In a speech in Detroit on April 7, AFL-CIO president Rich Trumka officially declared the labor movement not dead and as “resilient as Democracy itself.” He also predicted that, based on the up and down history of the movement, labor would bounce back to fleece the majority of the middle class in no time. Trumka attributed labor’s thirty-year slide into irrelevancy solely to the proliferation of “modern day Pinkertons” (aka labor relations consultants) armed we can assume with LM-2s in lieu of batons. Trumka also dismissed out of hand the notion that unions just might be in any way responsible for their own problems or that forced collectivism has become less popular with the working public than it was a century ago. Trumka did however admit that “the tools that worked 40 and 50 years ago don’t work anymore” and added, “we need new tools, new models. You know, one hallmark of the labor movement is our practicality, the way we fashion answers out of the questions at hand.” Credit to Trumka for publicly acknowledging the unionist preference for fashioned answers over facts. Meanwhile, The Center for Public Integrity has analyzed White House visitor logs and shook out something interesting – apparently the Obama White House has been doing a lousy job of documenting the nature of meetings with hundreds of White House visitors including Trumka. On top of twelve fully documented visits for ceremonies and social events, Trumka made at least thirty-six poorly documented visits to the White House last year, including two visits with the President and one with Joe Biden where no record exists of the reason for or nature of those visits. Even as it appears Trumka has assumed Andy Stern’s role as Chief Resident White House Union Honcho, all is not well between Obama and the AFL-CIO. In a closed session of the federation’s executive board last week, insiders say furious union presidents hauled off on the White House and Harry Reid for union bruising budget cuts and trade agreements as well as Obama’s unwillingness to contribute any promised presidential shoe leather to union protests in Madison and other state capitals. In a pique of buyer’s remorse one union leader said, ““Now, not only are we getting screwed by the Republicans but the Democrats are doing it too.” Board members refused to go on the record with their frustrations and official announcements from the meeting were polite, if terse. “President Obama does not yet have the balance right between spending cuts and new revenue,” Trumka said calling for “significant new revenues.” Last week, the federation released a stronger, “deeply disappointed” statement on the free trade pact with Colombia.
