If elected, he would succeed 14-year incumbent John J. Sweeney, who is retiring and who endorsed him.
And if the crowd of unions represented by officials sitting on the sun-splashed stage at the outdoor rally July 9 at the University of the District of Columbia was any indication, Trumka and his ticket-mates — incumbent Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker, who seeks re-election, and IBEW official Liz Shuler, who seeks Trumka’s job — should coast to victory at the federation convention in Pittsburgh, Sept. 14-17.
As of now, only Shuler, 39, executive assistant to IBEW President Ed Hill and a member of Portland, Ore., Local 125, faces competition, from IFPTE President Gregory Junemann. Voting will be weighted, according to a member union’s size.
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| Arlene Holt Baker, candidate for re-election as AFL-CIO vice president, and Richard Trumka, candidate for AFL-CIO president, at a recent rally announcing their campaign. | Liz Schuler, assistant to the president of the IBEW, is seeking the office of AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer. Photos by Press Associates New Service |
Trumka, who will turn 60 on July 24, is a former miner, son and grandson of coal miners and a former Mine Workers President. He hit several themes in his sometimes-fiery address, opening his formal campaign to head the 10-million-member group:
• An increased emphasis on organizing. Preparing for congressional enactment of the Employee Free Choice Act — labor’s top legislative priority and still up in the air — “The AFL-CIO I plan to lead is going to have a strike force of 1,000 union organizers that we’ll collectively unleash any time any union has a strategic organizing drive as well as any time any union is being raided.”
• More listening to the grass-roots. In an interview afterwards, Trumka elaborated on that theme he raised in his speech. He said the labor movement needs to reach out to younger workers — a task Shuler says she’ll take on if elected — and that he’ll travel the country in the election campaign before the Pittsburgh convention and afterwards, holding sessions and town hall meetings to hear what’s on workers’ minds. “You told me you want an AFL-CIO that’s more transparent and more responsive to your needs. Well, that’s the type of AFL-CIO you’re going to have,” he stated.
• Restoring the middle class. Trumka said election of Democratic President Barack Obama and a more pro-worker Congress presented labor with “the moment…to build the movement to create the America we want — and that every worker deserves.” That’s “an America where every job is a portal into the middle class, where the kind of health insurance you have doesn’t dictate the quality of health care you receive, where no man and no woman ever retires into poverty, where students can try to get into colleges like this without being buried under a mountain of debt, and an America where workers are the masters of the economy, not the victims.”
“A union contract is the best way to transform dead-end work into good-paying careers,” he added. “Even though it wasn’t organized labor that created the God-awful mess the country’s in, we are the people who can lead America out of it.”
If elected to the federation’s No. 2 job, Shuler envisions herself as a bridge to a new generation of workers. A legislative rep and grass-roots organizer for IBEW Local 125 in Portland, Ore., Shuler urged unionists to get with new media, such as Facebook and Twitter. “We will encourage members to build a ‘virtual’ union hall,” Shuler said.
After her speech, Shuler said she had no set ideas yet on how to close the AFL-CIO’s multi-million-dollar budget deficit. She managed large pieces of IBEW’s $100 million budget. “We have a challenge before us. We want to bring together all the affiliates and put together a plan” to solve the fed’s red ink problem, she added.
Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.