As AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka gathers his union’s executive committee this week to discuss whether or not his union will take a position in favor of eliminating the Senate’s legislative filibuster, one can only wonder if they’ll be stopping to consider all the angles. Might the union’s short-term interests be in conflict with its longer-term interests? Is it possible that a decision now on the part of Senate Democrats to eliminate the legislative filibuster so Big Labor can pass two bills it very much wants could come back later to bite Big Labor hard, when it also makes possible the passage of a job-destroying Green New Deal package the union bosses oppose? Would Richard Trumka go down in history as the worst labor leader ever, the man who was so intent on grabbing a short-term victory that he cost himself and his members a long-term loss?
Politico reported last week that Trumka would gather the AFL-CIO’s executive board “to determine its position on eliminating the filibuster,” before explaining that “Two of organized labor’s highest priorities in Congress – boosting the minimum wage to $15 an hour and legislation containing a long list of union priorities known as the PRO Act – are unlikely to garner the 60 votes needed for passage in the Senate.”
Sounds like an easy decision for Trumka and his cronies, right? Two of Big Labor’s “highest priorities” are unlikely to pass the Senate under its current rules. So, if you cannot get your highest priorities passed in a Senate with a filibuster that requires 60 votes to advance your legislation, what do you do? You do away with the filibuster. Easy peasy.
Except … is it possible there’s something else on Big Labor’s agenda that might be in trouble if the Senate’s legislative filibuster were to disappear?
On offense, apparently not. Big Labor wants to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour, and wants to pass the PRO Act. If they get those two things done in the 117th Congress, they’ll consider themselves happy campers.
But what about defense? What about stopping bad things from happening? Is it possible that Big Labor might be helped by the existence of the legislative filibuster, to prevent a 51-but-not-60 vote majority from doing something to hurt them?
Why, yes, there is something bad that could happen to Big Labor if Senate Democrats eliminate the legislative filibuster. Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Ed Markey and his buddies might pass the Green New Deal, and then where would Trumka be?
Big Labor has opposed the Green New Deal since its launch.
Two years ago this week, in early March of 2019, Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, and Lonnie Stephenson, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers – both members of the AFL-CIO’s Energy Committee – wrote a letter to Markey and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Senate-House combo that introduced the Green New Deal resolution.
“We will not stand by and allow threats to our members’ jobs and their families’ standard of living go unanswered,” they wrote, calling the Green New Deal “not achievable or realistic.”
They weren’t the only labor leaders to criticize the Green New Deal at the time. Speaking to reporters in Washington that same week, Trumka himself said, “Look, we need to address the environment. We need to do it quickly. But we need to do it in a way that doesn’t put these communities behind, and leave segments of the economy behind. So we’ll be working to make sure that we do two things: that by fixing one thing we don’t create a problem somewhere else.”
That sounds like very good advice. It’s indicative of a leader who can see beyond what’s right in front of him.
Perhaps the Trumka of March 2021 should reacquaint himself with the Trumka of March 2019. The older Trumka, at least, was paying attention to the Big Picture.
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