With the AFL-CIO convention behind us and the UAW convention ahead, the future of union involvement in politics is far from settled, especially as the membership becomes more politically diverse.
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The AFL-CIO, which is the largest and most important labor organization in the country, met in Minneapolis this week. The focus has been on new union organizing during the Trump administration and the upcoming midterm elections. NPR’s Don Gonyea reports.
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: Delegates began this week by re-electing AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. In his acceptance speech, he first highlighted a great success.
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LIZ SHULER: We said – if you remember, we said we would organize a million new workers over the next 10 years. Well guess what? We did it in three.
GONYEA: But along with those victories have come enormous challenges. Union representation at the national level remains barely 10% of the workforce. When Shuler first took office, former President Joe Biden was in the White House and boasting that he was the most pro-union president of all time. Then came the second term of President Trump, who, within days of taking office, announced cuts to thousands of federal union jobs, appointed Cabinet officials with anti-union positions, and enacted policies that favored corporations rather than workers’ rights.
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SHULER: When Donald Trump destroyed collective bargaining for 1 million federal workers (the largest act of union busting in American history), did we back down?
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Screaming) No.
SHULER: Hell no.
GONYEA: The current political climate loomed over the convention that included the selection of Minneapolis as the venue. This is the place where armed and masked federal immigration agents deployed by the Trump administration were met with large protests. Two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were shot and killed. Bernie Burnham heads the Minnesota AFL-CIO. He said it was a time when unions knew they needed to step up for the community at large and unions here sent a message to the administration.
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BERNIE BURNHAM: They know that if they send ICE into any of their communities, they will fight just as hard as we did.
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BURNHAM: And they know that the union movement will be there every step of the way.
GONYEA: Organizations like the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, which has 140,000 members and represents workers on construction sites, say the disruptive impact of Trump’s policies cannot be underestimated. Jimmy Williams is the president of the union.
JIMMY WILLIAMS: It’s a chilling effect on all workers, right? Not only union members, but also non-union workers. You go to work scared to death every day and don’t speak up when there are problems in the workplace, right? Because they are afraid that going to work will cause a problem, so they just put their heads down, go to work and don’t talk.
GONYEA: Another leader told me that in his union, where members were evenly divided during the last election, he sees support for Trump declining, but he says that doesn’t mean everyone is suddenly embracing Democrats. AFL-CIO President Shuler says between now and November, unions must make their case, and he says they will do so through social media and targeted messaging, but also through old-fashioned means that still work: one-on-one conversations among members. She says that doesn’t mean the message is always political.
SHULER: And that’s what I’ve seen and where we’ve turned to the humanity of what we’re experiencing right now. And, you know, it’s political in the sense that it’s ultimately going to point to an election. But in the meantime, we can continue to have those conversations and, you know, people open up.
GONYEA: Shuler says if unions do their jobs, their members’ voices will speak loudly this fall.
Don Gonyea, NPR News, Minneapolis.
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