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Richard Trumka
Born	(1949-07-24) July 24, 1949 (age 75) Nemacolin, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation(s)	Miner; Labor leader; Attorney/Litigator
Known for	President, United Mine Workers of America; Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO; President, AFL-CIO

Richard Louis Trumka (born July 24, 1949) is an organized labor leader in the United States. He was elected President of the AFL-CIO on September 16, 2009, at the labor federation's convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He served as the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, from 1995 to 2009, and prior to that was President of the United Mine Workers from 1982 to December 22, 1995.

Life and career

Trumka, born in Nemacolin, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh, is an Italian-American, third-generation Polish American, coal miner son of Frank Richard and Eola Elizabeth (Bertugli) Trumka. He went to work in the mines in 1968. He received a bachelor of science degree from Pennsylvania State University in 1971 and a law degree from Villanova University in 1974. He married Barbara Vidovich in 1982. They have one son.

National labor career

From 1974 to 1979, Trumka was a staff attorney with the United Mine Workers at their headquarters in Washington, D.C. He was elected to the board of directors of UMWA District 4 in 1981 and became President of the United Mine Workers in 1982.

While President of the UMWA, Trumka led a successful nine-month strike against the Pittston Coal Company in 1989, which became a symbol of resistance against employer cutbacks and retrenchment for the entire labor movement. A major issue in the dispute was Pittston's refusal to pay into the industrywide health and retirement fund created in 1950. Trumka encouraged non-violent civil disobedience to confront the company and relied on a corporate campaign involving Wall Street investors.

The United Mine Workers conducted a nationwide strike against Peabody Coal in 1993. Trumka was asked to respond to the possibility that some coal companies might hire permanent replacement workers. He told the Associated Press in September 1993, "I'm saying if you strike a match and you put your finger in it, you're likely to get burned." He also said, "That doesn't mean I'm threatening to burn you. That just means if you strike the match, and you put your finger in it, common sense will tell you it'll burn your finger. Common sense will tell you that in these strikes, that when you inject scabs, a number of things happen. And a confrontation is one of the potentials that can happen. Do I want it to happen? Absolutely not. Do I think it can happen? Yes, I think it can happen." The Associated Press reported that he was not threatening violence, and noted that UMWA staff had spent "thousands of man hours trying to prevent anything from happening ... to our members or by our members." However, during the same strike, Trumka encouraged members to "kick the out of every last one of 'em."

Besides his domestic labor activities, Trumka established an office that raised U.S. mineworker solidarity with the miners in South Africa while they were fighting apartheid. He further served as the U.S. Shell boycott chairman, which challenged the multinational Royal Dutch/Shell Group for its continued business dealings in South Africa. For these steps, Trumka received the 1990 Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award.

During his tenure as Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, Trumka focused on creating investment programs for the pension and benefit funds of the labor movement, capital market strategies, and demanding corporate accountability to America's communities. He chaired the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council, a consortium of manufacturing unions focusing on key issues in trade, health care and labor law reform. He co-chairs the China Currency Coalition, an alliance of industry, agriculture, services, and worker organizations whose stated mission is to support U.S. manufacturing.

But Trumka's tenure as Secretary-Treasurer was not without controversy. In 1996, Teamsters president Ron Carey was locked in a tight reelection battle with James P. Hoffa, son of disappeared Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa and a long-time Teamsters union attorney. Hoffa was also out-raising Carey in funds by more than 4-to-1, but the Carey campaign was convinced it could win if the campaign could bypass the local leadership (which supported Hoffa) and get his message directly to Teamsters members. Martin Davis, a Carey campaign consultant who owned The November Group (a direct-marketing company), allegedly contacted Trumka in the summer of 1996 and concocted a scheme whereby the Teamsters would donate $150,000 to the AFL-CIO for spurious get-out-the-vote efforts and the AFL-CIO would pay the same amount to Citizen Action (a liberal grassroots lobbying and organizing group). Citizen Action would then pay $100,000 to The November Group, which would use the cash to finance Carey's direct marketing effort. The alleged scheme was revealed on August 22, 1997, by a federal government official overseeing the Teamsters' election. The federal government overturned Carey's successful reelection, and ordered a new election. On November 17, 1997, a federal official disqualified Carey from seeking elective office in the union. Carey was indicted on federal perjury charges in January 2001, pled not guilty, and was found not guilty on all charges on October 12, 2001. Trumka invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during the government's grand jury investigation and a congressional panel, but was never charged with any crimes. Although the AFL-CIO had a policy (enacted in the wake of several Teamsters' scandals in the late 1950s) appearing to require anyone who asserted their Fifth Amendment rights to be removed from office, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said the policy only applied to those actually found guilty.

On July 1, 2008, Trumka delivered a speech attacking racism in the 2008 presidential election. A video with an excerpt of the speech attracted more than 535,000 hits on YouTube as of July 1, 2009. Trumka's video was "surely the first YouTube moment in the history" of the labor movement.

Trumka was elected president of the AFL-CIO after the retirement of John Sweeney in 2009.

References

1. ^ Who's Who in America. 62nd ed. New Providence, N.J.: Marquis Who's Who, 2007. ISBN 0083797011
2. ^ Greenhouse, Steven. "Promising a New Day, Again." New York Times. September 15, 2009; Greenhouse, Steven. "Labor Leader Is Stepping Down Both Proud and Frustrated." New York Times. September 12, 2009.
3. Richard Trumka Awarded 2003 Sons of Italy Foundation Humanitarian Award
4. ^ Greenhouse, Steven. "Combative Union Leader Steps From the Shadows." New York Times. July 2, 2009.
5. Jim McKay, "From Mines to Summit of Unionism," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 23, 1995.
6. "U.M.W. Chief Married; Threat Upsets Schedule." Associated Press. November 28, 1982.
7. Frank Swoboda, "Coal Miner Strike Was Symbol for Labor Movement," Washington Post, January 2, 1990.
8. ^ McClain, John D. "Coal Miners' President Says Violence Possible." Eugene Register-Guard. September 3, 1993.
9. McClain, John D. "Violence Possible, UMW Chief Says." Virginian-Pilot. September 3, 1993.
10. McClain, John D. "Coal Miners' President Says Violence Possible." Eugene Register-Guard. September 3, 1993. Ellipsis in original.
11. Freire, J.P. "Durbin: Targeting Members Is 'Beyond Bounds of Acceptable Rhetoric'." Washington Examiner. January 9, 2011.
12. Hill, Sylvia. "Presentation: The Free South African Movement." African National Congress. October 10-13, 2004.
13. Stephen F. Diamond. "Commentary: Trumka may give AFL-CIO the vitality it sorely needs." McClatchy-Tribune News Service. October 2, 2009.
14. "China Currency Coalition Applauds Senator Obama's Support of S. 796, The Fair Currency Act of 2007." Press release. China Currency Commission. May 2, 2008.
15. ^ Greenhouse, Steven. "Behind Turmoil For Teamsters, Rush for Cash." New York Times. September 21, 1997.
16. ^ Greenhouse, Steven. "An Overseer Bars Teamster Leader From Re-Election." New York Times. November 18, 1997.
17. Greenhouse, Steven. "3 Teamster Aides Make Guilty Pleas and Hint At Plot." New York Times. September 19, 1997.
18. ^ Greenhouse, Steven and Van Natta, Don, Jr. "Proposed Deal With Democrats Draws Focus of Investigators in Teamsters Election." New York Times. September 18, 1997.
19. Labaton, Stephen. "Federal Report Describes Teamster Money Scheme." New York Times. August 23, 1997.
20. Greenhouse, Steven. "Teamster Voting That Chose Carey Declared Invalid." New York Times. August 23, 1997.
21. Greenhouse, Steven. "Ex-President of Teamsters Is Charged With Lying." New York Times. January 26, 2001.
22. Ramirez, Anthony. "Metro Briefing." New York Times. February 2, 2001.
23. Greenhouse, Steven. "Former Teamsters President Is Cleared of Lying Charges." New York Times.October 13, 2001.
24. ^ Rosenkrantz, Holly. "Trumka Has Detractors, Not Opponents, in AFL-CIO Bid." Bloomberg Business News. June 8, 2009. Accessed 2011-03-23.
25. Greenhouse, Steven. "A.F.L.-C.I.O. Chief Tells Panel of Faith in Deputy." New York Times. May 1, 1998; "Teamster Aide's Conviction May Lead to Fraud." Detroit News. November 21, 1999.
26. John Nichols, "AFL's Trumka: Labor Must Battle Racism to Elect Obama," Capital Times, July 3, 2008.
27. AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka on Racism and Obama
28. Alec MacGillis, "No Getting Around This Guy AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka Aims to Hold That Line on Health Care," Washington Post, September 7, 2009.

External links

[REDACTED] Media related to Richard Trumka at Wikimedia Commons

• AFL-CIO
• United Mine Workers of America
• Richard Trumka speech attacking racism in the 2008 presidential election
• AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council
• The Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award
• Trumka quote

Template:Persondata

• 1949 births
• AFL–CIO people
• American labor leaders
• American lawyers
• Living people
• Penn State University alumni
• Pennsylvania political activists
• People from Pennsylvania
• American politicians of Polish descent
• American people of Polish descent
• United Mine Workers of America
• Villanova University School of Law alumni