Today's AFL-CIO Press Clips
RICHARD TRUMKA IN MEMORIAM
Labor Lost a Great One in Richard Trumka (Opinion)
The Wall Street Journal
By Thomas J. Donohue
August 8, 2021
Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, died Thursday at 72. I knew him well. Throughout Rich’s 12 years as the head of organized labor in Washington, I worked two blocks away as head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Our causes were often in fierce opposition, but Rich and I never were. I won’t get carried away and call us friends. But we were cut from the same cloth—raised by modest families, patriots to our core, committed to our Catholic faith, our families and our members. In a town full of fakes, I appreciated how Rich would say it straight to your face and expect the same from you. His words had meaning, all of them. He had a loyalty to his cause that bordered on zeal, as did I, as do many, yet it never dissolved into hatred or contempt for the other side.
Rich Trumka lived in solidarity
The Washington Post
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
August 6, 2021
Solidarity is a virtue we neither discuss nor practice enough. We hear a lot about compassion and empathy, and certainly need more of both. But solidarity is a deeper commitment, rooted in equality and mutuality. Pope John Paul II saw solidarity not as a feeling of “shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people” but as “a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to . . . the good of all and of each individual because we are all really responsible for all.” I don’t think Richard Trumka, the descendant of Polish immigrants, would mind my quoting the Polish pontiff to explain why I will miss his voice. The president of the AFL-CIO, who died on Thursday at age 72, lived the idea of solidarity when he took the side of reformers in his own mineworkers union and when he stood up to racism.
IN THE STATES
Insider NJ
August 9, 2021
NJ AFL-CIO and labor leaders proud to join Buttigieg, Malinowski in learning how infrastructure bill benefits NJ workers. Labor leaders from the New Jersey State AFL-CIO, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), Sheet Metal Air Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) and Transport Workers Union (TWU) joined U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-7th District, on the NJ Transit Raritan Valley Line Monday, August 9, to discuss how the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will create good-paying union jobs for decades to come.
Petition drive will seek $15 minimum wage in Nebraska
Lincoln Journal Star
By Don Walton
August 9, 2021
A group announced Monday that it will be launching a petition drive seeking a $15 an hour minimum wage in Nebraska. Raise the Wage Nebraska is a coalition of more than a dozen civic groups, including the Nebraska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Nebraska Appleseed, Nebraska State AFL-CIO and the NAACP Lincoln Branch.
AFL-CIO gives Baker 3 options for MBTA board seat
WHDH
By Statehouse News Service
August 9, 2021
The Massachusetts AFL-CIO on Monday named three regional labor leaders to a shortlist for a spot on the new MBTA board of directors, the first names to emerge ahead of the panel’s official launch. Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Steven Tolman tapped Robert Butler of Braintree, Northeast regional council president for the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers union; Craig Hughes of Wilmington, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers’ Grand Lodge representative for the eastern territory; and Darlene Lombos of Boston, executive secretary-treasurer of the Greater Boston Labor Council. In a letter to Gov. Charlie Baker, Tolman said all three “represent the Labor Movement’s values and members who rely on the Commonwealth having a safe, reliable and equitable public transportation system.” Baker must select one person from the trio of AFL-CIO nominees to serve on the new, seven-member MBTA Board of Directors, created in a law he signed last month to succeed the now-dissolved MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board.
JOINING TOGETHER
IATSE To Producers: It’s Time For New Media To Pay Up
Deadline
By David Robb
August 9, 2021
Saying that “New Media is not so new anymore” and that “not-so-New Media doesn’t need a worker subsidy,” IATSE says it’s time for longstanding discounts afforded to New Media productions to end. “New Media is just media,” the union said in advance of next week’s resumption of negotiations with management’s Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers for a new film and TV contract. “For over 15 years, IATSE members have supported the development of productions made for delivery over the Internet and other similar distribution systems (‘New Media’) as it has grown to become a commercially viable and profitable method that dominates content delivery.”