Richard Trumka’s twelve years as AFL-CIO president coincided with the ongoing decline of the organized workforce, but also with opportunities such as the election of a devout US president. With Mr Trumka’s death last week, the association faces a fundamental question: What is the purpose of the AFL-CIO?
For years, union leaders and senior officials have split into two big camps on this issue. On one side are those who argue that the AFL-CIO, which has around 12 million members, should play a supportive role for its constituent unions – that it should help build consensus on political and political priorities, for them To lobby Washington, provide research and communication support, and identify the best ways to organize and negotiate.
On the other side of the debate are those who argue that the Federation should play a leading role in building the labor movement – by investing resources in organizing more workers; by entering new branches of the economy; by funding non-traditional workers’ organizations, such as those representing undocumented workers; and by forging deeper alliances with other progressive groups, such as civil rights activists.
As President, Mr. Trumka identified more with the first approach, which several current and former union officials felt was particularly valuable given its close ties to President Biden. Liz Shuler, who has been acting president since Mr. Trumka’s death and hopes to succeed him, is said to have a similar orientation.
But while the association ponders its future, there is an inescapable fact that could sway the discussion: Mr Trumka’s approach did not seem to solve an existential crisis for the U.S. labor movement, where unions make up only 7 percent of the private sector workforce.
“The level of collective bargaining coverage of American workers is not comparable to that of any other similar democracy,” said Larry Cohen, a past president of Communications Workers of America. “If you’re not there to grow, you are in trouble. You’re just playing defense. You’ll be here until someone turns off the light. “
Funding for a dedicated department dedicated to the organization fell significantly during Mr Trumka’s presidency, to around 10 percent by 2019, according to documents on the Splinter website.
Ms. Shuler said in an interview on Friday that the department’s budget does not reflect other resources put into organizing, such as the millions of dollars the AFL-CIO sends to state unions and local labor councils that play an important role can organize campaigns.
Although union membership fell about 1.5 percentage points to below 11 percent during Mr. Trumka’s tenure, his influence in Washington contributed to several successes. These included a more worker-friendly revision of the North American free trade agreement, tens of billions of dollars in government aid to stabilize union pension plans, and a job creation bill now passing through Congress.
The economic rescue plan that Mr Biden signed in March sent hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to state and local governments that saw public sector unions, increasingly the face of the labor movement, as lifeguards.
But the cornerstone of Mr. Trumka’s plan to revitalize work was a law pending passage: the Right to Organize or PRO Law. The law would make organizing easier by prohibiting employers from requiring workers to attend anti-union meetings and fines against employers who violate labor laws. The association invested heavily in choosing officials who could help pass the measure.
During an interview with the New York Times in March, Mr. Trumka identified the PRO Act as the workers’ last best hope. “Because of growing inequality, our economy is on the way to implosion, ”he said. “We have to find a way so that workers have more power and employers less. And that works best with the PRO Act. “
Ms. Shuler repeated this point, arguing that if the measure becomes law, the workforce will be prepared for a resurgence. “We have everything in harmony,” she said. “All that’s left is the PRO Act to unleash what I would say the potential for unprecedented organizing.”
But so far, workers’ hopes for a bill strongly opposed by Republicans and the business community have been dubious. While the House of Representatives passed the bill in March and Mr Biden strongly supports it, the odds are high in a divided Senate.
When asked if the AFL-CIO could support Mr Biden’s multi-trillion dollar job plan if it comes to a vote with no prospect of the PRO Act being passed, Mr Trumka refused to consider the option that he would have to make such a decision.
“I don’t see that,” he said in an interview. “This president and this government understand the power to resolve inequalities through collective bargaining.”
An alternative approach could have given higher priority to building power outside Washington by adding union membership and increasing the influence of non-union workers.
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According to Mr. Cohen, former communications workers leader, one benefit of a large investment in organizing is that it allows the labor movement to bet in a variety of industries and jobs where workers are increasingly excited about union work , but in which traditional unions do not have a large presence – like the video game industry and other technology sectors.
Such funds can help workers who want to organize their free time from colleagues, as well as a small cadre of professionals to help them. “You have 100 people you pay $ 25,000 a year for and 15 full-time employees, and people can build where they live,” Cohen said.
Stewart Acuff, the AFL-CIO’s organizing director from 2002 to 2008 and then special assistant to its president, said the association’s role in organizing should include more than just directly funding these efforts. He said it was imperative to give membership a higher priority to all organized labor, as he had attempted under Mr. Trumka’s predecessor.
“We have challenged all levels of the labor movement to spend 30 percent of their resources on growth,” said Acuff, who criticized the leadership of the Federation under Mr. Trumka. “This wasn’t just referring to organizers. It meant using access to every lever, “such as pressure on companies to be more accepting of unions.
Mr Acuff also said the AFL-CIO must be more willing to place long bets on organizing workers who, with more members, may not pay off in the short term but help build power and influence for workers.
He cited the $ 15 struggle and a union, a year-long campaign to improve wages and facilitate union formation for fast food and other low-wage workers. The campaign, which received tens of millions of dollars from the Service Employees International Union, was successful in many ways, despite the fact that it produced few new union members. The AFL-CIO supported the US $ 15 battle but did not provide direct financial support.
Mr Cohen and Mr Acuff both cited the importance of building long-term alliances with outside groups – such as those advocating for civil rights or immigration or environmental issues – that can increase the power of workers, such as calling for an employer to resign while in a union Campaign.
During his tenure, Mr. Trumka tried at times to cultivate such alliances, but he was often hampered by resistance within the Federation.
Amid the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, for example, Mr Trumka attempted to throw the AFL-CIO’s weight behind civil rights matters, including a speech he gave in Ferguson, Missouri, after a young black man, Michael Brown, who was there in 2014 shot by a police officer.
But Mr Trumka faced a backlash on that front from more conservative unions who felt that the AFL-CIO’s real job was to focus on economic issues that affect members rather than issues like civil rights.
“There have been some unions – not just construction – that have felt that the work is not what we should be focusing on,” said Carmen Berkley, a former director of the AFL’s civil, human and women’s rights division -CIO, in an interview last year.
Since Mr Trumka’s death, union leaders have begun to discuss what the association’s organizational and political challenges mean for the election of a successor. According to its bylaws, the AFL-CIO’s Executive Board will meet within three weeks to elect a successor for Mr. Trumka’s term, which expires next year.
One of the top candidates will be Ms. Shuler, who became the acting president after the death of Mr. Trumka as secretary / treasurer. If the Council selects Ms. Shuler to succeed Mr Trumka, this could advance her to the presidency next year and consolidate the direction of the Federation, a prospect that some reformers within the labor movement are concerned about.
Some of these reformers support Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, as the next president of the Federation. Ms. Nelson has advocated redirecting much of the tens of millions of dollars the labor movement spends on political activities to help more workers unionize.
But Ms. Shuler insists that choosing between investing in the organization and the other priorities of the association is the wrong one.
“I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive,” she said. “After the way modern organizations work, you no longer have large institutional budgets filled with line items. We organize everything related to the campaign. We’ll identify a target where it’s hot. ”Then, she said, the organizations raise money and get things done.
