Brothers and sisters,
I could spend my allotted time at this podium telling you how hateful the Republican Party is. But you already know that. This is a party that has fought against trade unions and racial equality for the past 60 years so this should not be news to you.
What might be news to you is the failure of the Democrats to honor the promises that they made to us in 2008. In light of that, we have been forced to do some tough thinking about how to advance the interests of working men and women.
This year the AFL-CIO contributed 10 million dollars to the candidacy of Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter who ran unsuccessfully against incumbent Senator Blanche Lincoln in the Arkansas Democratic primary. Blanche Lincoln had threatened to join the Republicans in a filibuster over any health bill that had a public option. So imagine our disappointment when President Obama recorded an ad urging a vote for her. And imagine further what we must have felt like after Bill Halter lost, when an unnamed White House official said that we had flushed our money down the toilet.
You also might have heard about Steve Rattner’s new tell-all book about running the auto industry. Rattner heard Rahm Emanuel say “fuck the UAW”. With so many of our brothers and sisters in the UAW losing their jobs and their benefits, those are not the words we want to hear.
Nor were we happy when the president came out in support of the firing of public school teachers in Central Falls, Rhode Island. There’s a crisis in public education in America but privatizing schools is no answer, even if Secretary of Education Arne Duncan thinks it is. Haven’t we had enough of privatization?
Instead we should be thinking about ways to protect the public interest in education, health and in a dignified and comfortable retirement for all our citizens. When Alan Simpson, who the president appointed co-chair of a commission to study the deficit, described Social Security as a “a milk cow with 310 million tits”, working men and women had to wonder whose interests this administration is protecting. Those hundreds of millions of people either on social security or due to receive it down the road are entitled to live a decent life. If there’s a deficit, let’s cut spending on guns, not butter.
Now on the question of guns, isn’t it about time that we let the Afghans solve their own problems? At last count, 1230 Americans have died and 8300 have been wounded. That’s not to speak of the 350 billion dollars that has gone down the drain there. Just one-tenth of that money could have created 342,292 affordable housing units or provided health care for 22,070,721 children. It’s time to get our priorities straight. We have to pull out of Afghanistan now.
In conclusion, I am going to propose something that is totally new for the AFL-CIO but something we should have done a long time ago. Words about helping working men and women don’t count anymore. We’re tired of broken promises. We need action, not speeches or TV commercials in the next election.
Starting this week, we will be taking the steps necessary to build our own party based on the trade unions that will act in our own interests. We will control it with our money and our own hard work. This party is not just about saving the jobs of our trade union members. It will be a party that works for peace, a clean environment, racial justice, immigration rights, and all the other goals that brought you to the Lincoln Monument on this beautiful October day. We plan to fight for a better America and ask you to join our cause whether you are in a union or not. For in the final analysis, it is the human race and not just the trade unions that we seek to improve. The time of selfishness and greed is past. Let’s dedicate ourselves to a beautiful future based on the goals of this great American republic, the last great hope of all humanity.
You are spot on, Louis. This is EXACTLY what he should have said. The trade union “movement” is brain dead. They have not been a social movement since they turned their backs on the unorganized 60 years ago. It’s sad, but perhaps the present unions may have to die before working people get mad enough to DO SOMETHING about the economic crisis.
Kurt Hill
Brooklyn, NY
Comment by Kurt Hill — October 8, 2010 @ 7:01 pm
Lou,
Here’s my Trumka fantasy-from a few months back. Interestingly, none of the outlets I sent it to ran it. Revealing, I think, either of a lack of sense of humor or a increasing lack of imagination on the left. The latter is a serious problem, if you ask me.
John
Trumka Nominated
Chicago-To the cheers of thousands of thousands of rank and file activists, AFL CIO head Richard Trumka accepted the nomination of the newly formed US Labor Party for the Presidency of the United States. Trumka will make his run as the standard bearer of a party fielding a full slate of candidates from the local, state and federal level, running with the support of all major national and international unions, many peace and environmental organizations, and millions of economically and politically disenfranchised Americans.
Addressing a packed convention center a stone’s throw from Chicago’s haymarket, Trumka’s remarks evoked labor’s fallen heros and rekindled themes of radical trade unionism long thought vanquished after generations of hostility to organized labor fomented by right wing think tanks, mainstream media outlets and an army of pro-business lobbyists in Washington.
“For years the working people of this country have seen our hopes and dreams placed on the auction block and sold off to corporate criminals and Wall Street bankers,” the Pennsylvania native said. “It is time to take back this country from the organized money controlling both parties which, as President Roosevelt reminded us during the last depression, is no better than an organized mob.”
While the party’s founding seems to have blind-sided Democratic Party officials, it had been a frequent topic of conversation behind the scenes for some years, according to union officials.
Discouraged by the administration’s failure to move on the Employees Free Choice Act, an inadequate economic stimulus package and its consistent embrace of a corporate friendly agenda, the last straw, according union leaders, came with open expressions of hostility from White House officials in the wake of union support for primary challengers in June primaries.
In a remark now seen as prophetic, AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale responded that “Labor is not an arm of the Democratic Party”. Vale’s words were quickly followed by the formation of an exploratory committee whose favorable report would lead to the first steps in the official establishment of the USLP.
****
The Trumka candidacy is expected to pose serious and possibly insurmountable challenges for the Democratic Party in the general election.
Despite a billion dollar war chest provided by finance, insurance, pharmaceutical, nuclear, and industries, experts have expressed doubts whether the Democrats will be able to compensate for the absence of on the ground muscle and electoral experience historically provided by union locals.
In an inversion of the normal campaign dynamic, the Democratic incumbent Barack Obama, saddled with historically low approval ratings, is now perceived as a sure loser in most states. Those looking to head off the far-right candidacy of a likely Romney-Palin ticket are increasingly viewing Trumka’s candidacy the most viable, pragmatic option.
The Labor Party is likely to attract substantial and enthusiastic support in areas hard hit by the deep and continuing recession, double digit rates of unemployment, and declining wages. The recently negotiated cut backs in Social Security benefits have enraged seniors and have been widely condemned by economists as Hooveresque and sure to lead to further economic contraction and job cutbacks. Trumka’s call for a Green New Deal was praised by environmentalists as offering reasonable grounds for hope to head off a likely environmental catastrophe induced by global warming.
Weakened by years of declining membership and a history of corruption, the initial formation of the Labor Party was initially ridiculed by media pundits and party strategists. It is now apparent that, regardless of the outcome of the campaign, a third labor party will be a permanent fixture in the political establishment, balancing the rightward drift of what some union leaders refer to, with some derision, as the “legacy” parties.
A good indication of the party’s rapid and unexpected growth was apparent from the remark of one union official: “For years we couldn’t get the Democrats on the phone. Now they’re sending us their resumés.”
Comment by John Halle — October 8, 2010 @ 8:59 pm
Any thoughts on Tony Mazzocchi’s stillborn Labor Party of America? I think it was dead in the water before its founding convention in 1996. The labor activists who attended its founding convention in Cleveland were full of hopes like these, and saw their efforts turned into a tool for intra-AFL-CIO power-grubbing. What a mess it was.
Comment by Jim Holstun — October 9, 2010 @ 1:51 am
THis is a good piece of `what iffery’ and is an attempt to connect with the people on a more sophisticated level than the usual shrill sectarianism of American socialists. You should of course make clear that it ain’t gonna happen and that the labor bureaucrats are the product of imperialism and therefore thoroughly bound up with it. I think you should do one for Obama on `How I Intend to Win a Second Term’ in which he outlines his mistakes, his perspectives and outlines a transtional socialist program. You should say that of course he will never present such a program but that you will support his re-election nonetheless to stop the Republican racists and so that yet more lessons can be learned about the democrats in power in these straightened times. This will gain you the ear of his black and working class base or at least that part of it which socialists want to reach.
Comment by David Ellis — October 9, 2010 @ 7:43 am
We say FUCK YOU RICHARD TRUMKA when he goes to Jewish Labor Committee, bunch of Judeofascists and says:
{Addressing the Jewish Labor Committee, newly-elected President of the AFL-CIO, Richard L. Trumka, has spoken out clearly and forcefully in opposition to calls to boycott Israel. .Before 475 participants of the annual Human Rights Dinner of the JLC, held in New York City on October 27th, Trumka stated that “we’re proud to stand with the JLC to oppose boycotting Israel.” Trumka was elected President of the national AFL-CIO in September of this year. The AFL-CIO is composed of 57 national and international labor unions, represents 11.5 millio members.}
We also tell him SHUT UP AND FUCK OFF when he repeat the Juduefascists lies to hold onto power:
{Trumka added that “in America, we sometimes think that anti-Semitism is part of the past, but the truth is that it’s like a weed that can always grow back. And that’s especially true during hard times. You know, sometimes it’s couched as `anti-Zionism.’ Other times there’s no effort to disguise it at all.”}
http://www.jewishlaborcommittee.org/
Comment by LIz — October 9, 2010 @ 4:47 pm
I attended, as an observer, the Labor Party convention held in Cleveland, Ohio, that Jim refers to above. Half of those attending (and it was in fact a rather large gathering) were mid-level union officials and the other half were former SWP and CP members. Some were both mid-level union officials AND former SWP and CP members. I’m exgaggerating a little, perhaps, but not significantly so. Mike Alewitz painted the murals, which were wonderful, and is the one thing about the weekend that I remember most (that and meeting Ed Sadlowski). Stillborn is a good word to describe the venture, despite, I’m sure, the good intentions of the attendees, who were not, for the most part, that well connected with the upper echelon of the Holy See. It was more or less used as a battering ram — and not a very sturdy one at that — to try to make the Democrats behave. As Louis would say “…sigh…” It was deader than a doornail shortly after the election cycle that followed. Here’s hoping the next one will be the real deal.
Comment by dave — October 9, 2010 @ 8:50 pm