AFSCME Backs Trumka Team to Lead AFL-CIO

Richard Trumka 

Photo Credit: Kaveh Sardari/Page One Photography

Pres. Gerald W. McEntee stood with other union leaders at a July rally to officially endorse Richard Trumka to lead the AFL-CIO when John Sweeney retires in September after serving 14 years as the federation’s president.

Trumka has served as AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer since 1995. He was endorsed by the AFSCME International Executive Board (IEB) at its June meeting and is running unopposed.

A third-generation Pennsylvania coal miner, Trumka began working underground at the age of 19, but became an activist and rose through the ranks. At the time he was elected AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer, he had been serving his third term as president of the United Mine Workers of America.

In his remarks, Trumka looked to the challenges ahead: “After the Employee Free Choice Act is signed, the AFL-CIO that I plan to lead is going to have a strike force of 1,000 union organizers — professional organizers with one goal: to see to it that every worker who wants a union contract gets a union contract! And let me be clear: we will leave no industry behind!”

Arlene Holt Baker, unopposed in her bid for re-election as the AFL-CIO’s executive vice president, was also endorsed by AFSCME’s IEB. Holt Baker worked for AFSCME from the late 1980s to 1995. She was elected to her current post in September 2007.

McEntee also threw AFSCME’s support to another member of Trumka’s slate: Elizabeth Shuler, from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, for AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer.

Delegates to the federation’s 26th Constitutional Convention will elect the new officers in September. The federation is comprised of 56 national and international unions representing about 11 million workers.