The passing of AFL-CIO Pres. Richard Trumka leaves the country’s largest organized labor union with a leadership vacancy that could impact American politics in the 2022 and 2024 elections.
Trumka, a 72-year-old son and grandson of coal miners, brought first-hand experience to the working-class struggle to secure fair pay and necessary benefits. The union boss’ unexpected death could change the organization’s political leaning going forward. The organization consistently endorsed Democrat presidential candidates perceived as pro-labor, including Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, and, most recently, Joe Biden.
“Joe Biden is a lifelong supporter of workers and has fought his entire career for living wages, health care, retirement security and civil rights,” Trumka reportedly stated. “Our members know Joe has done everything he could to create a fairer process for forming and joining a union, and he is ready to fight with us to restore faith in America and improve the lives of all working people.”
Although Democrat hopefuls are credited with effectively courting organized public-sector labor unions, the 2020 endorsement of now-Pres. Biden was not without controversy. The previous administration pushed an America First agenda that appeared to have the best interest of hard-working people in mind. Economic growth and rising salaries would have appeared to be linchpins to pivot away from a Democratic Party with a troubling hands-off history of outsourcing jobs overseas and not adequately resisting manufacturing plants relocating. Despite what seemed like obvious gains for truck drivers, Trumka blasted the former president on deregulation grounds.
“Over the next five months, the labor movement will draw a clear contrast between Biden and President Donald Trump. Trump’s record of slashing rules designed to protect us on the job, cutting workplace health and safety inspectors to their lowest level in history, and taking away overtime pay from millions of workers are just a few ways working people have been hurt by the current administration,” an AFL-CIO news release stated.
The ongoing loyalty to one party has been something of a balancing act. Reports indicate that only 58 percent of AFL-CIO members toed the line by casting ballots for Biden. That figure was said to have been 4 percent higher than votes for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Those figures reflect a divide among AFL-CIO members who may interpret the economic data differently.
According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the ranks of labor unions plummeted from 21.1 percent of the workforce in 1983 to 10.3 percent in 2019. That trend of decline almost abruptly changed course in 2020 when upwards of one million Americans reportedly enjoyed unionized jobs.
While politicians on both sides of the aisle are trying to curry favor with organized labor, the next AFL-CIO leader will be tasked with weighing pro-business policies, membership numbers, and which party can protect and deliver improved wages.
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations consists of 56 national and international labor unions, representing 12.5 million hard-working Americans.
Sources: freightwaves.com, cnn.com
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