June 3, 2011_nWLP 5/31/11 10:21 aM Page 11
Trumka tells National Press Club
AFL-CIO redefines fight with right as ‘moral struggle’
WASHINGTON, D.C. (PAI)—
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is
redefining workers’ battle with the radi-
cal right wing as a moral struggle, say-
ing it involves the nation’s future.
But since the struggle also has a po-
litical aspect, Trumka adds the labor fed-
eration is planning to overhaul its polit-
ical program to make it a year-round
operation.
Trumka cast the conflict in states
coast-to-coast in both political and
moral terms in a major speech May 20
at Washington’s National Press Club.
His comments emphasized the struggle,
but his answers to post-speech questions
turned to politics.
The moral struggle, he said, appears
in state and federal budget proposals and
schemes to curtail voting rights, most of
them introduced and supported by right-
wing Republicans. He called the budg-
ets “a despicable canvas of cruelty.”
“In Michigan, a state senator thinks
foster children should be required by
law to purchase second-hand clothes —
from the $79 annual stipend they get for
clothing. In Maine, the governor thinks
more children should go to work. In
North Carolina, the Legislature thinks
we should balance the budget on the
backs of autistic children,” Trumka said.
“In Arizona, the state Senate presi-
dent floats the idea of locking up protest-
ing public employees in desert tent city
jails. In New York, a billionaire mayor
proposes to fire 5,000 teachers rather
than tax the bonuses of the Wall Street
executives who brought down the Amer-
ican economy.”
Trumka said the proposals indicate
“not just meanness, but destructiveness”
and “a willful desire to block the road to
the future.”
All of the politicians and political
bodies he criticized but one — New
York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a
GOPer-turned-Independent — are Re-
publicans or GOP-run.
In Washington, D.C., the Republi-
can-controlled House’s budget at-
labor’s moral agenda, he said, will be in
the biggest battleground so far: Wiscon-
sin, where unionists have filed success-
ful recall petitions against at least six
members of the Republican majority in
the state Senate.
The Republican-dominated Wiscon-
sin Legislature passed a bill put forth by
GOP Gov. Scott Walker stripping
200,000 state and local workers of col-
lective bargaining rights.
“First, we are going to use that
(workers’) voice to end the Scott Walker
agenda as a viable political strategy by
R ICHARD T RUMKA
tempted to cut federal spending by $4.3
trillion over the next decade, in areas
such as Pell Grants and worker training
— while cutting taxes for the rich by
$4.2 trillion and barely reducing the fed-
eral deficit, Trumka said.
“Think about the message these
budgets send: Sacrifice is for the weak.
The powerful and well-connected get
tax cuts, so they can become more pow-
erful and more well-connected.”
Trumka portrayed the labor move-
ment as standing against such schemes,
and for the American Dream “that all of
us will be treated fairly, that we will look
after each other, and that we will all have
a share in the wealth we all help to cre-
ate.”
He said instead of having a national
conversation about putting America
back to work — creating wealth, in-
creasing income and revenue, and clos-
ing the federal budget deficit — “the de-
bate here is about how fast we can
destroy the fabric of our country.”
To change that debate and to defend
the moral position, labor must engage in
politics, especially since last Novem-
ber’s election brought to power politi-
cians whose “real passion was for elim-
inating the rights of working people and
destroying their unions — who are
standing in the way of their agenda,”
Trumka declared.
The first step in the political fight for
Employer fined $1.24 million for
exposing workers to asbestos
CICERO, Ill. — A $1,247,400 fine has been issued to AMD Industries Inc af-
ter five unprotected and untrained workers allegedly were required to conduct as-
bestos removal, exposing them to this cancer-causing material.
The penalties — 19 willful and eight serious health citations — were issued
last month by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Ad-
ministration following an inspection at AMD facilities in December 2010. OSHA
was responding to a referral from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.
Workers allegedly were exposed to materials containing 20 to 50 percent as-
bestos.
“Asbestos exposure can be deadly,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occu-
pational Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels. “AMD Industries knew it was as-
signing workers to asbestos removal work and failed to take the most basic safety
precautions. This employer did not provide protective respirators or even warn the
workers of the risk to their health from removing the material.”
A willful violation exists when an employer has demonstrated either an inten-
tional disregard for the requirements of the law or plain indifference to employee
safety and health.
AMD Industries has until June 16 to comply, request an informal conference
with OSHA’s area director or contest the findings.
JUNE 3, 2011
winning the recall elections,” followed
by “citizen vetoes of destructive legisla-
tion, and retaking state houses,” Trumka
said. “The next step will be holding
elected leaders accountable on one ques-
tion: ‘Are you for improving or degrad-
ing life for working families?’
That means the AFL-CIO will not
only go into battleground states, Trumka
told reporters following his speech, but
also support true friends even in non-
battlegrounds — and find challengers to
labor’s political foes.
“It doesn’t matter if candidates and
parties are controlling the wrecking ball
or simply standing aside to let it hap-
pen,” Trumka said. “If leaders aren’t
blocking the wrecking ball ... then work-
ing people will not support them.”
Doing so will mean remaking the
AFL-CIO’s political apparatus into a
year-round operation focused on the
moral issue of helping workers, Trumka
told reporters. “We hope to coordinate
spending by our affiliates in much more
targeted ways. We will change the way
we spend money, the way we do things
and the way we function.”
Update on the war on public employees
The workers’ rights battle continued
in state capitols around the country in
April and May as Republican majori-
ties passed anti-union laws — and
unions revved up opposition, repeal and
recall campaigns. Polls have continued
to show an edge in public support for
union rights.
In Wisconsin, the draconian anti-
union law that set off a defensive upris-
ing was struck down May 26 by a Dane
County Circuit Court judge. The law
takes away nearly all collective bar-
gaining rights from public-sector work-
ers. But Republican lawmakers violated
Wisconsin’s open meetings law when
they passed it — holding a surprise vote
without a hearing, public testimony, or
even two hours public notice — and
that renders the law void, the judge
ruled. The Wisconsin Supreme Court is
set to hear a separate lawsuit over the
case on June 6.
Meanwhile, three Republican state
senators who voted for the law face a
July 12 recall vote, thanks to volunteers
who gathered over 15,000 signatures
needed. Wisconsin’s Government Ac-
countability Board reviewed recall peti-
tions for three other Republican sena-
tors on May 31, but had not set a recall
election date for them as of press time.
Earlier, the two sides battled it out in
a special state Supreme Court election
April 5 in which challenger JoAnne
Kloppenburg came within a few hun-
dred votes of defeating incumbent con-
servative David Prosser, a former Re-
publican speaker of the Assembly. In
the primary, Prosser had 55 percent of
the vote to Kloppenburg’s 28 percent;
but the race became a proxy for sup-
porters and opponents of Republican
Gov. Scott Walker and his anti-union
campaign.
A race for Milwaukee County exec-
utive also became largely about Walker
and his policies. In that case, Democrat
Chris Abele defeated Republican state
Rep. Jeff Stone for the seat Walker held
before he was elected governor in No-
vember. Stone voted for Walker’s bill,
and lost the election 39 to 61 percent.
Here’s how the union battle fared in
other states:
O HIO
We Are Ohio, a coalition of union
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
In Ohio, AFSCME members display thousands of voter-signed referendum
petitions collected by the We Are Ohio coalition. The group will be asking
voters in November to overturn a recently-passed law that strips public
employees of their collective bargaining rights.
supporters, is gathering signatures to re-
fer anti-union Senate Bill 5 to voters on
the November ballot. The group has un-
til June 30 to collect 231,000 valid sig-
natures; as of May 20, it had 214,399,
but it’s aiming for 400,000 to make sure
enough of them are valid. In a mid-May
poll by Quinnipiac University, 54 per-
cent of Ohioans favor repeal of SB 5.
Sponsored by Republican Gov. John
Kasich and passed by a Republican-led
Legislature, SB 5 strips collective bar-
gaining rights from about 360,000 Ohio
public employees.
Meanwhile, a Republican state sena-
tor who faced heavy criticism for his
vote in favor of the bill announced May
24 that he will leave office in July. SB 5
passed by one vote in the Senate.
N EW H AMPSHIRE
In April, the Republican-led House
and Senate passed so-called “right-to-
work” legislation that would weaken
private sector unions, but Democratic
Gov. John Lynch vetoed it May 11. As
of press time, Republicans had not yet
been able to hold their supermajority to-
gether to override the veto. It takes two-
thirds to override. If they do override the
veto, New Hampshire would become
the 23rd “right-to-work” state, and the
only one north of Virginia. Right-to-
work is misnamed because it doesn’t
actually give anyone a job or a right to
one; instead, it makes dues optional for
union-represented workers, thereby re-
ducing union resources.
I NDIANA
On April 20, Indiana Gov. Mitch
Daniels (R) signed a law that limits
teacher collective bargaining to salary
and benefits. Under the new law, unions
may not bargain over teacher evaluation
procedures, and contracts may not ex-
tend past the budget biennium.
T ENNESSEE
On May 21, a bill curbing teacher
collective bargaining rights passed the
state House 55-40 and Senate 19-12
and was expected to be signed into law.
Both chambers are controlled by Re-
publicans.
I DAHO
The Idaho Education Association is
working with a parent-led group, Ida-
hoans for Responsible Education Re-
form, to collect signatures to put a se-
ries of education “reform” bills passed
by the Republican-controlled Legisla-
ture to a vote of the people in 2012.
The new laws signed by the gover-
nor kill all union contracts in place for
Idaho teachers on June 30, prohibit fu-
ture collective bargaining over benefits
and salaries, eliminate teacher tenure,
and creates a merit-pay system.
The union also has filed a lawsuit
challenging the constitutionality of the
legislation.
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