Why Won’t Trumka Mobilize Union Membership
To Make Health Care Bill Fair to Working People?

After properly criticizing the passage of the Senate health care bill on three important counts, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, in a statement on Dec. 17, said: “Those are the changes by which we will be fighting in the coming days.”

At least 12 days have passed since that statement, and there is still no sign that Trumka plans to mobilize the AFL-CIO membership in a full-scale effort to reform the health care bill in the interest of working people. Not a word has appeared on the AFL-CIO web site about a “fight-back” strategy, either from Trumka or members of the Executive Council.

Let’s remember: the health care bill is not yet a closed deal. A House-Senate Conference Committee will be meeting in January to iron out the differences between the two chambers. Then each chamber will meet separately to consider the report of the conference committee- It may take until the third week in January before a consolidated bill is ready for President Obama’s signature.

In those three weeks, the AFL-CIO should be able to involve a substantial number of its 11.5 million members in a full-scale campaign to eliminate objectionable features of the bill. It is unfair to tax workers’ benefits to pay for the cost of the legislation. Instead, there should be guarantees that employers will pay their fair share. And there must be a government-run health insurance option to compete with the escalating premiums and other costs imposed on consumers by the insurance industry.

The AFL-CIO members could serve as a powerful force in fighting for health care reform, as it did in the 2008 elections, but was kept under wraps during the 14-year Sweeney-Trumka administration, with predicatively negative results. The 500 AFL-CIO Central Labor Councils could be brought into action, using a variety of tactics to lobby senators and representatives in their state. The national AFL-CIO might take some action, beside press statements, to get the attention of the nation’s lawmakers.

AFL-CIO Can’t Win Major Battles Without Membership Support

Remember Brother Trumka’s “Five Points” for job creation? A lot of hype went into publicizing it. But it never blossomed into a campaign, because Trumka apparently had no intention of turning job creation into a national campaign. The “Five Points” simply faded away—ending the AFL-CIO ballyhoo that they are fighting for the unemployed.

Trumka has lost a lot of credibility with congressional legislators who don’t believe him when he says: “The AFL-CIO intends to fight on behalf of all working families to make those changes and win health care reform that is deserving of the name.” They note that he acts as though he is the AFL-CIO and that the members don’t count, because he doesn’t involve them in campaigns. One of Trumka’s critics says: “He roars like a lion in his press statements, but looks like a pussy cat, when it comes to taking militant action.”

If it’s going to do a better job for working people than the past year, the AFL-CIO has to reform some of its policies and practices, which have hardly changed in the past two decades. We have to examine why only 1 out of 12 of the nation’s private sector workers (7.4 percent) belong to unions.

Why does our current message to unorganized workers fail to convince them to join a union, despite the millions of dollars we spend on organizing campaigns? What’s wrong with the AFL-CIO’s structure and its organizing strategies? How can we improve them?

We need to hear some new proposals from Truman and members of the Executive Council, who until now have been resistant to change. And it is essential that all union members be given an opportunity to voice their opinions on what has to be done to make the Federation the vibrant organization it once was.

The labor movement has gone through a rough, disappointing year, where its priority goals, especially the Employee Free Choice Act, were not realized. It’s time for change.—Harry Kelber.

LaborTalk (26) will be posted here on December 31, 2009 and on our web sites: http://www.laboreducator.org/ and www.laborsvoiceforchange.org.