Before winning over AFL-CIO, she hopes to gain backing of individual unions.
Leaders with the AFL-CIO, an umbrella group for 56 member unions representing more than 12.5 million workers, will press her on issues such as trade, infrastructure and the types of officials she would name to the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors.
June 22 kicked off AFL-CIO Worker Center Advisory Council. There, UCLA Labor Center’s Victor Narro presented the center’s most recent analysis of labor-worker center partnerships, Building a Movement Together: Worker Centers and Labor Union Affiliations.
Part two of a series looking back on the 20th anniversary the AFL-CIO’s New Voice movement. Most successful organizing is not done in a vacuum, existing members have to be front line apostles
John Sweeney, former AFL-IO President his officers, and their staff came into office with high expectations and great optimism. A good part of their inspiration was drawn from SEIU’s Justice for Janitors campaign that many had directly participated in or saw as a model of success. After all, Justice for Janitors had succeeded in mobilizing members, winning better contracts and organizing thousands of new, mostly Latino members while garnering broad public support.(1)
The New Voice wasn’t just about growth, it envisioned a labor movement that reclaimed its place as a powerful force for justice in the community and strongly allied with the country’s progressive intelligentsia. But organizing was the magic word.
Under Trumka, labor has sought to extend its power by alliances, cooperating with African-American groups, immigrant groups, environmental groups and others as well as car wash workers and day laborers seeking to organizers. He points to the wave of Fight for $15 protests scheduled for April 15 as an example of a new way workers are flexing their muscles.
A new AFL-CIO Commission on Racial and Economic Justice will attempt to create a "safe, structured and constructive opportunity for local union leaders to discuss issues pertaining to the persistence of racial injustice today in the workforce and in their communities, and to ensure that the voices of all working people in the labor movement are heard."
Trumka’s ambition to create connections between union members and non-union workers is still far from completely realized. Some say those links barely exist, even in blueprint form. Yet, his analysis points to an economy that is hurting all working people. This translates into a focus on immigration reform, ending mass incarceration and challenging inequality.
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