Portside

Fred Redmond, national secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, was in town Saturday, March 29, for a rally at the Gateway Arch, hosted by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the AFL-CIO, protesting President Donald Trump’s attacks on the federal workforce, and his recent executive order stripping federal workers of their collective bargaining rights. Before the rally began, Redmond sat down for an interview with the Labor Tribune, discussing the administration’s actions, fighting back and why some union members voted for Trump. Following is an edited version of the interview.

Fred Redmond, Secretary-Treasurer AFL-CIO

Labor Tribune: President Trump signed an executive order March 27 cancelling collective bargaining rights for federal workers’ unions, citing a little-used provision of federal Labor law relating to national security issues. Is that even legal?

Redmond: Well, we don’t think so. We’ll work that through the court. We’ve already filed a lawsuit in conjunction with AFGE. We view it as a full frontal attack on Organized Labor. The thing about it is, this is an assault on government workers, but where does it stop?

Reading the executive order, he made it very, very clear that the departments in the government are going to be reduced. He told all the department heads through the executive order they’re not required to abide by any commitments in the Labor agreements because it placed all the government employees as at-will employees. Their jobs, after they do their reduction of forces, are going to be solely left up to the discretion of the management.

This is a full frontal attack, as I’ve said, against Organized Labor. And the only reason, we strongly believe with a great deal of certainty, is because of AFGE’s willingness and determination and commitment to their members to really fight back.

And the audacity. As I’m reading the full executive order, he’s made a statement that he’s willing to work with any union that’s willing to work with him, but he will not tolerate any union challenging his directions.

Labor Tribune: What does that mean for the future of unions under this administration? How can Organized Labor fight back?

Redmond: We’re in a very critical situation right now. It’s AFGE today. We’re looking at public sector employees at risk tomorrow. We’re looking at private sector employers following the President’s lead.

Our commitment as the AFL-CIO, as the Labor Movement, is we’re not going to be looking back in 10 years like we did with the air traffic controllers saying we should have done something.

(President Ronald Reagan infamously fired striking air traffic controllers in 1981 after promising his support for their demands during the 1980 campaign, and banned them from being rehired, citing a federal law prohibiting strikes by federal government employees.)

We’re going to use every resource that we have. We’re going to use the courts; we’re going to go to the streets, and we’re going to really reach out to community partners and allies. We’re going to challenge our friends on Capitol Hill. And we’re going to do everything possible as a Labor Movement to fight this.

Labor Tribune: Already tens of thousands of federal workers have been laid off. Many were reinstated under court order, only to be placed on administrative leave. What do you make of that?

Redmond: You talk about a waste of money! We’ve won a couple of court cases – AFGE has won a couple of court cases ordering him to put these employees back to work, but instead of putting them back to work they placed them on paid leave.

I think that the President is really banking on the Supreme Court. That’s where this stuff is heading. I think he’s banking on the Supreme Court to uphold his erratic behavior. But we still have confidence that the majority of the justices on the Supreme Court are going to really, really reaffirm the separation of the powers between the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government. We think that some of the actions the President has made without the consent of Congress are totally against the separation of powers. We’ll see when we get to court.

The problem is, if we go to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court rules the way they should rule in a situation like this and he ignores it, now we’ve got another situation as a country, not just as a Labor Movement. We’ll have to cross that bridge when we get to it.

Labor Tribune: Going back to last November, quite a few union members voted for Donald Trump. How do we as a Labor Movement reach those members?

Redmond: I think a lot of union members felt the Democratic Party was not addressing a lot of the concerns of working families in this country. But the fact of the matter is that union members supported Kamala Harris by a margin of 57-41. So union members on the whole supported Harris, but not at the numbers that we would have expected considering everything that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did for working families.

But I think there was a lot of disappointment in the Democratic Party on specific issues. I think that this culture war has engulfed a lot of our members. A lot of our members are hung up on issues that the right-wing did a good job of perpetrating to be responsible for their situation in life, and being responsible for the fact that their children can’t get a good job, the price of goods going up, and immigrants are their enemies. A lot of our members unfortunately got hung up in these culture wars and they decided to vote for Trump.

Now we’re seeing buyer’s remorse. A lot of our members that voted for Trump are scratching their heads thinking well we didn’t know he was going to make it an attack on collective bargaining, that he was going to devalue programs like OSHA, things that are important to working families. So there’s some buyer’s remorse out there.

I think as a Labor Movement we have to do a better job in the future in terms of really, really making sure that our members understand the issue. Look, we’re not adherents to any particular party. We want to support Democrats, Republicans and Independents that value workers in this country. And I think that we need to focus on issues about that. And I think we could have done a better job.

Tim Rowden is editor-in-chief of the Labor Tribune.

Today, the Labor Tribune is one of the few remaining labor weekly newspapers in the country. It has a symbiotic relationship with its subscribers: the paper exists because of their continued and unwavering support and the St. Louis/Southern Illinois labor movements are considered among the strongest in America in great part because they have a solid, strong voice that allows their positions to be heard in the general community.