Reply #10: The media

[ProSense]

spin on Trumka's speech is ridiculous. "AFL-CIO may reduce support to Democrats"

The speech has nothing to do with pulling support from Democrats.

Here is Sam Stein at HuffPo: Richard Trumka Threatens To Abandon Democrats In 2012 Unless They Fight Harder For Labor

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Trumka also says in the prepared remarks that party affiliation alone won't determine how the federation allocates its resources in 2012. If Republican lawmakers embrace parts of the AFL-CIO's agenda, the union federation will respond in kind. If Democrats abandon the union community's principles -- or if they fail to protest as those principles are attacked -- they can expect similar treatment.

We will spend the summer holding elected leaders in Congress as well as the states accountable on one measure: Are they improving or degrading life for working families?”

We are looking hard at how we work in the nation’s political arena. We have listened hard, and what workers want is an independent labor movement that builds the power of working people -- in the workplace and in political life … Our role is not to build the power of a political party or a candidate. It is to improve the lives of working families and strengthen our country.

It doesn’t matter if candidates and parties are controlling the wrecking ball or simply standing aside -- the outcome is the same either way. If leaders aren’t blocking the wrecking ball and advancing working families’ interests, working people will not support them. This is where our focus will be -- now, in 2012 and beyond.

The labor community -- the AFL-CIO especially -- has been taking steps towards greater independence from the Democratic Party as its disappointments with the Obama administration and congressional Democrats have mounted. The typical response from party insiders has been dismissive assumptions that labor has nowhere else to go.

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Trumka said nothing, not in the excerpt above nor his speech, about supporting Republicans.

He spoke about building an independent movement to target individual candidates. Remember, the organization pulled support from candidates who didn't support health care reform and a public option. Also, focusing resources at that state and local levels is going to be key in taking back governorships and legislatures. It's a smart move.

AFL-CIO: Trumka: Working People Want a Strong, Independent Labor Movement

In a major address at the National Press Club today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka charted an aggressive independent approach by working people and their unions to build the power of working people in the workplace and in the political sphere. Trumka told the live audience and thousands of viewers on C-SPAN and other news outlets:

Working people want a labor movement strong enough to help return balance to our economy, fairness to our tax system, security to our families and moral and economic standing to our nation. Our role is not to build the power of a political party or a candidate. It is to improve the lives of working families and strengthen our country.

It doesn’t matter if candidates and parties are controlling the wrecking ball or simply standing aside—the outcome is the same either way. If leaders aren’t blocking the wrecking ball and advancing working families’ interests, working people will not support them. This is where our focus will be—now, in 2012 and beyond.

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Instead of focusing on that, the media is making it about the Democratic Party.

From an interview before the speech.

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“We’ll be less inclined to support people in the future that aren’t standing up and actually supporting job creation and the type of things that we’re talking about. It doesn’t matter what party they come from. It will be a measuring stick,” Trumka told POLITICO during an interview in his spacious eighth floor office.

Asked how President Barack Obama measures up, Trumka paused, gazed toward a window overlooking the White House and said, “I think the president has done a good job in articulating the problems and some of the solutions. I think scale has been the problem, the scale of the solutions. I don’t think the scale of the solutions have measured up.”

Worried that labor supporters will be tougher to mobilize than in 2008, Trumka said he is giving the speech to set the table for next year.

“Our national conversation right now is in a destructive place and the debate that we’re having is really over the moral character of the country . and it’s just going in the wrong direction with all of this cuts and all of this talk that we can’t afford secure jobs, good jobs anymore. We can’t afford health care. We can’t afford pensions,” he said. “The nation, right now, we feel poor. But we’re not, we’re a rich nation. We feel poor because most of the money is going to the people at the top. And yet the debate’s about how we can give more tax cuts to corporations who have had two years of record profits.”

Trumka said the union decided about a month ago to begin building a year-round mobilization effort to replace the traditional six-month pushes. Union officials will spend time educating their members on local, state and federal policy issues as well as tracking votes.

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