What’s the deal, man? I read all that stuff you send me. You talk to me about the plight of workers. You talk to me about anti-worker trade policies. You talk to me about health care and other benefits. You even, once, talked to me about how Democrats who don’t support workers cannot expect your help in the future.
You asked me to call Congress. I called. You asked me to write Congress. I wrote.
Truthfully, I didn’t think it would do a damned bit of good. I was right.
Now you’re trying to convince me that Obama’s jobs bill is a big step in the right direction. Will you ever learn?
Until Big Labor stands up to the two-party corporate machine and stands with the activists in the streets against global corporate tyranny, nothing is going to change.
You sign your emails “In Solidarity” but where are you while OccupyWallSt protesters are being arrested in droves? Where is Big Labor, Mr. Trumka? Where is the AFL-CIO? Where is this “solidarity” you claim in your signature?
You need to stand with the 99%, Mr. Trumka. You need to follow the example of the Transit Workers who voted unanimously to join the OccupyWallSt protests. But you don’t do that sir, do you? Instead, you still cast your lot with the Democrats; instead, you still think you’re “playing it safe”. It’s inconceivable that you continue to beat that same old, dead horse. American unions are nearly extinct and still you cling to your naive belief that the Democrats will save you if you show them some loyalty.
So, no Mr. Trumka, I will not join you. You join us. Until then, you are doing little more than obstructing the revolution. Get your people into the streets and then drop me a line. Show me some of this “solidarity” you speak of and I’ll be glad to join your cause.
In solidarity with enlightened labor,
welshTerrier2



10 Comments

OOOh! Good one, says Disgusted in Euclid. Excellent, says I. The Teamsters endorsed the protest, are supposedly sending people to show up on Wall Street, and the American Federation of Teachers endorsed the protests today, or was it yesterday? An airline pilots union also expressed their support.
But you’re right, Welsh. Where the hell is the AFL-CIO? The big one? Crickets.
Union members, it’s time for you to exercise some self and national preservation. HELP! Your fellow citizens need you.
And that means YOU, police and firefighters unions. You are us. We are you.
Ah, hell; the Big News of the Blogosphere is ‘Trumka endorses Occupy Wall Street’. Like he’s a real leader, Lord luv a duck.
Here’s one at random (John Nichols):
“Hailing the power of street protests to shift the dialogue, Trumka said, “I think being in the streets and calling attention to issues is sometimes the only recourse you have because, God only knows, you can go to the Hill, and you can talk to a lot of people and see nothing ever happen…”
http://www.thenation.com/blog/163737/afl-cios-trumka-hails-occupy-wall-street
HAILS! Not goes to…
Same same as the universal union leadership support for Veetnaym, even though it was their own rank and file was getting the Greetings letter.
Spank’em til they cry. Use your entrenching tool.
Oooooh, a Firesign reference?
“Don’t eat with your hands, son. Use your entrenching tool.”
This time around should be really different than Vietnam. I’ve been meaning to write about the great Archie and Meathead divide and how things are much different now.
Back then we had all the “these colors don’t run” and “love it or leave it”. The “Archies” were sold patriotic pride while the hippie dippies were sold cultural rebellion. Long hair, drugs, free sex, strange new music and a language all our own did nothing but alienate rank-and-file union guys.
Today, their pensions are threatened. Their unions are growing weaker and weaker. Government workers are getting laid off by the millions as budgets are slashed. Corporation slaves are seeing their jobs exported overseas.
Is it just possible that the great 99% really has more in common this time around? People want their country back and most can see that radical change is the only way that’s going to happen. It’s no different for organized labor.
Perhaps this time, they’ll join the right team.
I’d prefer if they’d join the correct
rightteam.Ian Welsh wrote:
“The old left exists to bring in money and keep paying themselves. This is as true of union leadership as it is of the majority of environmental organizations. The leadership of almost all of these organizations is deeply corrupt. All they care about is whether they can fundraise off of something. If they can’t, they despise it. They will, and do, regularly sell out of the interests of their own supposed constituents, in order to make their personal lives easier, to get richer, and to keep hobnobbing with important people.”
“Movements which bypass the old left, like Occupy Wall Wall Street or Wikileaks, or Anonymous, are MORE of a threat to the old left leadership than the right wing, the Tea Party or the Republicans.”
http://www.ianwelsh.net/the-reason-many-liberal-and-progressive-elites/
As for Trumka clinging to his “naive belief” that Democrats will save him, I think Upton Sinclair summarized Trumka quite well when he wrote:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
September 6, 2011::
“‘President Obama has been a friend for us,’ Trumka said.”
“Trumka said that ‘chances are’ the AFL-CIO executive council will officially endorse Obama.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/09/trumka-chances-are-afl-cio-will-endorse-obama-for-2012/
Shorter: Fuck Trumka
trumka may be the most two-faced of the big labor leaders. he is clearly a mole and a tool of the democratic party. good post.
Just wanted to say nice comment.
Thanks for figuratively stealing those thoughts from my head.
I mean for F sakes, it was the exact same thing I was thinking.
“This is as true of union leadership as it is of the majority of environmental organizations. The leadership of almost all of these organizations is deeply corrupt.”
Yup. Nailed it.
They couldn’t beat them, so they just bought them. Or at least the leadership. And once you have the captain under you thumb, you can steer the ship anyway you want. F the sailors.
This includes FDR’s legacy, the environmental groups, and labor. As Welsh wrote.
They literally own those people, the leaders of these organizations. Literally. They paid for them. And now they’re getting compensated for that payment, aka bribery.
Trumka is just like Osterity, all talk, no action to help us, just actions to help themselves.
Sometimes Beach I think we were twins.
As I have said many times before, F Trumka, F him very very much.