Commentary: Trumka may give AFL-CIO the vitality it sorely needs

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By Stephen F. Diamond | Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune News Service

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — America's leading union federation, the AFL-CIO, just elevated longtime Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka to its presidency, replacing the plodding 75-year-old John Sweeney and providing hope that organized labor will finally get the breath of fresh air it has needed for many years.

To reverse labor's slow descent into irrelevance will require a bold shift by Trumka, ironically perhaps, back to trade unionism's first principles, including advocacy of "bread and butter" improvements in pay and working conditions and support for workers abroad.

Once before in its long history, American labor found itself socially isolated, facing intransigent employers, feckless politicians and a challenging combination of rapid technological change and a multi-ethnic immigrant workforce.

Then, as now, trade unions were viewed as special interest groups interfering with market efficiency. Instead of a seat at the table of power, many workers lived off the crumbs that fell to the floor.

To cope with these forces in the late 19th century Samuel Gompers, the AFL's socialist founder, combined a promise of better pay, shorter hours and safer working conditions with organizational innovation to find common ground among millions of workers in a wide range of trades, industries and professions.

While the AFL structure granted autonomy to its sometimes racially segregated craft unions it also directly chartered "federal locals" to organize thousands of immigrant and minority workers which, in turn, became the foundation of the great industrial unions of the 1930s.

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