"We will not accept crumbs": A last conversation with Richard Trumka
from: Anand Giridharadas
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
excerpts:
RICHARD: "Right now, we've seen growing inequality over the last four or five decades. Corporations and the rich getting more powerful, and working people getting less powerful.
And, as we saw, that inequality actually threatens the system. We're on a pathway to implosion. And when I talk about inequality, there are three facets of it. There's inequality of wealth and wages. There's inequality of opportunity. And there's inequality of power. And you can't fix the first two unless you fix inequality of power. And that means labor law reform. And that means the PRO Act. And Joe Biden understands clearly that we must fix inequality of power in order to fix inequality of wages and inequality of opportunity. He sees that more clearly than any president that I've known in my lifetime."
"...the Reagan consensus is classic neoliberalism. Neoliberalism said anything that gets in the way of the market should be eliminated. That means unions get in the way of the marketplace, so they should get eliminated. And we've found out that an untamed or an uncontrolled market is dangerous and destructive, and it is not fair at all. So I think what's happening is society is saying we've had four or five decades of globalization where everything has flowed to the top, and now it has to be readjusted. We will not accept growing inequality. We will not accept crumbs. We need to be more central to things."
"Let’s say the truth here. For the rich and the powerful, the filibuster has already been eliminated. There is no filibuster when it comes to tax cuts or things that benefit the rich and the powerful. There's no filibuster. There's no 60-vote rule there. It's only when it comes to things for working people that the filibuster is used. It was used to prevent civil rights. It's been used to stop labor law reform. It's been used to stop minimum wage increases and health and safety laws and pension protection and pension relief. It's only for working people that the filibuster exists.
They use that rule to make sure that the rich and the powerful maintain the edge they have. That has to change. And I believe one way or another during this period of time and during this presidency, the Republicans will either become bipartisan and help us rewrite labor laws so that they're fair and they're not used to prevent people from getting wage increases and a voice on the job. And if they don't, we will find a way to do that. And I believe Joe Biden is committed to that."
read more: https://the.ink/p/we-will-not-accept-crumbs-a-last
Richard Trumka, president of the powerful AFL-CIO labor organization, died unexpectedly Thursday. He was 72.
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