AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says the nation’s labor movement has come to a conclusion about GOP President Donald Trump’s latest U.S. Supreme Court nominee: “Workers are united to defeat Kavanaugh,” he said on July 12. His statement was part of a much longer speech behind closed doors to Democratic U.S. House candidates. While Trumka did not cite specific cases and rulings, the federation previously compiled a string of anti-worker decisions and statements by federal appellate judge Brett Kavanaugh in his dozen years on the bench. Kavanaugh voted against federal workers in all three cases he handled on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, including one that let the anti-worker GOP Bush administration impose, briefly, a non-merit pay system, leaving pay and promotion decisions for the Defense Department’s tens of thousands of civilian workers all in the hands of its bosses – with little right of appeal. "I love this Union cause. I hold it more dear than I do my family or my life. I am willing to devote to it all that I am or have or hope for in this world."
Click here to check out this week's Labor History Today podcast. July 27 William Sylvis, founder of the National Labor Union, died; he was just 41 - 1869 July 28 Women shoemakers in Lynn, Mass., create Daughters of St. Crispin, demand pay equal to that of men - 1869 Harry Bridges is born in Australia. He came to America as a sailor at age 19 and went on to help form and lead the militant Int’l Longshore and Warehouse Union for more than 40 years - 1901 A strike by Paterson, N.J., silk workers for an 8-hour day, improved working conditions ends after six months, with the workers’ demands unmet. During the course of the strike, approximately 1,800 strikers were arrested, including Wobbly leaders Big Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn - 1913 Federal troops burn the shantytown built near the U.S. Capitol by thousands of unemployed WWI veterans, camping there to demand a bonus they had been promised but never received - 1932 Nine miners are rescued in Sommerset, Pa., after being trapped for 77 hours 240 feet underground in the flooded Quecreek Mine - 2002 CLICK BELOW FOR JUL7 27 HISTORY "The embodiment of what the labor movement can and should be." That's what AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka called AFGE at Wednesday's "#RedForFeds" rally in John Marshall Park. "You organize in a right-to-work environment every day of every year," said Trumka. "And guess what? You’re still growing. So now President Trump wants to change the rules of the game. Well, I have a message for him: Not on our watch!" Earlier that day, the AFL-CIO Executive Council issued a statement condemning the “illegal, union-busting executive orders” issued by President Trump earlier this year. The AFL-CIO pledged to work to have these (Executive Orders) declared illegal or rolled back by Congress. "They represent an outrageous attack against our work, our citizens and our democracy," the Executive Council said. Click here to read more. |