Richard Trumka, the president of the nation’s largest trade union association, the American Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO), died suddenly from a heart attack last week at age 72. He was camping with his family when the attack came.
Trumka led the AFL-CIO since 2009 and was critical in shifting organised labour away from its traditional hostility to immigrants, and instead embracing immigration reform efforts that would bring migrants out of society’s shadows, and consequently make it harder to exploit them. He became a major player in Democratic Party politics, advocating for more progressive economic policies while largely avoiding divisive culture war issues. For example, the AFL-CIO was the only major political player on the political left to never take a position on abortion rights.
A devoted Catholic, Trumka dedicated time and resources to rebuilding the alliance between organised labour and the Catholic Church which had atrophied in recent decades. With Catholic University, he co-sponsored three conferences around the theme “Erroneous Autonomy,” that presented Catholic social doctrine as the antidote to libertarian, laissez-faire economic and social policy. [Full disclosure: As a Visiting Fellow at the university’s Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies, the writer worked with Trumka on those conferences.] The conferences – and other, related events - became a “Who’s Who” of Catholic leaders aligned with Pope Francis: Cardinals Oscar Rodriguez, Donald Wuerl, Joseph Tobin and Sean O’Malley all spoke at the events with Trumka, as did Bishop Blase Cupich who would go on to become the Cardinal in Chicago.
Repeated efforts by some in the labour movement to forge a pan-left alliance with abortion rights groups failed on Trumka’s watch. He knew that many in the labour movement were devout Catholics whose opposition to abortion was deep and saw no value in the labour movement becoming embroiled in a fight that did not directly impact workers. Conversely, he embraced LGBT rights because they did impact working conditions.
Trumka also was moving organised labour to embrace the need for a transition away from fossil fuel technologies and in favour of sustainable energy. At the time of his death, he was preparing for a conference on sustainable energy at the Vatican.