New AFL-CIO Boss Threatens Democrats

Don’t mess with Richard Trumka.

The new AFL-CIO president delivered that message to the head of the National Press Club at lunch today before traveling over to the White House to tell President Obama where he could stick a proposal to tax high-cost health insurance plans.

Trumka, who started his union career organizing coal miners, gave a fiery address at the press club, railing against “a generation of destructive, greed-driven economic policies” and bemoaning “weak and recalcitrant politicians.”

But just as he started to reach a crescendo, the press club’s president, USA Today reporter Donna Leinwand, interrupted him and announced it was time for the Q&A part of the program.

“I’m not done yet,” Trumka said, and went on to finish his speech, forcing Leinwand to back off.

That’s good, because he had saved some of his strongest words for last. He warned Democrats that they run the risk of losing their control of Congress if they don’t do more than “push a few crumbs our way.” That’s what happened in 1994, when Republicans swept into power. Many “working Americans” didn’t vote, he said, because “they couldn’t tell the difference between the two parties.”

“Politicians who think that working people have it too good—too much health care, too much Social Security and Medicare, too much power on the job—are inviting a repeat of 1994,” he said.

Trumka was ready to deliver a similar message, in more diplomatic tones, to Obama at a White House meeting with other labor leaders. This would be a “friendly meeting among friends,” he said.

Unions want the president to drop his support for imposing a 40 percent excise tax on health insurance plans that cost more than $23,000 per family. The Senate included that tax in its version of health care reform as a way to raise nearly $150 billion in revenue to finance expanded coverage. Supporters of the tax also say taxing rich benefits would help curb the rising cost of health care.

Trumka, however, said the Senate bill “pits working Americans who need health care for their families against working Americans struggling to keep health care for their families.” Instead of “taxing the rich,” like the House bill does, the Senate bill “taxes the middle class by taxing workers’ health plans.”

Most of the 31 million workers who would be hit by the tax are not union members, he noted.

“The labor movement is fighting with everything we’ve got to win health care reform that is worthy of the support of working men and women,” he said.

The Senate bill does not deserve that support, he said, but Trumka declined to speculate whether the AFL-CIO would oppose health care reform if the final bill includes the Senate tax on “Cadillac” health plans.

Trumka did make a prediction about legislation that would allow unions to organize workplaces simply by getting a majority of workers to sign cards saying they want union representation. No secret-ballot election would be required.

“I think you’ll see the Employee Free Choice Act passed in the first quarter of 2010,” Trumka said.

This bill would end “the systematic silencing of American workers by denying our right to form unions,” he said. It would give workers “the chance to turn bad jobs into good jobs.”

Every workplace should have a union, according to Trumka. “I believe better decisions are made when you sit down to the table as an equal,” he said.

That worked for General Motors and Chrysler, right?